Iulia Nistor

Iulia Nistor’s work is about the "about". Her artistic approach has developed in parallel with her work in philosophy, and she is interested in processes that analyze and question concepts, not in representing them. The capacity to be about something can be attributed to both mental states and representations, and while her philosophical work examines the difference between the two, her art practice explores how things can appear to be about something by adopting certain qualities. In her paintings, the attempt to isolate pictorial analogues for contingent properties of objects leads to the exclusion of the image of the object itself. The paintings are not intended to form or perpetuate a style, but are the result of an empirical process of revision and redefinition, specific to the phenomenon in question. How we recognize or assume ‘aboutness’ is further questioned in her spatial interventions. These interventions mimic architectural, material or structural elements that are perceived as givens within the space. The additions conceal themselves in the guise of what is likely to be taken for granted. These works do not appear as part of an exhibition’s floor plan or in a list of works, thereby exposing our assumptions as to what is given and what is made. Iulia Nistor (b. 1985, Bucharest, Romania) is a philosopher and visual artist. Nistor graduated in philosophy and completed her doctorate at the University of Regensburg, Germany. She received a Meisterschüler in fine arts from the Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main, Germany.