For the artist’s debut exhibition in Germany, Niloufar Emamifar presents a newly produced body of work across both main gallery floors of the Künstlerhaus Stuttgart. Drawing from her study of architecture and consistent attention to the psychosocial dynamics of built space, Emamifar’s exhibition, EX GRATIA, emphasizes site-specific demands on structural capacity in responding to the needs of lived relations. This emphasis on material conditions – the insistence on operative structures – when considering interpersonal experience is a crucial aspect of Emamifar’s ongoing approach to exhibition-making. Her work carefully examines the causative relationships between site, situation, and subjectivity. For Emamifar, while living beings are not determined, they are extremely porous, thereby susceptible to the constructed systems they presently occupy and embody. The artist’s exhibition at the Künstlerhaus Stuttgart is attuned to this vulnerability – the artist leans into the work of exposure within surrounding circumstances, while also recognizing how individuated experience is not ultimately separate from the oppressive structural realities shouldered by many. The conditions encountered by Emamifar in producing EX GRATIA necessitated efforts by the artist to develop lasting structures that could be applicable for future artists working at the Künstlerhaus Stuttgart and at other art sector institutions in the German context.
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The title of Emamifar’s exhibition, Ex gratia, refers to the term as used in a legal context for a payment that is made not out of legal obligation but because the circumstances justify it. It is a kind of standard practice recognized by the law that is irregular, a legally recognized consideration that is extra-legal. Ex gratia payments are morally justified but legally unsanctioned – that is, they are a means of recourse potentially more exacting than those mandated by law. Emamifar’s exhibition includes a fully executed agreement between the artist and KHS that governs the storage of materials owned by the artist within a safe deposit box located on the fourth floor of the KHS for as long as KHS rents the building at its current location. A key provision of this agreement is that Emamifar may grant an assignee access to any of the many safe deposit boxes the artist has made available. In the event that the artist grants an assignee access to a safe deposit box, all terms and conditions of the agreement apply to the assignee just as they do to the artist. This signed agreement is included in the exhibition pamphlet.
Künstlerhaus Stuttgart
Stuttgart, Germany
