Scheitel

White walls - a classical location for presenting art. In museums, galleries, collections and private rooms art is being put up onto them, placed in front of them or projected onto them. Bettina Khano again and again faces these walls in her works and thus the question emerges about an implied neutrality or a tacit acceptance of receptive mechanisms.
Her haircut-stylisations oscillate between elements of Pop art, conceptual art and the art of silhouettes. The black-white contrasts not only mean that the works starkly stand out from their background, but also create the impression that the partings are moving away from the wall. A form that is coerced into two-dimensionality is moving away from this foundation and becomes sculptural, material and reflectors that are imposing themselves. The observation process emancipates from the figurative potential of the form that acts as a point of departure giving space to multiple levels of reflection and the space conquered by the work.
In the work "snow-blind", the installation's lack of space gives rise to a sensation of confrontation with the walls. Khano selects this very carefully and combines it with an almost blinding exposure of light in the room. A figure on a screen oscillates between clarity, light over-exposure and a sense of lack of space, which becomes increasingly irritating: despite being tiny the figure's body has something monstrous about it. Thus, this scene forces the viewer to think along novel lines: a body beyond the known, the familiar.
Thus, this work entices an instance in which "the boundary determines the being" (Foucault). Similar to an advance into unknown seas, worlds, spaces, the familiar body becomes new territory.

Marc Glöde


Taz, 21. November 2001 Maßgescheitelte Typenlehre (An article by Andreas Hergeth, entitled Tailor-parted lesson of characters)

The silhouette of the hairstyle of Rex Gildo; video dances in the neon light: Bettina Khano addresses the perception of white spaces, the good old-fashioned silhouettes and other conditions in the Gallery Koch und Kesslau.
The article by Andreas Hergeth published in the Berlin daily Taz reviews Bettina Khano's exhibition in the Berlin gallery Koch und Kesslau of giant black partings cut from thick rubber that are hung from white walls in a starkly white room. The partings are one manner in which the Hamburg-born artist confronts the so common and widely spread use of white walls for exhibiting art - whether in private or in public spaces. The partings of what appears are stylised hair cuts stand out from the white walls and appear to move towards the spectator. Their presence for the first time brings to the visitor's attention the fact that not only are the walls and the floor of the exhibition room white, but also a flight of stairs that lead to the upper floor of the gallery are also white and have been so for the past five years. The idea of these partings, and their black-and-white essence, emerged when the 29-year old artist was drawing faces that were divided by the numbers one and zero and thus seemed to dissolve into spaces. Such drawings resulted in further deductions and add-ons until, ultimately, all that was left were partings that resemble silhouettes.
The journalist also describes the video installation shown by the artist in the same exhibition that, according to Hergeth, reflects abundantly all that is missing with the partings. To view the video the spectator has to enter a tiny space filled by bright neon light that hurts the eyes. The subject of the video is a strange body-coloured being - without head nor fingers - that jumps, dances and slides. Its body is puffed up all around and seems "as if a normal body has risen like dough."

Andreas Hergeth