Hito Steyerl Is an Artist With

Power. She Uses It for

Change.
Dec. 15, 2017
Hito Steyerl in Berlin in November.Mustafah Abdulaziz for The New York Times

BERLIN — Blurry selfies, pixelated screen shots,

Photoshop disasters: Low-quality, mass-reproduced
pictures flood our screens every day. They are easy to
dismiss, but the German artist Hito Steyerl makes a case
for their value.

“They spread pleasure or death threats, conspiracy

theories or bootlegs, resistance or stultification,” she
wrote in her 2009 essay “In Defense of the Poor Image.”
“Poor images show the rare, the obvious and the
unbelievable.” They can show us secrets, she says, if only
we’re willing to look.

In her films, lectures and essays, Ms. Steyerl, 51, has

never shied from revealing the secrets she uncovers. She
illuminates the world’s power structures, inequalities,
obscurities and delights. She pushes buttons as she
spins parables.

Her work has never been more recognized or relevant:

This year she became the first female artist to top the
British magazine ArtReview’s Power 100 list; her
“Liquidity Inc.” show opened on Dec. 13 at the Institute of
Contemporary Art/Boston, where it runs through April 22;
and her newest essay collection, “Duty-Free Art: Art in
the Age of Planetary Civil War” was published in October.
She represents a new paradigm of the artist not as
solitary genius but as networked thinker.
Ms. Steyerl’s “Liquidity Inc.” uses computer-generated graphics to tell a parable of
economic collapse.Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York

Ms. Steyerl’s films are densely packed, mixing fact and

fiction, documentary footage, computer-generated
images and often appearances by the artist herself. They
zoom in on, and pan out from, some of the most complex,
pressing issues of our time — among them surveillance,
alienated labor, militarization, protest culture, corporate
domination and the rise of alternative economies.

But the films’ politics are served up with appealing,

accessible pop-culture aesthetics, sardonic humor and
the odd four-letter word. Viewers have stood in long lines
at venues like the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los
Angeles or the German pavilion at the 2015 Venice
Biennale to enter Ms. Steyerl’s installations, which
present the films in environments that might look like a
giant wave or the blue lines from the 1982 movie “Tron.”
Visitors might leave pondering exploitation, dancing to a
disco tune from the soundtrack, or both.

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“In my films, accessibility is something I do on purpose,”

said Ms. Steyerl (pronounced SHTYE-earl), speaking in
measured English sentences in a cafe in the Kreuzberg
district here. When not lecturing to packed audiences or
teaching media art at this city’s University of Arts, she
works from her home nearby. “I don’t want to make films
that are so specialized that they’re only accessible to
people with prior knowledge or histories or references.”
The films always, she explained, have one layer that
anyone can understand.
Ms. Steyerl’s “Factory of the Sun” was displayed in the German Pavilion at the 2015
Venice Biennale.Manuel Reinartz, via Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York

Ms. Steyerl’s influences range from Godard, New German

Cinema and the work of the experimental filmmaker
Harun Farocki, to martial arts flicks and Monty Python.
References swing from Bruce Lee to the Frankfurt School
philosopher Theodor W. Adorno. (Ms. Steyerl earned a
Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Vienna in
2003.)

“It’s hard to imagine aesthetics in contemporary art

without her,” said Alexander Koch, co-owner of the
gallery K.O.W., which shows Ms. Steyerl’s works here.
“She has found a visual language that can combine so
many cultures, especially digital ones.”

Beyond the films are Ms. Steyerl’s writings and her

“lecture performances,” which are famously hypnotic.
Delivered in a yoga teacher’s or Jedi master’s slow,
soothing voice, her speeches weave disparate ideas
together. “She’s a legend onstage,” Mr. Koch said. “She’s
the one who made a lecture performance into an
aesthetic event. They’re sometimes sublime. She
transcends her material.”

And there’s something almost digital about reading her

essays, many of which evolve from her talks. The writing
seems almost as if it were toggling among browser tabs.

“Hito’s writing is stylistically very different than that of an

academic or a journalist — there are juxtapositions and
allegories that go far beyond the usual range of writing,”
said the American artist Trevor Paglen, a longtime friend
whose art also explores information flows and power
structures.

A 2010 video by Hito Steyerl.Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York

Steyerlisms like “circulationism” (the more an image

moves through the digital or real world, the more power it
accrues), or “junktime” (the fragmented, distracted
experience of the harried freelancer) fascinate
undergrads and professors alike.

Ms. Steyerl explained the concept in her new book’s title.

On the one hand, “duty-free art” can refer to art in “free
ports,” tax-free storage facilities in places like
Switzerland or Singapore: “nondescript and pedestrian
buildings in the suburbs, where a lot of art would
accumulate without being seen,” she said.

“But duty-free art,” she continued, “could also be art

that’s not subject to the duty of having to represent
either a culture of a nation or some other interests
involved in presentation and production.” Does she mean
the avant-garde dream of truly autonomous art? “There’s
no complete autonomy — you can only even start
thinking about autonomy in relation to other things,” Ms.
Steyerl said.

Many of the book’s essays were previously published in

e-flux journal, a theory periodical published by the art
website e-flux. “There’s an incredibly close relationship
between Hito and the journal,” said the site’s co-founder
Julieta Aranda, who explained how the intellectual
discussions of a group of like-minded Berliners, including
Ms. Steyerl, led to the journal’s founding in 2008.

“In Defense of the Poor Image” became an instant classic

in art theory circles. “Her previous texts don’t become
dated; her ideas keep circulating,” Ms. Aranda said.
“People take her work and build upon it. And she’s not
afraid of the truth of her time. That’s important for
generations that come after her.”

As broad as Ms. Steyerl’s practice is, she sees herself

first and foremost as a filmmaker. Born and raised in
Munich, she trained as a camera operator, then studied
filmmaking in both Japan and her hometown. In the late
1980s, she worked as an assistant to the German director
Wim Wenders. She intended to become a classical
documentary filmmaker, but things didn’t quite work out
that way.

“While I was at film school, or even earlier, maybe the late

1980s, the market for independent-film production
collapsed, and existing funding for long-form
documentaries just stopped,” said Ms. Steyerl, whose
work found its way into the art world in 1999 when she
had her first exhibition in Vienna. By 2004, her films were
on view in major shows like the roving Manifesta biennial
of European contemporary art and the fourth Berlin
Biennale, and at Artists Space in New York. In 2013 she
began showing with Andrew Kreps Gallery in New York;
her work sells primarily to contemporary-art institutions.
She finances her films with commissions, prize money
and her own funds.

According to Mr. Koch, part of this artist’s appeal is her

integrity. “She has complete loyalty to her ethical
positions,” he said. “She is the personification of her
work.” It is perhaps odd, then, that Ms. Steyerl took the
No. 1 spot on ArtReview’s Power 100 list. “I had no idea
whatsoever that this would happen,” she said. “Of course
there’s a lot of attention. It’s not focused on my work, so
it’s not helpful. So I’m trying not to engage with it.”

Then again, it might be a sign of changing times, in which

artists dare to challenge the industry that now surrounds
their work. Ms. Steyerl does use her clout to demand
action: In September, after discovering belatedly that a
German weapons manufacturer was sponsoring a group
exhibition, “Deutschland 8, German Art in China,” in
which her work was included, she led an artists’ protest.
“I wouldn’t associate her work with power, but influence,”
Ms. Aranda said. “She speaks truth to power.”

In the Kreuzberg cafe, Ms. Steyerl discussed world

politics and changing contemporary conditions. We might
either become so addicted to the web that we lose track
of the material world, or we will “just get bored and log
off,” she said. The art scene is also shifting. “A few
strands are slowly forming, pulling into different
directions,” she said. “One is heavily involved in fashion
and branding. Then there’s a noncommercial section of
art. Those paths will grow apart even more in the next
couple of years.”

Is this good or bad? “I’m always an optimist,” said Ms.

Steyerl, whose even most critical works contain glimmers
of hope. “In Danis Tanovic´s 2001 film, ‘No Man’s Land,’
two guys are sitting in a minefield. One says, if you’re a
pessimist in these times, you think things are as bad as
they could be. If you’re an optimist, you think things
could still get much worse!” she said, bursting into
laughter.

For all the accolades and recent ubiquity — or claims, in

some circles, that she takes advantage of the very
system she critiques — Ms. Steyerl is refreshingly
humble. She is also inquisitive, punctual, quick to
respond to emails, and married with a 12-year-old
daughter. She was even uncomplainingly game for
walking through mud in her trademark hot-pink sneakers
to be photographed.

“I don’t think the internet or a big digital corporation will

manage to capture all of human relations. It’s too boring,”
she said. “After a while, people want to talk to one
another, one on one.”

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