Artist in Focus: Beat Kuert
Beat Kuert, La Soladera, 2022, diasec (acrylic on dibond), H1200 mm x W930 mm.
“You need not go back four thousand years for heroines. The world is filled with them today. They do not belong to any nation, nor to any religion, nor exclusively to any race. Wherever woman is found, they are found.”
Robert Green Ingersoll (1833 – 1899)
For millennia, women across cultures have been admired, celebrated, and feared, idealised as muses, depicted as ideals of beauty, and worshipped as goddesses, along with being bearers of life. This nostalgia is in direct contrast with the hardship and suffering many females have experienced; even nowadays, there are still deep-rooted inequalities between the sexes.
As a former avant-garde filmmaker, commercial art director, photographer, and video artist, Beat Kuert uses specific aspects of this media as his form of expression. In his latest body of work, Unnamed Heroines, he presents a storyline of female characters in fragmented hyperreal worlds. The script invites us to join his artistic exploration into the iconography, divinity, obedience, and sexuality of these beings.
Beat Kuert, Seven Swords, 2022, diasec (acrylic on dibond), H800 mm x W550 mm.
Kuert’s approach hovers between symbolism and hyperrealism. The created images are a collection of simulations that don’t, in fact, depict anything in real existence but nonetheless constitute a form of reality. When analysing his work, one notices there’s no beginning, nor is there an end. Kuert’s iterations are a sequence of portrayals varying between “virtuous” and “evil.” With this method, he demonstrates his interest in the permanent contradiction of human life and womanhood (i.e., the good and bad that can exist in the same place at the same time).
He applies warm colours – namely red, yellow, and orange – to trigger a variety of different emotions, ranging from comfort and warmth to hostility and anger. In other works, he utilises cool colours – like green, blue, and purple – to generate feelings of calmness, as well as sadness, and on other occasions he continues his efforts in black and white to evoke connotations of death and despair, as well as purity and innocence. To him, these different ranges of hues and their significance are important to express behaviour and emotions in his vernacular.
Beat Kuert, Dear Soldier, 2022, diasec (acrylic on dibond), H700 mm x W700 mm.
Beat Kuert, Something Between, 2022. diasec, (acrylic on dibond), H700 mm x W700 mm.
This month’s newsletter presents a selection of Kuert's heroines in different circumstances. We encounter scenes of “The Triumphant” in La Soladera, “The Suffer” in Seven Swords, “The Reconciliator” in Dear Soldier and Something Between, and “The Hopeful” in Birth of a Day. These constructed images often have a sacred energy, conveying mixed feelings of desperation and hope. Their accounts are complex and at times hard to read and string into a complete description. Is it Kuert’s attempt to avoid curatorial interpretations, allowing the images to detach from narration, giving each one an autonomous value? Most certainly, they’re a tribute to the women who were celebrated and unseen and renounced for their contributions in society and their communities. Throughout history, there have been famous women known for their magnificent achievements; however, this series is dedicated to the millions of women who perform their personal and professional responsibilities continuously, contributing to the well-being of society and communities – “The Unnamed Heroines.”
Beat Kuert, Birth of a Day, 2022, diasec (acrylic on dibond), H800 mm x W650 mm.
Kuert consistently evaluates the limits of filmmaking to extend his creative philosophy and ejects his fictional visualisations into the artistic domain, inviting audiences to discover his visions and imagined plots.
He states, “In my works, I have blurred the border lines between frames, opened them, and finally eliminated borders altogether. The content of the pictures spills out, forming a chaotic entanglement that appears to be animated by an invisible force. The dissolution of order through the removal of borders is a gratifying and liberating act. Working toward chaos has a soothing effect on me - it is somewhat like returning home.“