Anne Imhof — Wish You Were Gay

Wish You Were Gay is a deeply personal survey presenting several new bodies of work that reflect on and further develop a number of core elements that have constituted Imhof’s repertoire from the outset. Throughout the exhibition, Imhof explores notions of finitude, reality and artifice, chance and fate, absence and presence, set against a backdrop of postapocalyptic isolation.

Wish You Were Gay encompasses all-new sculpture, painting, sound, and a series of six never-before-seen video works in which the artist revisits early material from 2001–03, a crucial moment of transition in the artist’s life and work. At that time, Imhof’s life and work were closely linked and at times indistinguishable, imbuing the present exhibition with a distinctly biographical note and touching on notions of chosen family, a reality for many queer people.

The show begins with an overture: red light saturates the scene in MARIA, an early self-portrait video. The artist is seen boxing and throwing punches at the camera lens through a vignette, set to songs from West Side Story, acting as a Romeo to the other half of the star-crossed lovers after whom the work is titled. During this period, Imhof trained in karate and boxing as forms of self-defense.