Latefa Wier­sch

Since 2018, Latefa Wier­sch has been pro­vid­ing inti­mate insights into the life of a young artist on her Insta­gram account @artpop_insta: posts from the studio, from par­ties or open­ings show her analy­sis of col­lec­tive artis­tic processes, the mech­a­nisms of the art busi­ness, and her role as a female PoC in it. The clou‒the pro­tag­o­nist as well as her circle of friends are roughly sewn dolls that are staged for the pho­tographs with great atten­tion to detail; with ever new out­fits and hair­styles, attuned to cur­rent trends and pop cul­tural references.

With this fic­ti­tious account, Latefa Wier­sch raises ques­tions about the over­lap­ping of the public and the pri­vate which is taken for granted in the art scene and for which social media are both stage and cat­a­lyst. The vic­ar­i­ous fig­ures and their expe­ri­ences with racism, sexism, class, tokenism, and the moral con­flicts that come along are artis­tic means for Wier­sch to reflect on social changes against the back­ground of a post­colo­nial present, espe­cially in the art world.

The pub­li­ca­tion doc­u­ments Latefa Wiersch’s long-term project @artpop_insta in a selec­tion of image and text con­tri­bu­tions and is pub­lished on the occa­sion of Latefa Wiersch’s solo exhi­bi­tion “Orig­i­nal Fea­tures” at Kun­sthaus Langenthal.