Gavin Brown's enterprise

Jennifer Bornstein is known for her early conceptual performance-based videos, 16 mm films, and photographs. Typical of the early works is the video “Collectors’ Favorites” (1994), in which the artist appears on a famous radio show as a passionate collector of disposable fast-food containers, or the photographic series “Public Libraries and Basketball Courts” (1996-98) in which the artist posed with young pre-adolescent boys from her neighborhood and imitated their facial expressions, gestures, and posture.

Over the past few years, Jennifer Bornstein began to dedicate herself to other forms of image production (besides the photographs, videos, and 16mm films), namely, various manual printing techniques. But her interest in the tactility of old technology dates way back: she used noisy film projectors in an era when the video projectors were quietly tucked away and hidden from view. In the era of digital wonders, she created special effects by the inventive use of household objects. Through the use of manual printing techniques even her sketches are made to be tactile. Instead of using pencil on paper, she prefers etchings, a technique which blossomed over 300 years ago. A quiet sense of humor is just underneath the surface of Bornstein’s etchings and copper engravings that playback momentary scenes in direct opposition to the time and effort she puts into producing them. The etchings often serve as sketches for film projects and are then presented together with the films. In this way, Bornstein creates exhibition displays that put the relationship between the viewer and the work in the center of reflection, and the individual works become stage props in the works’ theatrical staging.

Also in the daadgalerie, Bornstein brings together various new projects in an installative staging, including video work, in which Bornstein wrote a radio play in Yiddish for a Polish radio broadcaster, as well as printmaking, partly based on techniques developed by the artist herself. Bornstein’s new works are concerned with the popular and commercial everyday language and with images of everyday surroundings – very much in the sense of Pop art – as well as her passion for collecting that finds expression in a linguistic categorization and, at times, even a fetishization of everyday impressions. Bornstein employs subtle methods in order to play with our means of perception – first and foremost with the kind of perception that has to do with preconceived ideas: she’s fascinated by the fact that 80% of what we perceive with our eyes is based on what we have already saved in our memories.

Jennifer Bornstein (born in 1970 in Seattle, Washington) lives and works in Los Angeles and Berlin. Bornstein has had numerous exhibitions at international institutions such as the Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis, (2011), the Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach (2009), the CCA Wattis, San Francisco (2008), and she participated in the 2nd Moscow Biennale (2007). She has had solo shows at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2008) and at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2005). Bornstein participated in the Whitney Independent Study Program and, since 2003, has taught at Yale University, among others. In 2010/11, Jennifer Bornstein was a guest of the Berliner Künstlerprogramms.