Jonas Monka

L`Intrus REDUX / installation shot:

video VH00219 (40 min.), Clayfuckin 4 objects (polymer, pigment, approx. 10 x 7 x 7 cm, each), seat/sculpture (MDF, paint, 70 x 160 x 80 cm) site spezific installation (MDF, plaster, wall paint)

Photo: Thorsten Arendt

video still VH00219 , 40 min. (Harrison Rodrigues Gomes dos Santos, in Wearables by Nora Hansen)

video still VH00219 , 40 min.

video still VH00219 , 40 min. (Thomas Bartling in Wearables by Nora Hansen)

video still VH00219 , 40 min. (Lucas Lopes Pereira in Wearables by Nora Hansen)

video still VH00219 , 40 min. (Harrison Rodrigues Gomes dos Santos, in Wearables by Nora Hansen)

video still VH00219 , 40 min. (Harrison Rodrigues Gomes dos Santos, in Wearables by Nora Hansen)

video still VH00219 , 40 min. (Ottoline Calmeijer)

video still VH00219 , 40 min. (Harrison Rodrigues Gomes dos Santos, in Wearables by Nora Hansen)

video still VH00219 , 40 min.

video still VH00219 , 40 min. (Ottoline Calmeijer)

video still VH00219 , 40 min.

L`Intrus REDUX / installation shot:

video VH00219 (40 min.), Clayfuckin 4 objects (polymer, pigment, approx. 10 x 7 x 7 cm, each), seat/sculpture (MDF, paint, 70 x 160 x 80 cm) site spezific installation (MDF, plaster, wall paint)

Photo: Thorsten Arendt

Katarina Monka's video, InVH00219 (2019), tries to imagine a context in which the relationship between the stranger and the subject "proper to" power is up-ended. The subtitle track is composed of an interview with a male sex worker speaking about how power structures his work and its relation to society. The interview from which the subtitle track is drawn was conducted with a woman; Monka reversed the gender of the speaker. The performers in the video are partially dressed in Nora Hansen's creations, which are inspired by Yoko Tsuno, an electrical engineer, aikido black belt, and heroine of a comic-book series who subverts gender stereotypes. The fluidity of the performers' gender presentation, their demonstrated ambivalence toward a strict binary, troubles the idea that what is needed is simply a reversal of roles or the substitution of men with women. Clustered near the viewing bench is a collection of Yves-Klein blue plaster sculptures that reinforce the complexity of Monka's reflection on this point. clayfuckin (2019) are painted casts of the artist's pubic area that aim to flip the monumental power of the phallus. Yet the resulting objects are informe—like the stranger. Monka's formal thought experiment is light in tone, but it suggests that the reversal of power, like a heart transplant, is not a simple operation. It obliges many stages of difficult acceptance with regard to the stranger.


Natasha Marie Llorens