Exhibition / Basel, Switzerland / 2012
How to Make a Monster
How to Make a Monster was an exhibition initiated by Jay Rechsteiner and presented at High Voltage in Basel, organised by Monsters in Law / Nora Donner. The group exhibition brought together Tarek Abu Hageb, Eddie Hara and Jay Rechsteiner.
The project explored how an individual comes to be seen, or to see themselves, as a “monster”. Rather than treating monstrosity as a fixed identity, the works examine the roles of childhood, isolation, social expectations, images and experiences of violence. They move between autobiography and wider questions about how societies produce and recognise the figures they fear.
Exhibition statement
For me, a monster is not only a person who threatens others. It can also be a feared future, an abandoned ambition, an idea or the distance between the person one imagined becoming and the person one has become.
The exhibition considers the making of a monster as a process. Experiences accumulate, and each encounter is followed by a response. Over time, these layers produce the outward image by which someone is recognised and judged. To understand that image, we have to look at its history rather than simply accepting its appearance.
Isolation is a recurring concern in the work, whether produced by exclusion, aggression, disappointment or the pressure to live according to accepted models of success and behaviour. The pieces use different forms, including painting, sculpture, printed matter, photography and video, to approach these questions from different directions.
The project also arose from a concern with artistic self-censorship. I wanted to resist the temptation to make work cautiously, always anticipating how it might be received or which doors it might open or close.
Works and documentation
The original exhibition programme also referred to a work titled machine, explicitly marked as not included in the exhibition. It is not presented here as an exhibited work.
Exhibition details
First instalment of How to Make a Monster at High Voltage, Basel, Switzerland. Organised by Monsters in Law / Nora Donner. Group exhibition with Tarek Abu Hageb, Eddie Hara and Jay Rechsteiner. The original programme also listed an afterparty at FAKT bar with Reverend Beat Man & Bikini Girls.
Historical exhibition documentation. Links to the discontinued project website and obsolete Flash material have been removed.