![\"_DSC2622croped](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/DSC2622croped-Kopie-e1455717469120.jpg\")
*Can You Wash The Water*, Installation view at DUVE Berlin<\/p>\n *Can You Wash The Water*, Installation view at DUVE Berlin<\/p>\n
2015 has been dubbed the year of the female artist yet the fact one has to give a year shows the inequality in such a move. Up until now we have often seen male gallerists and directors flaunt their female artist at every available moment almost as a trophy. This is why Iris Touliatou\u2019s new show \u201c*Can you wash the Water*\u201d is a refreshing realignment of an artist critique of an industry that keeps pumping out that all-star female product. Known for her marble signature and glass post-modernist sculptures, Touliatou questions our ideas of masculinity, identity, aesthetics and the gesture of the female artist today. Touliatou this time sets herself the task of becoming a modern day alchemist through an array of beauty and health supplements to explore ideas of aesthetic utopia <\/span><\/span>. The artist engages with the materials as a reactor setting up the questions of aesthetics as a form of artificial imitation. On her invitation, Berlin-based duo 2<3<38daughters also created clothing patterns for the show that further explore the human processing of nature.<\/p>\n A fine line stands between the natural beauty of a person and the products that prop that up; and last year InStyle<\/a> reported women spend over 15,000 dollars on cosmetics in their lifetimes. However, Touliatou isn\u2019t just criticising our ideas of the authentic but also subtly gesturing towards the global impact of our synthetic ways not only on ourselves but also through the environment. This is most clearly demonstrated in the series \u201cDissolving Questions\u201d which consists of seven installations made up of copper pipes emerging from the walls or hung on fishing wire so they appear to float symbolically in the room. Each pipe composition is fitted with a test tube creation that Touliatou has composed through various parts of her beauty regime. Unnatural deep set purples sit on curdled white creams in a sea of amber in one tube. In others they have an opaque blue hue reminiscent of dental hygiene practices beautiful but unwelcoming to the human body yet in their \u201cnatural\u201d state we lather ourselves in these chemical concoctions. Each tube is in a state of ephemeral alchemy constantly in flux: the solids, gases and liquids collide creating different compositions in these tiny viewing platforms. Her detailed execution is everything in this show. For instance the copper pipes at first sight they seem like your average pipe; however, on closer inspection you can see that the artist\u2019s finger prints, dead skin and follicles have been etched onto the pieces \u2013 the result of coating the pipes with acid before working with them. This way the artist maps her every gesture and touch, while the pipes act as her DNA vessel left to corrode at their own pace.<\/p>\n Touliatou expands the conceptual idea of herself with seven pale blue rubber canvases that hang on each wall of the space. The images are taken from her personal notes that she created in the lead up to the exhibition, and they seem to act as word maps visually exploring the artist\u2019s hands doodling. Interestingly, Touliatou then got these pages engraved on synthetic rubber. These are then tightly stretched over the bars mirroring the anti-aging facemasks and creams you imagine to be placed into the test tubes inset into the copper pipes. Under the canvases sit at random intervals soap dishes filled with vitamin supplements, collagen tablets and chemical colour enhancers. This is a direct translation of the artists ingestion regime, another satirical gesture towards the excessively health conscious sterile world we live in desperately trying to wash our insides clean. The life expectancy for both sexes in Europe is on average around 77 years old where as for a single plastic product it\u2019s around 300-500 years. Touliatou is always coaxing the viewer into looking at the double meaning in everyday life. With a certain pragmatic mysticism she immortalises her objects and redefines our ideas of the human beauty. She doesn\u2019t preach or create moralistic statements; she just opens the floor up to the reality and fictions we consent to everyday, allowing us to reflect ourselves in her rigorous self-examination.<\/p>\n Text von Penny Victoria Rafferty<\/a><\/strong> \nIris Touliatou’s \u201c*Can you wash the Water*<\/a>\u201d is at Duve, Berlin, until 22 February 2016<\/strong> \nMehr: This Exhibition Explores Dementia Through Sensations<\/a><\/strong> \nMehr: Warum sind reine Frauenausstellungen so problematisch?<\/a><\/strong> \n At DUVE Berlin the artist sets herself the task of becoming a modern day alchemist through an array of beauty and health supplements to explore ideas of aesthetic utopia<\/p>","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":28448,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11856,139],"tags":[34,3974,3975,3976,2196],"class_list":["post-28422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sleek-art","category-art","tag-berlin","tag-can-you-wash-the-water","tag-duve","tag-iris-touliatou","tag-penny-victoria-rafferty"],"acf":{"main_category":null,"legacy":"1","exclude_from_ads":null,"hero_title":null,"subtitle":null,"hero":null,"teasers":null,"facebook_image":null,"related_articles":null,"next_article":null,"sleek_card_focus":null,"content":null},"yoast_head":"\n![\"_DSC2645](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/DSC2645-Kopie.jpg\")
2<3<38 Daughters, *Squiah every week into a day*, 2016, PVC plastic foil, various fabrics<\/p>\n![\"_DSC2700](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/DSC2700-Kopie.jpg\")
*Dissolving Questions #1 & #2*, 2016 , Copper, glass, liquid solutions, 23 x 1.5 x 12.5 cm each<\/p>\n![\"_DSC2695](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/DSC2695-Kopie.jpg\")
*Dissolving Questions #3 & #4*, 2016, Copper, glass, liquid solutions, 42 x 1.5 x 120 cm, 67 x 1.5 x 120 cm<\/p>\n![\"_DSC2747](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/DSC2747-Kopie.jpg\")
Significant Differences #7, 2016 Detail shot Laser etchings on rubber 120 x 80 cm<\/p>\n![\"_DSC29](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/DSC29-mit-Kopie.jpg\")
*Can You Wash The Water* Installation view at DUVE Berlin January 22 \u2013 February 26, 2016<\/p>\n
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