SOCIÉTÉ

Jeanette Mundt

Ultra Beauty, Treating Objects Like Women

October 8 – December 12, 2015

Installation view, Ultra Beauty, Treating Objects Like Women, Société, Berlin, 2015

Installation view, Ultra Beauty, Treating Objects Like Women, Société, Berlin, 2015

When she was younger, growing up in Switzerland, the artist hiked the Bernese Alps with her family regularly. Mundt’s appreciation for the Alps formed later in life, after she had moved to back to America – you love her as she’s walking out the door. In an effort to bring the personal into the work, Mundt reached out to images of the Alps. The motif of the mountain in Ultra Jungfrau and The Aktenschrank leaves the linen and the wall to stand, straight up and down, braced by the filing cabinet, with a security lock set at 666 – a nod perhaps to And Outcasts Always Mourn, in the exhibition Ultra Beauty across the hall.

Elizabeth Taylor leaves the ocean in Untitled. The gay icon, the fallible female, in a space defined by permanent marker, lines, strokes, a suggestion of liquid. The rest is in the mind. The violence is in the mind. The artist can give a name to that violence.

Predator – the title and the image – is taken from Instagram. The artist wants what makes her laugh, she wants to have what she wants, she wanted to use metallic oil paint as well. Can something be yours if you’ve made your own picture of it?

Preoccupied with women and the construction of femaleness, Mundt is likely to turn to women in popular culture. The protagonist of the musical Mamma Mia is one of these women and the well- known advertisement is actually an image of a pastel drawing of this character in the agony of ecstasy. Me As The Mamma Mia Lady, Me During My Stay In London As The Mamma Mia Lady, and Tanya and Rosie Try To Convince Donna Dancing Queen start with that quietly atrocious and delicate pastel that is so often recognized but not quickly identified.

Installation view, Ultra Beauty, Treating Objects Like Women, Société, Berlin, 2015

Installation view, Ultra Beauty, Treating Objects Like Women, Société, Berlin, 2015

Installation view, Ultra Beauty, Treating Objects Like Women, Société, Berlin, 2015

Installation view, Ultra Beauty, Treating Objects Like Women, Société, Berlin, 2015

Installation view, Ultra Beauty, Treating Objects Like Women, Société, Berlin, 2015

Installation view, Ultra Beauty, Treating Objects Like Women, Société, Berlin, 2015

Installation view, Ultra Beauty, Treating Objects Like Women, Société, Berlin, 2015

Installation view, Ultra Beauty, Treating Objects Like Women, Société, Berlin, 2015

Installation view, Ultra Beauty, Treating Objects Like Women, Société, Berlin, 2015

Installation view, Ultra Beauty, Treating Objects Like Women, Société, Berlin, 2015

Installation view, Ultra Beauty, Treating Objects Like Women, Société, Berlin, 2015

Installation view, Ultra Beauty, Treating Objects Like Women, Société, Berlin, 2015

Installation view, Ultra Beauty, Treating Objects Like Women, Société, Berlin, 2015

Installation view, Ultra Beauty, Treating Objects Like Women, Société, Berlin, 2015

Installation view, Ultra Beauty, Treating Objects Like Women, Société, Berlin, 2015

Installation view, Ultra Beauty, Treating Objects Like Women, Société, Berlin, 2015

Ultra Beauty, Treating Objects Like Women. October 8 – December 12, 2015
Ultra Beauty, Treating Objects Like Women. October 8 – December 12, 2015