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).
BITTERER FRÜHLING | Charlottenwalk 3 - 4.6
The last week of the BITTERER FRÜHLING group show at EIGENHEIM Berlin is part of the Galerierundgang in Charlottenburg. this friday and saturday, 3 - 4 june, 2022.
more at galerie eigenheim.
bitterer frühling | galerie eigenheim berlin
The BITTERER FRÜHLING group show opens today at Galerie Eigenheim Berlin.
very happy to have new drawings from my ‘War Monsters’ series included alongside work by these other talented artists.
Opening: 29 April, 19 Uhr
running through Gallery Weekend Berlin.
virtual tour | locus anamnesis
Some thoughts and words on my work and practice, as part of this virtual tour of LOCUS ANAMNESIS.
the virtual exhibition is online for five more days, until 28.2.22.
visit locus anamnesis.
locus anamnesis | virtual exhibition
The LOCUS ANAMNESIS virtual exhibition is online 29 January - 28 February, 2022.
This newest series of drawings and paintings is a study of stimuli through which our minds experience the world. Complex processes are stripped to their bones, with their meaning broken down in diagrammatic space. Symbols create their own code as they point out roots and causes, mimicking the brain’s own process of sense-making on canvas.
The title - LOCUS ANAMNESIS - references Plato’s theory that simulation and stimulation are the only way for humans to bring back the knowledge we lost when born. We are unlearning in order to learn again; losing in order to recover.
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
DAS KOLLEKTIV | galerie eigenheim berlin
Your Body is My Body and We Are a Museum, 2021, is part of the collective exhibition-in-progress DAS KOLLEKTIV at Galerie Eigenheim Berlin. (Your Body is My Body and We Are a Museum, 2021, 36 x 48 cm / Sewn textile on canvas)
Your Body is My Body and We Are a Museum explores Jung’s concept of the Collective Unconscious (kollektives Unbewusstes) in a work whose meaning can be expanded through interchangeable sections. Even in the privacy of our unconscious we are intimately connected to one another — our minds are museums of shared collections.
DAS KOLLEKTIV runs until 18.9.2021, during Berlin Art Week.
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.
mobile roots | stockwerk/e-werk, weimar
MOBILE ROOTS group exhibition opens tomorrow, Friday, 6.8. 2021 at Stockwerk in E-Werk Weimar.
MOBILE ROOTS explores cultural identity as seen from the perspective of 4 transnational artists and their practice of developing stability amidst instability.
Artists:
Kathryn Gohmert (USA)
Qenji Yoshida (JPN)
Josephine Prkno (DE)
Moawya Al-Khadra (MAR, PSE)
Vernissage:
Friday, 6.8.2021 19:00 Uhr
Stockwerk in E-Werk Weimar
Music: Stephen Nolan with Ampersand.
Stockwerk is open daily 10:00 - 22:00
Exhibition runs until 22.8.2021
Curated by Gökçen Dilek Acay.
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.
Antonyms | Goethe-Institut China
Thanks Goethe-Institut China for the listing!
ANTONYMS runs 11.6 - 30.9 at the Department of Culture and Education of the German Consulate General Shanghai.
Organized/Curated by Zane Mellupe with WhyWhyArt and the Department of Culture and Education of the German Consulate General in Shanghai.
mon-fri: 10:00-18:30
venue: department of culture and education of the german consulate general shanghai
cross tower 101, fuzhou road 318, shanghai
Antonyms | WhywhyArt
The ANTONYMS exhibition opens this Friday 11 June with WhywhyArt and the Department of Culture and Education of the German Consulate General Shanghai.
Included is a recent work from my Light the Gas series focusing on gaslighting as a form of abuse.
ANTONYMS, in the form of ActOnitions, emphasizes the need to continue raising awareness for different “s(he) gender” social groups and aims to initiate conversation — and in the age of social media, there are channels for artists and activists to transmit a powerful message on a scale formerly unimaginable.
WhyWhyArt’s intention is to use ANTONYMS as an opportunity to give voice to the daily forms of violence experienced by those voiceless of the “s(he) gender”. ANTONYMS is a call, therefore, to push back against physical/economical; sexual/human rights and mental/political abuse.
ANTONYMS is organized by WhyWhyArt and the Department of Culture and Education of the German Consulate General Shanghai and is supported by ifa gallery (Brussels) and EASA.
Dates: 11th June – 30th September
Mon-Fri: 10:00-18:30
Venue: Department of Culture and Education of the German Consulate General Shanghai
Cross Tower 101, Fuzhou Road 318, Shanghai
Vernissage: 11th June 18.00 – 21.00
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.
