LOOK BOOK

Edited by Ellen Blumenstein, Heike Catherina Mertens
Texts by Hannah Black, Ellen Blumenstein, Christina Weiss, Catherine Wood

This publication accompanies the first institutional solo show by Kate Cooper, winner of the 2014 Schering Stiftung Art Award. Exploring the format and presentation inherent to image production, Cooper returns to the CGI female models used in her exhibition at KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, to create a new series of works situated within the fictional space of the lookbook.

Through her videos, exhibitions, and photographic works, Cooper explores the role of gender and what agency images might possess in and of themselves. Producing images becomes akin to building infrastructure; her computer-generated bodies are imbued with power and put to work. The imagery of advertising is hacked. The female labor inherent in these modes of production becomes refocused in an economy of withdrawal, enacting a refusal of representation.

Along with Cooper’s new series of images, LOOK BOOK includes a new short story by Hannah Black titled “Personal Trainer,” appendices by KW curator Ellen Blumenstein, an introduction by Christina Weiss, and subtitles and slogans (“Is seeing everything? Are you all-unseeing?”) by Catherine Wood.

Copublished with KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin
Design by Michael Oswell