kaufmann repetto new york is pleased to present, Animal Farm, an exhibition comprised of video works by Latifa Echakhch, Judith Hopf, and Yoshua Okón.

In varying perspectives, the works within the exhibition explore the polarization between man and forces of nature and address our compulsion to dictate control over these elements to which we are fully vulnerable. This determination is often a signification, not of honest or humble ambitions, but rather of ineffective greed and indulgence. While we fancy ourselves as invincible, we are ultimately the pawns of unrestricted nature. In fact, we are fools.

In Yoshua Okón’s Coyotería (2003), the artist restages a performance referencing Joseph Beuys’ I Like America and America Likes Me (1974). For nearly a week, Beuys co-inhabited a barren room alongside a wild coyote, the animal a symbolization of pre-colonial spirituality. Okón has replaced Beuys undomesticated animal with a human “coyote” – originally an Aztec term referring to money-hungry Europeans and later evolving to reference men paid to complete, typically illegal, tasks, such as border crossings. Okón himself has taken the position of Beuys, the shamanistic staff here replaced by a police baton, the felt with a synthetic blanket, and the issues of The Wall Street Journal with scattered TV guides.

Judith Hopf’s Zählen! (2008) features the artist herself as a horse’s keeper while a trio of bourgeois clowns demands the horse to make calculations. The video is inspired by early 20th century stories of “Clever Hans”, a horse that the public believed was able to calculate arithmetic when in fact the horse, led by its keeper’s unwitting body language, was interpreting and playing into the audience’s emotional expectations. Through humor and a degree of absurdity, Hopf’s work often explores individual behavior and identity amidst the conventions and conditions of societal consensus.

Unlike Okón’s and Hopf’s films included within the exhibition, Latifa Echakhch’s Waiting for Dolphins (2015) admits and accepts man’s limitations. To film the video, the artist re-visited an area of the Bosphorus River in Turkey where she had previously encountered a group of diving dolphins. The artist sought to re-experience and capture this special, chance moment, and as she sits on the banks of the river, we too wait hopefully for the dolphins to come.

Latifa Echakhch (b. 1974, El Khnansa, Morocco) lives and works in Martigny, Switzerland. Solo exhibitions include those at The Power Plant, Toronto (2017); Kunstmuseum Linz, Austria (2015); Museum Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich (2015); Centre Pompidou, Paris (2014); MAC, Musée d’art contemporain de Lyon (2013); Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2013); Portikus, Frankfurt am Main (2012); Kunsthaus, Zurich (2012); MACBA, Barcelona (2010); Kunsthalle Fridericianum, Kassel (2009); and Tate Modern, London (2008). Her work has been part of numerous group exhibitions, such as those at Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore (2016); Museo Riso, Palermo (2015); Power Station of Art, Shanghai, China (2014); Musée d’art moderne de la ville de Paris (2013); MoMA PS1, New York (2013); Kunsthalle Basel (2010), Baibakov Art Projects, Moscow (2010); Jerusalem Foundation (2008); and National Gallery of Art, Tirana (2005). She has participated in the Sharjah Biennial 11 (2013); the 18th Biennale of Sydney (2012); 54th Venice Biennale (2011); the 10th Biennale de Lyon (2009) and the Manifesta 7 in Bolzano, Italy (2008). She won the 2015 Zurich Art Prize and the 2013 Marcel Duchamp Prize. Latifa Echakhch will have a solo exhibition opening at kaufmann repetto Milan this September 2017.

Judith Hopf (b. 1969, Karlsruhe, Germany) lives and works in Berlin. She is a professor of fine art at the Städelschule, Frankfurt. Judith Hopf will have an upcoming solo exhibition at the KW Intstitute, Berlin in Fall of 2018.She has had solo exhibitions at Hammer Musuem, Los Angeles (2017); Museion, Bolzano, Italy (2016); Neue Galerie, Kassel, Germany (2015); Maumaus, Lisbon (2014); PRAXES Center for Contemporary Art, Berlin (2014); Malmö Konsthall, Sweden (2012); Badischer Kunstverein, Karlsruhe, Germany (2008); and Kunst-Werke, Berlin (2006). Her work has been included in group exhibitions at La Biennale de Montréal (2016); Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Lima, Peru (2015); the 8th Liverpool Biennial (2014); SculptureCenter, Long Island City, New York (2014); the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2014); Documenta XIII, Kassel, Germany (2012); Kunsthall Oslo, Norway (2010); Kunsthalle Bern, Switzerland (2009); Tate Modern, London (2008); REDCAT, Los Angeles (2007); the Berlin Biennale, Gagosian Gallery (2006); the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2005); and the Biennial of Fine Arts, Havana (2003), among others. She has had film screenings at the Berlinische Galerie, Berlin (2016); Berlinale, International Film Festival, Berlin (2014); Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt (2013); the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, Germany (2006); American Cinemateque of Los Angeles at the Egyptian Theater (2005); and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2005).

Yoshua Okón (b. 1970, Mexico City, Mexico) lives and works in Mexico City. He will have his first survey exhibition at the Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporaneo, Mexico City in Fall 2018. Solo exhibitions include those at Utah Musuem of Contemporary Art (2016); Arizona State Univertsity Art Musuem, Phoenix (2015); University of California, Irvine (2014); Cornerhouse, Manchester (2013); Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2011); and Städtische Kunsthalle, Munich (2008); among others. His work has been featured in group exhibitions including those at Foundación Jumex, Mexico City (2016); Manifesta 11, Zurich (2016); Station Museum of Contemporary Art, Houston (2015); Palais des Beaux Arts, Paris (2015); Gwangju Biennale, Korea (2014); Musèe Cantonal des Beux-Arts, Lausanne (2011); CCA Wattis, San Francisco (2008); Hayward Gallery, London (2008); MoMA PS1, New York (2005); New Museum, New York (2004); and KW Institute, Berlin (2002). His work is included in the collections of Tate Modern, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Colección Jumex and MUAC, among others.