Das Hotel FRESH 2010 - ARTISTS

Santiago Sierra

Santiago Sierra was born 1966 in Madrid. He studied in Madrid and Hamburg. The artist lived and worked in Mexico 1995 to 2007. Now he lives and works in Madrid and Lucca. Santiago Sierras works fit into a set of critical operation of the twentieth century doubting the believe that art is an autonomic, sublime and selfless act.

Many of his countless participation at Biennales such in Sao Paulo and Venice or exhibitions at museums and art institutions like PS1, Kunsthalle Wien, Tate Modern, Palais de Tokyo, IKON Gallery and the Kestner Gesellschaft are prove for his exceptional strong artistic presents and unique position in the contemporary art world. 

NO, GLOBAL TOUR

On July 18th, 2009 and without a calendar nor defined route, appear in the Napoleonic stables of Lucca the NO, Global Tour, as an sculptural NO in black marine plywood Arial font, of dimensions of 3.20 meters of height and 4 meters of wide, and a weight by letter of 250 kilograms. After two months in exhibition, the NO departs from Lucca towards Berlin in a truck with the legal dimensions, necessary to circulate without restrictions. It appears in Milan and there visits the industrial area. With base in Bernburg, it makes a route by the ex-German Democratic Republic, visiting residential, industry and mining areas. In Berlin during Kunstforum, it escalates the roof of the studio of conceptual painter Jirí Georg Dokoupil, located in front of a centric subway station.

In October, a second NO is constructed in Toronto and displayed during the Night in White in the financial district, soon travels to the U.S.A., appearing in Hamilton, Buffalo, Detroit, Cleveland and Pitsburgh; always in industrial zones and districts of workers.

That same month, the NO starts off again from Berlin and it is displayed briefly in the Museum of Contemporary Art of Dortmund, having also visited its industrial belt: the Ruhrgebiet. Later it travels to Rotterdam and it is parked in Coolsingel, the city's main street. Also the petroleum refineries and the port were visited. After visiting the official buildings of Maastricht, it travels to Brussels, seat of NATO, European Parliament and others, crosses the English Channel and it arrives at London where it visits works of the Olympic Games, the Death Counter in the financial district and Greenwich. From London it is sent to New York. In New York it comprises of the festival Performa 09. The NO visits the building of United Nations, Wall Street, Rockefeller Center and other tourist destinies. Then the NO departs towards Miami to participate in the section of public sculpture of the fair Art Basel Miami Beach. The organization solicits to us not to leave Miami Beach reason why we visited only Miami Beach. During the fair the sculpture is exhibited in the park next to the Bass Museum.

A third NO sculpture is constructed in Lucca and moves to Livorno, soon in Genoa visits the seaport. It arrives at Monte Carlo and the neighboring Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat. From there the NO travels to Marseilles, visiting its refineries and factories. It travels soon to Lourdes and to Madrid. In Madrid and its province the NO visits diverse places of interest and it comprises of the official programming of the ARCO fair.

During the accomplishment of the Tour a film directed by Santiago Sierra and filmed by Diego Santomé is rolled. The running will finalize in Washington where tour will travel from May 8th, 2010. Next the NO will return to Spain and Italy and it will continue towards Japan and Poland.

www.santiagosierra.com - www.noglobaltour.com

 NO Global Tour - Photograph on Fuji Cristal - 94 x 163 cm - 2009

Rob Scholte

born 1958 in Amsterdam, Holland / Lives and works in Bergen, Holland

Rob Scholte represented Netherlands as artist at the Biennale Venice in 1990. His works were also shown at the Documenta 8 in Kassel and are in several public and private collections such as Museum Ludwig in Cologne, Huis Ten Bosch Palace in Nagasaki or the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. As an neo-conceptual artist Rob Scholte reveals the connections between the image and its recipient. He draws no difference between Art and Kitsch. In a world surrounded permanently by images Rob Scholtes focus is pointed on the raw material - the image as itself. He questions appearance, investigates their esthetics and places them in new contexts to discover aspects of reading and the influences they have on us.

Les cadavres exquis des années des quatre-vingt, 2010, acrylic on canvas, each 100 x 40 cm.

Seamus Farrell

born 1965, lives and works in Paris, Saint-Ouen and CadizSeamus Farrell’s work collapses the boundaries between “artist” and “worker” while simultaneously addressing questions of globalism, ecology, and art education. Farrell has had solo exhibitions such as at Espace 150 x 295 cm (Martil) and L’appartement 22 (Rabat) and has participated in group exhibitions including the 7th Gwangju Biennale and OPEN/INVITED ev+a (Limerick).

"U.N. Circle Gwangju-Marrakech" is an elaboration on the work produced by Seamus Farrell for Expedition 7 (Relative Homelands), part of the 7th Gwangju Biennale in 2008. The work at AiM was produced in Fez in collaboration with young artists and workers. Car doors form an unclosed circle evoking the United Nations Security Council table, with engravings on each window in multiple languages and scripts about the political dimensions of water and other vital issues. Farrell’s work revolves around citations, including of sentences taken from the press, as on the car doors, and of architecture and mass-media. Installed at ESAV (film School in Marrakech),"EarTubes," the second work by Seamus Farrell in this exhibition is a sound installation using plastic and radio transistors, produced at L’appartement 22, as a response to the conflicting voices that emerged from the political protests, heard both in the mass-media and at the doors of government halls and international summits, on what has become of the world. Both works are dealing with multipart expressions and a physical tension if the exhibition places.

"RETROVISIONS"  motorbike mirrors engraved with diamond tip 2010

Thomas Bachler

born 1961 in Detmold, invites us through his conceptual works to a deep reflection upon the analyses of esthetic processes, upon social and historical coherence but also upon mental processes that guide human behavior.He is creating scenes of presence and absence, of questions without resolution, filled with an irony that according to the action itself is always assigned by a photographic fact. Apart from the pinhole camera, Bachler uses processes of decontextualization of images. Devaluated banknotes, photos from the GDR´s state security service (STASI), idealistic socialist literature diversify upon perception. Thomas Bachler´s works invite us, throughout its conceptual mechanisms, to experience an intellectual autonomy that is difficult to imagine in the absence of its submitted esthetic phenomenona. 

http://www.thomasbachler.de

Deutsche Autos - 60 x 80 cm - Fuji Cristal - 2008 - Edition of 3

Kristoffer Ardeña

Philippines, 1976, lives and works in Paris

has been working during the last years on several artistic projects conceptualizing human behavior. For that purpose he conceives an epistemological procedure that performs cultural traditions within a concrete cultural frame, but relating the whole mechanism to another bigger one: our globalized world. Thus meaning related to conventional situations that is based on conventional cognitive structures, becomes newly defined. Consequently, new answers arise and at their turn cognitive structures expand. The sphere of consideration when thinking about the dual and dynamic phenomena life/art offers the viewer/participant a chance to look outward to an art practice that is able to exist in between diverse topographic conceptualizations.

The work ‘Twas a Uniform, finding it was important because there are many military uniforms to choose from. I was looking for something “special”. I wanted to convert the personal story embedded in the uniform into a fetish, a requisite for wanting it. I finally found what I wanted in a store specializing in German military memorabilia. The one who sold it to me told me that the uniform was an American tent during WWII, then because during the postwar it was difficult to find first-grade material, the tent was made into a military uniform of the Freiwillige Polizei Reserve of the former East Germany. Inside one of the pockets you can find the seal of the company who officially made it. It has undergone changes over time. It has been patched up several times leaving traces of pieces of cloth not matching the original fabric. While I un-sewed it, I found a nametag “Müller” on it, must have belonged to this person. In the exhibition I am offering the strips of cloth to be made into another garment. (artist statment)

Photograph of a uniform on aludibond (120 x 84 cm)  & transformed uniform

25 x 60 cm rolled - 2010

http://galeriesaupe.com/artists/represented/kristoffer-ardena/works.html

Melissa Steckbauer

Born 1980 Tucson, Arizona, lives and works in Berlin

Steckbauer creates portraits and self-portraits that address dynamic and underrepresented sexual scenes.  In order to study the delicate and nuanced nature of physical intimacy and interpersonal contact, she paints and photographs people in emotionally transformative situations.  Her sources range from handpicked images from the Kinsey Institute, to work with close friends, appropriated photographs, and Internet pornography.

http://melissasteckbauer.weebly.com/

http://galeriesaupe.com/artists/represented/melissa-steckbauer/work.html

Left: To be held and Understood, 2010, acrylic on paper, 30cm x 40cmRight: Little boy, little boooooy, 2010, acrylic on paper, 30cm x 40cm

J.M. Pozo

born Cuba 1967, lives and works in Berlin and Madrid

SOCIALISM BEGINS AT HOME

J.M. Pozo is quiet aware of the historical dimension of the city he lives in. Surrounded by an irregular architectural cityscape that had been changed dramatically within the last 100 years. He reviews the aesthetic contrasts of old and new which are placed so close next to each other like in no other city in Europe. Graffiti and street art are to be found

on every possible spot. They cover the wounds of Berlin that the wars and reconstruction had struck. Like within his paintings the city grows from its history not hiding the experience but giving space for a coexistence that seems to grow out a natural development. Not just one, many horizons are to be found at sight from a singular point of view. Educated in classical painting in Havana and later influenced by Prof. K. Klapheck in Düsseldorf J.M. Pozo formed

his own language of a pictorial expression.

 

Dealer - Acrylic on canvas - 140 x 200 cm - 2007

Isabel Lewis is a Brooklyn and Berlin-based performer and curator from the Dominican Republic. She is a graduate of Hollins University (USA) where she majored in both Dance and English with a focus in Literary Criticism.  Isabel creates solo work, performs with her family art collective LEWIS FOREVER and with Ann Liv Young. She has had the honor of working with many New York-based choreographers as well as presenting her own performance works at several important venues in Manhattan such as Dance Theater Workshop, Performance Space 122, and The Kitchen. Isabel also presents her works outside of the theater context in galleries, flats, and community spaces.

Josep Maynou studied Fine Arts in Barcelona (UB), Porto (Facultade Belas Artes Porto) and London (Middlesex University). Maynou has shown his work all over Europe highlighting Getxo Arte in Bilbao, Strip Art and Sala Pares in Barcelona, Galerie Eva Bracke in Berlin and Maoshabitos in Oporto among others. He has been working in different artistic fields and is now focused on media art often collaborating with Berlin-based media artist Arturo Steele. Reusing images and giving them new meanings, he creates visual collages which function as a continuous whole, as complete films unto themselves. This process of recycling also leads to installing his work in different contexts such as TV repair shops, warehouses, abandoned

STRANGE ACTIONConcept and Performance by Isabel LewisDramaturgy and Performance by Josep Maynou

Maykel Linares

born 1979 Vila Clara, Cuba, lives and works in Madrid

Maykel’s painting is thus a language of relationships between meanings (at times very hermetic) that manifest a strange relational and subsidiary proportion, between the subjectivity held within and the generic reach of its cultural resonance. Painting, in his case is not the absolute end, a conquered goal, a closed frame within a narrative, which is exhausted within the confines of the text. Rather, and on the contrary, it is a means of research through which he seeks to explain the paradox of many relationships, the pertinence of memory, the very nature of art (that is, of life) and the similarity, if possible, between a writing desk and a raven.

Lucy McRae

born in London, UK, lives and works in Amsterdam, Netherlands

She is an Australian artist straddling the worlds of fashion, technology and the body. As a body Architect she invents and builds structures on the skin that re-shape the human silhouette. Her provocative and often grotesquely beautiful imagery suggests a new breed; a future human archetype existing in an alternate world. Trained as a classical ballerina and architect her work inherently fascinates with the human body. The media call her inventor, friends call her a trailblazer. Either way, she relies on instinct to evolve an extraordinary visual path that is powerful, primal and uniquely.

http://www.lucymcrae.blogspot.com/

Juan Carlos Batista

born in 1960 Tenerife, lives and works in Tenerife

From his early carved sculptures dating back to the 1980s, the work of the Tenerife artist Juan Carlos Batista has always been underpinned by technical virtuosity and a shrewd selection of subject matters. The traditional finish is nonetheless quickly “contaminated” by a diversity of conceptual and processual interests the artist readily incorporates into his formal vocabulary in an ongoing evolution ever attentive to more experimental practices. His permanent experimentation would give rise in later works to a new twist in the supports used by Batista, leading to various series of photographic pieces, transformed nonetheless into sculptures by means of origami techniques. The artists changes techniques and media with consummate ease, making patent the constant for reflection and analysis always visible in his projects. For this Biennial, Batista is presenting a public sculpture titled Espiral aborigen near the El Médano beach. It consists of a maze-like horizontal structure contrasting with the surrounding landscape. At the same time, in the Hamilton park in Tacoronte, he also has the site-specific intervention El síndrome de Estocolmo, or Stockholm syndrome, a sculpture created from a tree and fully integrated into the surrounding environment, in what virtually amounts to an operation of “camouflaging” in the landscape. An action that, paradoxically, far from making it possible for the object to go unnoticed, reinforces just how out of place it is in a now hostile context.

http://www.juancarlosbatista.com/

 

 

Peter Skovgaard

Born in Kopenhagen 1960, Denmark, lives and works in Berlin and Aarhus

Peter Skovgaard’s work is expressionistic even spontaneous. His style is unique and personal, making it impossible to place him under a specific dogma. He mixes oil paint, with plexiglas, neon tubes and natural materials such as oak wood in his installations or interiours. - Adam and Eve, presuming they had existed, would treat Peter Skovgaard's space installations with feelings of slight discomfort and curiosity at the same time. This prehistoric showcase of an apparently natural separation of men and women, means the stereotypical attributes of male and women female are the focus of Skovgaard's new work.

http://www.peterskovgaard.com/

 

Objects and Paintings - Oil, wood and plexi glas - Installation - 2009