Natascha Sadr Haghighian “Empire of the Senseless” at Kai Matsumiya Gallery

Natascha Sadr Haghighian presents her solo debut presentation at Kai Matsumiya with the two-channel video projection, “Empire of the Senseless II”. The title is a reference to Kathy Acker’s 1988 novel in which Algerian immigrants have taken over a Paris composed of stray animals, the dead, and mutants. Categories of identity are mutable and undetermined. In fact they are resisted with conscious discipline in the name of self-determination. In some instances women are referred to as “cunts”; in others as “prince”; or they are referred to with adjectives or professional titles fitting the immediate ever-changing contexts of the post-apocalyptic society. In this world, business can consist of the wealthy elite committing suicide and transferring wealth to the rest. Yet, within the chaos, there is a world without repression and inhibition—the result of enlightened transgression.