Daniel Knorr

Daniel Knorr, The Naked Corner, 2010. Photograph by Thierry Bal

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Daniel Knorr’s (b.1968, Romania) practice encompasses a broad variety of artistic media, including performance, installation, photography, drawing, sculpture, interactive technologies, text, and found and archival material. The artist’s interest lies in the materialisation of the art object/phenomenon, and in the process that transforms a mundane item or event into an act of empowerment, self-analysis and recognition. Although strongly led by this conceptual impetus, Knorr’s work is nevertheless incredibly ‘human’. It refuses to take distance from the audience; in fact, it continuously seeks the audience’s reaction, participation and response. The viewer is not only an integral part of the artist’s vision, but stands at the epicentre of his interventions.

According to Rein Wolfs (artistic director of the Kunsthalle Fridericianum in Kassel): ‘The art of Daniel Knorr stands for a dynamic connection between the conceptual and the performative. It attests to the artist’s humanity, wit, dedication and institutional critique.’ His inclusion within Touched consequently came as no surprise, given the artist’s persistent commitment to creating a zone of contact between the artwork and its viewer.

The action devised for Touched followed the trajectory of the Re: Thinking Trade section, which aimed to reinterpret the modalities that regulate economic exchange, using the same strategies and devices as the market in order to question the economic system from within. Arguably, the economy could be said to be the strongest engine and propeller behind our actions. It informs our daily lives and there is little else that exercises a similar influence on the way we conduct ourselves, including affecting our freedom of speech, as Knorr suggests with The Naked Corner.

The slogans selected by the artist and transcribed on to the bare skin of live models have been copyrighted by multinational corporations and by the advertising industry. Despite being a part of our daily language, these sentences cannot be used publicly in any way that suggests a financial exchange. By placing these slogans in a former shop window and (symbolically) in a context of trade, Knorr questioned the authority of the business world to appropriate language and, ultimately, meaning.

Daniel Knorr at Liverpool Biennial 2010

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The Naked Corner, 2010

Performance
Courtesy of the artist and Galleria Fonti, Naples 
Commissioned by Liverpool Biennial 2010
Exhibited at 52 Renshaw Street