Janez Jana
SS-XXX | Die Frau Helga.
The Borghild Project Reconstruction
OPENING Saturday, March 28, 2009 at 6.00 PM
On the occasion of the publication of the book RE:akt! Reconstruction, Re-enactment, Re-reporting , published by FPEditions and edited by Antonio Caronia, Janez Jansa and Domenico Quaranta, Fabio Paris Art Gallery is proud to announce the exhibition SS-XXX | Die Frau Helga. The Borghild Project Reconstruction (2007), by the Slovene artist Janez Jana .
In 2005, a strange news item was reported on by various esteemed newspapers, from the Argentinian Clarin to the German Der Spiegel to the Italian Corriere della Sera . According to this story, first appeared on the German site borghild.de, a team of Nazi scientists, from 1941 onwards, would have created the first sex doll in the history of humanity. This was designed to satisfy the comprehensible sexual urges of German soldiers at war, while avoiding the unpleasant health risks connected to frequenting brothels. It quickly transpired that the story was a hoax, artfully created by a (still anonymous) author.
Yet all of this merely shed doubt on the Borghild Project : while there is no proof in its favour, we also lack the proof that it is definitely a hoax. Whatever the truth of the matter, the Borghild Project is one of history’s black holes. It continues to live on, above all on the net, and while some are hard at work to debunk it, others are working equally hard to enrich it with new details.
Artist Janez Jana one of them. Since 2007, he added details to the Borghild story exploring three parallel strands: “updating” the project using objects found or created as needed; “verifying its authenticity” by means of historic research and documentary proof, and “implementing” it by means of new details. It is significant that all of these approaches have been explored by those journalists or enthusiasts who picked up on the story. SS-XXX | Die Frau Helga. The Borghild Project Reconstruction is the result of this effort.
Janez Jana (www.aksioma.org) a conceptual artist, performer and of Italian origins working and living in Ljubljana, Slovenia since 1995. His artistic work has a strong social connotation and is characterized by an inter-media approach. Jana, who works since 2002 as artistic director of Aksioma Institute for Contemporary Art, Ljubljana,is the author of numerous videos, performances, installations, documentaries and media projects and collaborates internationally with artists, museums, institutions, foundations, galleries and festivals.
Jana has presented his work, among other venues, at: Manifesta 4, Frankfurt; ZKM, Karlsruhe; ARCO, Madrid; Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires; National Museum of Contemporary Art, Bucharest; White Box Gallery, New York; Kiasma, Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki; Transmediale.08, Berlin and Ars Electronica, Linz.