Neuerscheinungen hrsg. von Daniela Comani
2019, special edition for the Kunstverein in Hamburg
Archival inkjet print on Hahnenmühle Photo Rag, 27.5 x 20.5 cm, unframed
Edition of 10 per motif, 5 each (1/10, 2/10, 3/10, 4/10, 5/10) exclusively for the Kunstverein in Hamburg

Text (c) Kunstverein in Hamburg:

Daniela Comani creates art which looks into identity and the way gender is assigned. In doing so, she works with everyday images and in this way opens a personal channel to her viewers. She uses very different media to reorganise contexts and information and to pose questions on the legitimacy of the events portrayed. To this end, she also applies shifts in perspective, as, for example, in the 2002 work, Ich war’s. Tagebuch 1900-1999 (It was me. Diary 1900-1999) . Here she presents historical events from a century as a first-person narrator and thus creates space for re-thinking historical connections and social structures.


This year, she was part of the Kunstverein’s exhibition, Political Affairs - Language Is Not Innocent, where she presented her Neuerscheinungen hrsg. von Daniela Comani (New Releases, published by Daniela Comani).These present book covers of literary classics, which seem familiar to us at first sight. We only realise after a closer look that they have been altered in an aesthetically subtle way, but one subverting their content. The Little Prince and The Brothers Karamazow become The Little Princess and The Sisters Karamazow, and Ernest Hamingway becomes the author of The Old Woman and the Sea. By dint of this “what if?”, Comani succeeds in intervening in literary history, provoking reflections on what the alternatives present. Hence the flexibility