By Michael Zöllner
Selma Selman is considered the most dangerous woman in the art world. Now she showed what that means in the Martin Gropius Building.
Saturday afternoon, 3:30 p.m. Crowd on the first floor of the Martin Gropius Building.
In one of the rooms, the Bosnian performance artist Selma Selman stands in front of a wall made of old electrical appliances. Discarded computers, CD players, VCRs. Remnants of our affluent society that Selman and two assistants will abuse over the next two and a half hours.
She tears at the cables, hits the casings with the hammer and finally grabs the axe. Electronic dust, noise, waste. Selman wears safety glasses, as do some of the spectators. In between, the artist talks about origins, identity, freedom and much more, which is difficult to understand because of the poor acoustics. Not only are computers destroyed here, but also racist and misogynistic prejudices.
Performance artist Selma Selman Photo: Olaf Selchow
Selma Selman opens her show “Her0” with the performance “Motherboard”. You can also see a video work that shows her destroying a car. Dealing with scrap is no accident.
The artist comes from a Roma family who earns their living by processing recyclable materials. So Selma brings her family’s work, which some consider to be inferior, to the museum and enhances it.
She has already shown this with great success at the last documenta in Kassel, and one of her works can also be seen in the permanent collection of the Hamburger Bahnhof.
Selma Selman is considered the most dangerous woman in the art world. Not to be taken entirely seriously, certainly. But you don’t want to stand in the way of her swinging ax blow.
Until January 14, 2023, Niederkirchnerstr. 7, ☎ 254 86 0