Press Release
“If we are the most vulnerable in our poetry, we shall pour our whole bodies into it.” – Katalin Ladik “Ooooooooo-pus” at Haus der Kunst is the first survey exhibition in Germany of the work of Katalin Ladik (b. 1942, Novi Sad). Her radical approach to concrete and visual poetry, performance, and sound established her as a key figure in Central and Eastern European art. Ladik was born in 1942 in Novi Sad, a city in former Yugoslavia (now Serbia) that has long been a conduit between the Balkans and parts of Central and Eastern Europe. The multilingual demographics of Novi Sad—being majority Serbian and Hungarian—shaped Ladik’s visual approach to language and poetry. Over the course of the 1960s, Ladik became an integral part of the Novi Sad literary and artistic avant-garde. She positioned herself at the intersection of various established and new performance traditions engaging in happenings, rituals, and photo-performance. Ladik, who was also successful as a film and stage actress, often played feminine ideals, draws on folkloric and mythological themes to challenge gender roles and female archetypes, using her body and voice as both instrument and medium.
Duration
3.3.–10.9.23