I’m interested in a multitude of cultural and social phenomena. Society, architecture, everyday objects and situations in relation to flora and fauna, play an important role in my work. I am examining how human concepts copy, imitate and enhance nature and thereby build and shape our daily environment. I translate this confrontation between humans and their natural/artificial surrounding into installations, objects and photography.
For my upcoming show at Ermes Ermes in Rome I will negotiate the relationship between inside and outside, private and public space, from both an architectural and a social point of view.
HOME
This picture is about the idea of a simple house and a private property, but on a public parking lot. I found this situation in Hoi An in Vietnam in November 2013. For me, it summarizes my concept of the show «New Conditions» at Ermes Ermes in Rome. In January 2015 i had a duo show with Mandla Reuter at the exhibition space SALTS in Basel, called «Ströme ». The Show was about what’s happening when you “transport” Western culture into an untamed natural environment and what’s happening in turn when the exotic gets exhibited in the Western world.
Installation views of «Ströme » at SALTS in Birsfelden, FLTR: Mandla Reuter, Untitled, 2015, and Gina Folly, Magic Box II & III, 2015
For «Ströme» i made replicas of an occupation tool that I found in the monkey house of the Basel Zoo. The boxes, made of polycarbonate, are divided into different levels with several openings and usually are filled with hay and fruits. They are food containers on one hand and toys and training objects on the other: the monkeys use twigs and branches in order to catch the food out of the container. The boxes are meant to simulate a termite mound and encourage the apes, who have never lived in a natural habitat, to develop similar logical and cognitive thought processes as they would develop in wildlife.
a termite mound
the situation I’ve found at Zoo Basel
FLTR: Mandla Reuter, Night, 2014, «Grid», 2015, Gina Folly, True Lights (Birsfelden), 2015, Magic Box II & III, 2015, Mandla Reuter, Untitled, 2015
Magic Box II & III, 2015
FLTR (by night): Mandla Reuter, Untitled, 2015, and Gina Folly, Magic Box II & III, 2015
The show «Me you 2» was at the apartment of Fabio Marco Pirovino’s parents – an artist and friend of mine. Since two years Pirovino organizes shows during Art Basel under the name «Space is the Place». The concept for my intervention was to cover all the furniture with large transparent plastic sheets in order to protect the parents’ furniture with my hands. In the mean time the transparents also transform the role of the apartment as a private home into a temporary exhibition space in which I make myself visible.
Untitled (Hands), 2015, UV-inkjet on polypropilen, various size
Untitled (Hands), 2015, UV-inkjet on polypropilen, various size
Untitled (Hands), 2015, UV-inkjet on polypropilen, various size
Untitled (Hands), 2015, UV-inkjet on polypropilen, various size
Untitled (Hands), 2015, UV-inkjet on polypropilen, various size
Untitled (Hands), 2015, UV-inkjet on polypropilen, various size
Untitled (Hands), 2015, UV-inkjet on polypropilen, various size
Untitled (Hands), 2015, UV-inkjet on polypropilen, various size
«Me you 2» are replicas of my ears, sculptured in marble. It’s a series of five pairs, three pairs made out of white marble from Carrara (Tuscany) and two of skin colored Portuguese marble. Each of them is original and handmade, and together they form a series. I developed them last year during my residency in Rome at Istituto Svizzero. The work is inspired by a series of photographs of ears by Isa Genzken that she did in the early eighties in New York. Already during my studies at art school, I did several imitations of the photo series from Genzken with my ears. Since I was a kid, I had always an issue with them, they are super tiny but stick out and it always was a topic to talk about with my family and friends.
During my residency last year in Rome, I got very inspired by all the fantastic sculpture works in the city. That’s how the ear topic came up again and it was a perfect moment to finally objectify them. For the production, I worked together with a sculptor from San Lorenzo, an alternative student neighborhood in Rome.
ME, Gina Folly, 2012
Ohr, Isa Genzken, 1980
Alongside the show my boyfriend Ronnie and I got asked to contribute with a one page insert in Mousse Magazine’s special issue about Basel. We did a collaboration page with our ears – a portrait of our relationship and communication.
ME YOU 2, Gina Folly & Ronnie Fueglister for Mousse Magazine, 2015
During the production of the marble replicas of my ears I made a huge version of the ear in fake leather for the project «Performance Proletarians» in Rome. My contribution was a two minute massage session of the giant ear by myself.
The big ear worn by me in Rome, May 2015
Since 2014 I started drawing again. As a kid I was drawing often, but it never had a place in my work. This series of drawings that I started last year, I usually do them when I am waiting or listening to people talking or when I watch a movie. I’m super bad at sitting calmly and listening and always need to do something in parallel, so the drawing is also a practice to organize my mind better. The topics are architecture and organic moments, like body, sex and food. I always do them with the same black roller ball pen and title them via a web app that is about slang abbreviations. The series is ongoing.
EOTWAWKI
I18N
JICYDK
OOOOOOOO
WWWYs
EI
TLND
JOMO
