Johanna Weis
Female composers are less renowned than their male colleagues. In aims to raise awareness and to honour them, the artist has researched their names - from the Middle Ages to the present day - on Wikipedia.
Around 1900, a popular party game consisted of collecting the signatures of friends or celebrities in a book whose pages were folded before the ink had dried. Viewed from the side, each signature resembled a mysterious being, seen as the 'soul' or 'spirit' of the person in question.
For female composers, the choice of music paper was obvious. The staves stand instead of lying down, and the more than a thousand signatures rise up and fall down with a slight rustle, evoking the symphony of centuries of female music.
©Johanna Weis - Photo Dario Gamboni
Biography
Johanna Weis first studied and worked in medical research in Switzerland, France, Nicaragua, and later as an object conservator in France, the USA, the Netherlands and Switzerland. She has been working as an artist since 2010, and in Berlin since 2020.
Coincidence, materials - especially paper - and bilateral symmetry play a significant role in her experimental processes.
Her paper cuts have been shown in group exhibitions, and a solo exhibition is planned for 2023 at L'Atelier Galerie in Berlin. In autumn 2021 she was artist in residence at I Tatti (Harvard University) in Florence, where she realised large-scale works on paper and canvas.
In spring 2022, she worked at Studio Cascina Garbald (Bergell) on an artist's book that will be published in Paris in 2023.
