Many thanks to Theater Rudolstadt for hosting their “Hope vs. Chaos” event during the US election and inviting me to participate as one of their speakers.
It was a pleasure to be a part of this celebration, although the results of the election were not quite what we had hoped. What a highlight in what turned out to be a very difficult week for the world. Thank you MDR Thüringen for the lovely video.
Year of the Dragon
Happy Year of the Dragon!
May this lunar year of the wood dragon reward all your courage with extraordinary treasure.
Wishing you much abundance and joy and especially peace, wherever you find it.
新年快乐!
BIFED | Bozcaada, Turkey
It is a pleasure being on the jury this year for the 10th Bozcaada International Festival of Ecologic Documentary. Congratulations to all participants, especially the GAIA short documentaries!
More on BIFED here.
Happy Year of the Rabbit | 新年快乐!
a year of hope!
may we welcome
the abundance
of this
coming year
with an
inner peace.
Wishing you a prosperous
new lunar year.
You are also welcome to the Year of the Rabbit performance and print release (with bakläxa) on Saturday, 21 January at 7 pm as part my solo exhibition ‘FUTURA CEREBRA’ at EIGENHEIM Weimar. ‘FUTURA CEREBRA’ runs until 18 February, 2023.
My solo exhibition ‘DER ZAHN’ also finishes this week at Galerie HELL Berlin. ‘DER ZAHN’ is up until 19 January, 2023.
Christmas Catalog | Eigenheim Weimar/Berlin
Happy Holidays! My newest brain paintings are included in eigenheim weimar / berlin’s Christmas catalog with these other talented artists. More news also coming soon for 2023 …
view the catalog here or on their website.
Wishing everyone some chill and creative downtime with their chosen tribe this season.
MATERIALIZE IT | galerie eigenheim weimar
MATERIALIZE IT: material and its processing
EIGENHEIM Weimar, Asbachstraße 1, Weimar
Opening 22.10.2022, 7 pm
22.10. - 20.11.2022
Participating artists:
Gökçen Dilek Acay, Uli Aigner, Liz Bachhuber, Konstantin Bayer, Christoph Blankenburg
Benedikt Braun, Christian Claus, Frederik Foert, Enrico Freitag, Kathryn Gohmert
Kathrin Henschler, Rainer Jacob, Robert Krainhöfner, Adam Noack, Nina Röder
Stefan Schiek Michal Schmidt, Katrin Steiger, Gabriele Stötzer, José Taborda
„Materialize it“ behandelt die Vielseitigkeit der Materialien in der Kunst und die unterschiedlichen handwerklichen Verarbeitungsmöglichkeiten. Ob Stein, Ton, Holz, Metall, Glas, Plastik oder Öl auf Leinwand – das Material ist grundlegender Ausgangspunkt fast jeden künstlerischen Prozesses und jeder künstlerischen Forschung. Ein passendes Wortspiel für das Einwirken auf und Verändern von natürlichem Rohmaterial im Rahmen des künstlerischen Schöpfungsprozesses bestehend aus einem Dreiklang zwischen Material, intellektueller Leistung und handwerklicher Praxis.
more at galerie eigenheim…
6. Sommerakademie | Kulturhaus Häselburg
It was a pleasure lecturing and ninja-training the participants of this intensive course as part of 6. Sommerakademie this year.
many Thanks for having me Kulturhaus Häselburg Gera (more info here).
Happy Year of the Tiger! | 新年快乐!
Happy Year of the Tiger
*新年快乐*
A brave new year!
May we draw
all the inner strength,
cunning and bravery
we need this year
from our personal
inner tigers.
Wishing you a courageous
new lunar year.
Illustration: Year of the Tiger, 2022 / 21 x 14.8 cm / Graphite, pen and ink on paper
New Gonzomechanics Artists | *LLND
Gonzomechanics is thrilled to add French artist team *LLND to our collective. We are looking forward to collaborating together and showing more of their interactive work in our upcoming projects.
*LLND is an international media artist team merging sound, image and matter in an approach that combines physical reality, science, myth, technology, and real time. *LLND stands for the initials of Laurent Lettrée and Nathalie Delpech, who have been based in Shanghai, China since 2009.
Nathalie’s video and graphic art are a poetic meeting of the psychedelic and surrealism. With strong colours and forms borrowed from a revisited reality, she gives life to inanimate objects. Laurent is composer and self-taught electronic machinery builder. He explores sound and its multiple frequencies and rhythmic variations.
Image of ‘Music Garden’ installation, Shanghai, 2019.
new gonzomechanics artist | Caitlin Pickall
Gonzomechanics is pleased to add multimedia artist, Caitlin Pickall, to our collective!
Image from installation, ‘Lighstream 108’, 2018.
Caitlin Pickall is a multimedia installation artist. She combines audiovisual and constructed elements with sensors and custom software to create reactive objects and environments that address material culture, social rituals and processes of meaning-creation.
Her work explores the mental concepts used to define self and experience and the relationships between these constructs and physical space with an emphasis on fracturing and restructuring of space and time, networks and systems, and hybrid and liminal spaces.
Born in the United States, she has lived and worked in New York, Los Angeles, Paris and Berlin and is currently based in New York City.
Look forward to seeing more of Caitlin's interactive work in our upcoming projects.
Cover Art (in purple) | BELLSAINT'S "WFNEO"
A little late to the game in reposting this Partypartynails remix of the talented Bellsaintmusic’s anthem WFNEO — It’s been a part of my studio playlist this week and this version also features my work ‘Love and Terror’ (2010) with purple overtones.
Love and Terror is a mixed media work from 2010 that was inspired by Emerson’s words in ‘The Problem’ in which life is described as the physical cumulation of decisions we build around us like a house.
In this year of love and terror we’ve all experienced this work feels like an appropriate visual match to Bellsaint’s lyrics, which you can listen to here.
Gökçen Dilek Acay | DIE KONFERENZ DER TIERE
Special congratulations to Gonzomechanic Gökçen Dilek Acay for winning the 2021 thüringen Landesstipendium für Bildende Kunst!
Her solo show DIE KONFERENZ DER TIERE opens next week, 30.4 , at Galerie Eigenheim Berlin with an online vernissage at 19 Uhr. DIE KONFERENZ DER TIERE runs until 29.05.2021.
see more of Dilek’s work on the gonzomechanics website.
Happy Year of the Ox | 新年快乐
Happy Year of the Ox
*新年快乐*
Keep looking up.
Let this year be the year
we inhabit an oxlike,
calm persistence
in continuing our paths
while still showing ourselves
the grace we need.
Wishing you a wonderful
new lunar year.
New Gonzomechanics Artist | Chen Hangfeng
Gonzomechanics is pleased to add artist, Chen Hangfeng, to our artist collective. Look for more of Hangfeng's interactive work in our upcoming projects this year.
Image from installation, 'Where the Wind Comes From', 2010.
Image from installation, 'Where the Wind Comes From', 2010.
“‘Where the Wind Comes From’ explores the museumification of traditional culture – which has become more of a specimen of observation rather than a living, breathing part of contemporary Chinese culture. In this way, it seems the Chinese traditional culture can only come alive when we engage with it – read the classics, study poems or practice calligraphy. Without the presence of our gaze it becomes lifeless and still.
When the viewer comes close to this work, a motion sensor sets a number of fans into action, causing the plastic bamboo leaves to rustle in the wind. A “fake” traditional Chinese painting in fact revives the spirit of traditional gardens in the middle of a bustling street, which reflects on our own temporary presence as a “wind” stirring this changing society.”
Chen Hangfeng (1974) works in graphic, paper-cut, drawing, painting, installation, performance, photography and video. His practice has been focusing on film and moving images since 2010. His work deals with the issues of identity, contradictions brought by globalization, environmental changes and cultural transmutation; often realized through playful metaphor, and he merge concepts and mediums like an alchemist. He sees artist as a present-day incarnation of ancient philosopher, artisan and literati.
Chen currently works and lives between Shanghai and Amsterdam. He will become a researcher at the Master Program of Netherlands Film Academy from September 2021.
more about hangfeng’s work.
WFNEO lyric video | BELLSAINT
BELLSAINT’s gorgeous animated video for her new single WFNEO, runs its melody along a visual kaleidoscope that includes details from my mixed media work “Love and Terror” as complement to its empowering lyrics.
It’s a pleasure to have my work incorporated in the visual message of this grounding anthem.
more about BELLSAINT here.
more of my mixed media work here.
Love and Terror Cover Art | BELLSAINT'S single "WFNEO"
Really proud to have the piece Love and Terror used as BELLSAINT’s cover art for her new single “WFNEO”.
Love and Terror is a mixed media work from 2010 that was inspired by Emerson’s words in ‘The Problem’ in which life is described as the physical cumulation of decisions we build around us like a house:
“Such and so grew these holy piles / Whilst love and terror laid the tiles.”
I couldn't be happier to collaborate with my sister, combining these two complimentary works and giving voice to an anthem calling for change based on our collective coming together in love and bravery. In her words:
“If you look closely at the painting, you can see this line inscribed on the left edge of the mountain. “Love and terror” feels like a good way to describe the collective trauma we’ve been experiencing during this pandemic (& basically the past 4 years), and it reflects the emotion of “WFNEO” perfectly.”
We f*ing need each other.
Listen on soundcloud below:
GÖKÇEN DILEK ACAY | Böse in Mir/Dir
Congratulations to fellow-Gonzomechanic, Gökçen Dilek Acay. Her show ‘BÖSE IN MIR/DIR’ runs until 21.11.20 at Galerie Eigenheim, weimar.
details below:
GÖKÇEN DILEK ACAY - Böse in Mir/Dir
Vernissage 23.10.2020 um 19 Uhr
Dauer 24.10. – 21.11.2020 / Ort EIGENHEIM Weimar, Asbachstraße 1 (Gärtnerhaus im Weimarhallenpark), 99423 Weimar / Rahmenprogramm23.10. um 19:30h – Konzert mit Ayşe Kurultay (Gitarre), Josephine Prkno (Trompete), Stephen Nolan (Gitarre) und Gökçen Dilek Acay (Violine) / 30.10. ab 19:30h – Stickabend / 06.11. ab 14h bis 22h – Fotogram Workshop / 19.11. um 20.00h – Jam Session Music Abend
“Gökçen Dilek Acay diskutiert in ihrer Arbeit Konzepte der Unterdrückung, Macht und den zerstörerischen Aspekten des Menschen. Acay verwendet verschiedene Symbole um den Kontrast und den gegenseitigen Einfluss zwischen dem tierischen im Menschen und dem menschlichen im Tier zu zeigen. Macht ist ein Spiegelbild der modernen Gesellschaft und der politischen Struktur des Rohen und Instinktiven. Der moderne Mensch besteht nach Acay aus Widersprüchen. In ihrer Arbeit versuche sie, diese Wildheit und die Gewalt gegen weniger begünstigte Wesen sowie gegen den objektivierten und missbrauchten Körper herauszuarbeiten und darzustellen. ”
More about artist collective Gonzomechanics.
the creative life under corona
“Poetry slows us down, cherishes small details. A large disaster erases those details. We need poetry for nourishment and for noticing, for the way language and imagery reach comfortably into experience, holding it and connecting it more successfully than any news channel we could name.”
My fellow artists and I are lucky our profession isn’t limited to good times — that our work grows best under the effects of self isolation and pressure.
Instability has been part of most of our journeys for so long we’ve adapted to it, learning to navigate instead with intuition and grit, letting go of luxuries we never really needed.
Everything will be ok, even though it isn’t right now. Nothing is under control, and it never was.
Let’s keeping making our work.
Happy Year of the Rat | 新年快乐!
wishing a new lunar year of fresh beginnings to you and your loved ones with all the creativity, wit and adaptability the year of the rat has to offer.
looking forward to all the things ahead this upcoming year.
新年快乐!
residency 108 | clermont, new york
as part of residency 108’s artist in residence program, this month i will be realizing an original series of works incorporating the 108 acres as both a starting point and installation site.
while researching and interacting with the landscape and wildlife of the property, i will be documenting my process and work online here.
this project is ongoing from 30 april – 28 may.
