Video Art Programme: 
Isabell Heimerdinger “Hana Ikebana” 2014

Isabell Heimerdinger’s video work “Hana Ikebana” is about a guessing game between a woman and a man. He names cities and prepares tea in the background. She guesses the temperature at the respective location, which he confirms or rejects. While she leafs through a catalogue by the Japanese photo artist Nobuyoshi Araki and lays loose, coloured flower photos over Araki’s black-and-white shots, a steadycam is pointed vertically at her hands and the book’s pages. Finally, “Moscow 2 degrees” is confirmed and a cup of tea enters the frame. The world’s temperature is measured, while beauty and decay are laconically brought into the picture.

Isabell Heimerdinger (b. 1963 in Stuttgart, Germany) lives and works in Berlin and Rome. 1991 graduated from the Master Class at Kunstakademie Düsseldorf; 1995 MFA at California Institute of the Arts, Los Angeles, USA. Heimerdinger’s central theme is the penetration of the cinematographic world and everyday reality. In photographic as well as cinematic testing setups, she plumbs the depths of the partly subtle differences between acted and authentic behavior, between role and identity, between posing and „genuine“ expression.