How you look, choose and determine your position in the world
In CROSSHAIR, Yonas Negash invites you to reflect on visibility, control and the boundary between looking and being looked at. Through an installation and a series of paintings, you will discover the crosshairs as something that both helps you focus and expresses power. You will see how this simple symbol appears everywhere and how it shapes the way you view and approach the world.
The crosshairs began as an analogue precision instrument: a tool for hunters, soldiers and surveyors. There was always a lens between the eye and the target. But in our digital world, the crosshairs have become detached from the glass. In games, you recognise it as the small “+” in the middle of your screen—always present, always ready. In surveillance images, it marks bodies and movements. Again and again, it determines what is important and what is not.
Yonas takes this sign out of its technical context and places it in the exhibition space. Here, it changes from a means of aiming into a question: Who is looking at whom? Who is in the centre? The crosshairs themselves become an object to be examined.
As a visitor, you enter a world in which aiming and focusing mean more than just a mechanical action. Each work functions as a lens that invites you to think about your own viewfinder: what do you consciously focus on? What do you aim at? Inspired by different types of viewfinders — from reflex viewfinders to mil-dot crosshairs — the paintings let you experience how you organise your gaze and determine your perspective.
In essence, the works of CROSSHAIR are windows into how you look, choose and determine your position in the world. They challenge you to consider what you place in the centre of your field of vision — and why. This exhibition is a journey through the art of aiming, not only with a sight, but with your inner eye.