Sheida Soleimani and Emmanuel Van der Auwera at Photoforum Pasquart

July 3–September 4, 2022

With a double solo exhibition by Sheida Soleimani and Emmanuel Van der Auwera, Photoforum Pasquart is thrilled to announce its summer exhibition schedule. The two exhibits are a part of our curatorial theme for the year 2022, “Seeing through Clouds,” which examines the function of image archives and their claim to an alleged documentation of facts in the digital age. By manipulating and fusing prejudicial film, the artists highlight how photography controls how tales are portrayed and how power is established while also fostering a constructively critical access to photographic images:

Sheida Soleimani: NEGOTIATORS
July 3–September 4, 2022

In order to expose critical viewpoints on political developments in the Middle East and the Global North, Sheida Soleimani’s works investigate intersections of photography, sculpture, performance, and cinema. Her multimedia collages use pictures from the internet, particularly those of leaders, victims of torture, and tyrants. She aspires to highlight a feminist perspective on historical and socio-political topics that are currently resonating in society through the construction of staged sets in her studio and the documentation of these scenarios with the camera. Soleimani often casts humans and animals to play the parts of her politicized characters in these scenarios, which she refers to as “theatrical tableaux,” before capturing the situation as a three-dimensional collage image.Her technique can be read in the tradition of the 1920s Dada-movement, as known by artists like Hannah Höch, questioning the dissemination of information and pointing to the potential for critical redesign.

Sheida Soleimani (b. 1990, US/Iran) is the daughter of political refugees persecuted by the Iranian government in the 1980s. She resides in Providence and is currently an Assistant Professor of Studio Art at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts, USA. Recent solo exhibitions include Castello San Basilio, Puglia, Italy (2022), Providence College Galleries, Providence, USA (2022); Denny Dimin Gallery, New York, USA (2020); MoMA PS1, New York, USA (2017).

Emmanuel Van der Auwera: FULL A.L.I.C.E.
July 3–September 4, 2022

The self-evident nature of finding documentary photographs that seek to generate facts and truth is questioned in Emmanuel Van der Auwera’s works. He addresses the ethical duty in dealing with images of violence and communal trauma in his pictures, films, and video installations by utilizing polarizing visual material that is disseminated in digital spaces. The pieces on display are horrifyingly current in light of the recent school massacres in the USA. They can be interpreted as an appeal for a skepticism of mediatized representations of violence. By challenging our visual literacy, they simultaneously offer an intriguing window into the ruthless kaleidoscope of the digital image flux. Specifically, they ask, “How do images of contemporary mass media act on various publics and to what end?” Where does it cross the line to voyeurism? Which images do we trust and why do they go viral?

Emmanuel Van der Auwera (b. 1982, Belgium) lives and works in Brussels, Belgium. His work has been shown in numerous exhibitions, such as Centre Pompidou (Paris, France), Palais de Tokyo (Paris, France), Pinakothek der Moderne (Munich, Germany) or Ars Electronica (Linz, Austria). Recent solo shows comprise presentations at HEK (Basel, Switzerland) 2021 and at Botanique (Brussels, Belgium) 2019. In 2015, he received the Langui Prize for Young Belgian Art.

Curated by Jana Johanna Haeckel.