Arisa Purkpong — Punched Card

When pausing to look at a detail my gaze drifts off to something unexpected. The other day I saw Claudia von Alemann’s first film Einfach [Simple] (FRG, 1966) for the first time. It is about the attempt to capture something that cannot be grasped. Not unlike language – the way we fumble our way through the right words to describe something – it’s worth it to stutter for a moment in order to locate the closest sentence even at the risk of coming across as fragmented or chaotic.

A hand-stitched publication was published on the occasion of the exhibition.

Arisa Purkpong (b. 1995) lives and works in Düsseldorf and Oslo. They studied at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf with Trisha Donnelly and Christopher Williams. In their artistic practice, Arisa Purkpong uses the media of video, photography and graphics, which they collage to make publications and installations. Their work has previously been shown at Trafo Kunsthall, Asker (2023), the Sammlung Philara, Düsseldorf (2021); Baustelle Schaustelle - Raum für Junge Kunst, Essen/Düsseldorf (2020); Am Ende des Tages, Düsseldorf (2020); KIT - Kunst im Tunnel, Düsseldorf (2019); and Tentacles Gallery, Bangkok (2019). They developed a film screening for the event series Another Eye at Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen, Düsseldorf (2022) and the Feminist Film Program (with the support of Claudia von Alemann and Christopher Williams) at Black Box Kino, Düsseldorf (2020).