Zum Einstieg dieser neuen Podcast-Reihe „en dialogue avec…“ ein kurzer Diskurs zum Schwerpunktthema von Folge01: Galerien für Gegenwartskunst sind spätestens seit den 1950er Jahren bis heute Experimentierzellen für Künstler:innen und damit Seismographen für gesellschaftliche Prozesse. Der neutral weiße Ausstellungsraum will längst mehr sein und ist mehr als nur ein Verkaufsraum für Objekte und Bilder. Was aber motiviert Galerist:innen derzeit, was treibt sie an und welche Art von Kunst fasziniert sie? Für Podcastfolge01 habe ich ein Gespräch mit Galeristin Dr. Claudia Giani-Leber führen dürfen, ihre Galerie ARTE GIANI führt sie bereits seit 31 Jahren in Frankfurt.
ZÜNDSTOFF: “SCHADET MR. TRUMP’S ZOLLPOLITIK NUN AUCH DEM INTERNATIONAL AGIERENDEN KUNSTMARKT?“
Ich treffe mich mit Galeristin Dr. Claudia Giani-Leber in ihrem Büro im Frankfurter mainBuilding. Es ist ein typischer regnerischer und damit grauer Apriltag inmitten der Finanzmetropole. Daher vermisse ich sogleich beim Betreten der Galerieräume, die inzwischen eingepackten Bilder Jutta Obenhubers. Die kahlen weißen Wände warten nun regelrecht auf die Hängung neuer Werke: Die aktuelle Ausstellung der Galerie Arte Gianiwird mit einer Vernissage am 23. April eröffnet und zeigt bis zum 6. Juni 2025 Arbeiten der Frankfurter Künstlerin Irene Hardjanegara . Über die besondere Technik sowie Wirkung von Hardjanegaras Bilder spreche ich ausführlich mit der Galeristin. Doch nicht nur über die Künstler:innen der Galerie, zugleich auch über die Funktion des Galerieraumes als Gegenpol zu einer virtuellen Lebenswelt sprechen wir und über die junge Generation potenzieller Kunstsammler:innen.
In Anbetracht der gerade veröffentlichten Zahlen, stellt sich zudem die beunruhigende Frage: steckt der Kunstmarkt in einer länger andauernden Krise? Ein kürzlich gemeinsam von der Kunstmesse Basel und der Schweizer Bank UBS veröffentlichter Bericht geht von einem Umsatzrückgang von 12 Prozent im Vorjahr auf dem weltweiten Kunstmarkt aus. Ich frage die erfahrene Galeristin Giani-Leber nach ihrer Einschätzung: Könnten Trumps angekündigten Zölle und das ständige Auf und Ab an den Börsen den Kunstmarkt in diesem Jahr zusätzlich belasten?
Blick in die eröffnete Ausstellung: Galeristin Dr. Claudia Giani-Leber mit Werken der Künstlerin Irene Hardjanegara.
Weitere Arbeiten der Ausstellung:
Irene Hardjanegara: Detail von Note to Self 11, 2021–2022, Acryl und Tusche auf Portraitleinen, H 140 x B 230 cmIrene Hardjanegara: Detail von a glimpse of a possible direction 1, 2023 Kreide auf emailliertem Stahl, H 149 x B 119 cmIrene Hardjanegara: Structure And Dynamics Of Large Scale Cascading Failure 02 2016 / 2017 (o.: ganze Ansicht, u. Detailfoto). Zeichentusche auf Papier, 150 x 241 cmFotos von Raffaele Horstmann (Abb. Werke)
„Why We Need Art Now“?, die Interviewreihe mit international schaffenden Medienkünstler*innen geht weiter: nachdem die ersten Künstlergespräche aufgrund von Covid19 leider räumlich getrennt stattfinden mussten, konnte ich Künstlerin Gabrielle Zimmermann nun in ihrem Wohnatelier über den Dächern von Stuttgart persönlich treffen. Dieser direkte Gedankenaustausch war eine besondere Freude. Hört euch die daraus hervorgegangene Audioaufnahme am besten gleich an und erfahrt so mehr über die spannenden Arbeiten der zwischen Frankreich und Deutschland pendelnden Künstlerin. Viel Spaß dabei.
Begleitend zum Interview stelle ich euch hier im Blog noch einige biografische Informationen sowie Fotos, Videos und Sounds von der Künstlerin vor.
Studiert hat Gabrielle Zimmermann eigentlich bei den Professoren Tilman Osterwold und Beat Wyss an der Universität Stuttgart. Doch schnell wurde der Kunsthistorikerin klar, dass sie ihre Sammelleidenschaft für elektronische Musik, ihr Interesse an Video- sowie Performancekunst lieber in eigene künstlerische Produktionen fließen lassen möchte. Entstanden ist inzwischen ein medial vielfältiges Werk, das autobiografische Splitter enthält und feinsinnig Fragen nach weiblicher Identität und nach Geschlechterrollen stellt, welche die Künstlerin als gesellschaftlich gesetzte Normen entlarvt, indem sie beispielsweise das Spiel der Maskerade oder eine akustische wie visuelle Überschreitung eben dieser Normen anwendet.
Wem gehört der Körper? Wer hat Zugang zu den Öffentlichen Institutionen und zur Macht? Mit Fragen wie diesen adressiert uns die Künstlerin, Jahrgang 1971, immer aufs Neue.
In ihrer Video- und Performance-Reihe „Sinnlose Tätigkeiten, mit großer Sorgfalt ausgeführt“ lässt sie uns beispielsweise hinter die verschlossenen Türen eines Labors blicken. Naturwissenschaftliche Experimente finden stets streng geheim in antiseptischen Kammern statt. Anders bei Gabrielle Zimmermann: Live vor Publikum führt sie präzise Tätigkeiten aus, welche die Methoden der Naturwissenschaft, so suggeriert es schon der surreal anmutende Titel, ad absurdum zu führen scheinen. Das Material, dem sich die Künstlerin in gleich mehreren Video- und Live-Performances widmete ist ein wahrer Alleskönner: es geht um das Material Plastik. Gleich mehrmals bearbeitete die Performerin so genannte Abfallprodukte der Industriegesellschaft, indem sie mit dem Skalpell etwa kleine Segmente aus einer Noppenfolie heraus trennte. Ein symbolischer Schnitt durch die Errungenschaften des Industriezeitalters?
Das optisch ästhetische Material, das sich bekanntlich zu unzähligen Massenprodukten verarbeiten lässt, ist allerdings zu einem großen Problem für unsere Umwelt geworden. Ihre Faszination für und ihre zugleich Kritik am globalen Plastkboom thematisierte die Künstlerin in gleich mehreren Arbeiten, wie wir im Interview erfahren.
Ich spreche außerdem mit Gabrielle Zimmermann über ihre Soundarbeit mit dem mysteriös klingenden Titel „F432“ und wir erfahren, was ihre im Rahmen der Gruppenschau „Beyond the Pain“ gezeigte Installation „Black Box“ 2020 mit der Empfindung von Schmerz, Folter sowie Lust zu tun hat. Weshalb ein dunkler Raum Schutz und leider genau das Gegenteil bedeuten kann.
Gabrielle Zimmermann: O.T. [BLACK BOX], Sound-Installation, Sound: 09:45 Min., Holzbox, 2020. Die Arbeit wurde eigens produziert für die Ausstellung BEYOND THE PAIN 2020 in der Galerie Stadt Sindelfingen (Foto: Henning Krause)
Viele Themen der Künstlerin, bemerke ich im Laufe unseres Gesprächs, sind in Anbetracht der weltpolitischen Lage, in Anbetracht des Krieges inmitten von Europa sowie der Spätfolgen von Covid19 hoch aktuell. So dürfen wir uns fragen, ob wir tatsächlich schon raus aus der Home-Office-Schleife sind, ob das sozial-gesellschaftliche Leben zum ganz normalen Alltag übergangen ist? Ob die selbst gesetzte Isolation und der Rückzug in unsere private häusliche Sphäre der Vergangenheit angehören? Mehr wird nun aber nicht mehr verraten. Zum Interviewbeitrag bitte wieder nach oben scrollen.
Gabrielle Zimmermann: Sinnlose Tätigkeiten, mit großer Sorgfalt ausgeführt, NR. 1, 2019/20, HD Video (Slowmotion-Loop)Sinnlose Tätigkeiten, mit großer Sorgfalt ausgeführt V NR. 1, 2017 Performance 60 min.; „Die Performance wurde aus einer Installation heraus für die Ausstellung „Praxis“ in einem temporären Projektraum entwickelt – unter Verwendung alter und abgelaufener Silikon-Brustimplantate“. (Foto: Oliver Herrmann)
Sinnlose Tätigkeiten, mit großer Sorgfalt ausgeführt, Video-Stills der Werkreihe: L.: IV NR.1, HD Video, 00:37:36, 2014/15; M.: III NR.1, HD Video, 01:12:49, 2013; R.: IV NR.1.1, Performance, Aktionsraum Württembergischer Kunstverein, 2015 (Foto: Oliver Herrmann)
Gabrielle Zimmermann: INSOUT, 438 MOVEMENTS, Video-Performance, ZeroTV, 438 Sek., 2021 „Eine Baustellenfolie begrenzt wie eine halbtransparente Membran einen Raum im Raum, mit 1.5 – 2m Abstand zur Wand. Die schwarz gekleidete Figur dahinter ist nur schemenhaft zu erkennen, eine verschwommene Abstraktion ins monochrome, eine Choreographie der Isolation in 438 Sekunden. Jede Bewegung pro Sekunde steht für einen Tag – 438 Tage. Es ist die Zeitspanne seit dem ersten Lockdown, der für Gabrielle Zimmermann am 15.03.2020 in Frankreich begann.“
Gabrielle Zimmermann: F432, Audiopiece, 2021 F432 entstand während des Lockdowns im März 2021. Kopfhörer oder Lautsprecher werden dringend empfohlen, damit alle Frequenzen hörbar sind.
Past, Future, Fear; Foto zur Soundreihe, 2021 „Am 02.11.2021 gehen drei Soundpieces öffentlich online. An diesem Tag jährt sich der Beginn des längsten Lockdowns in Deutschland. Diese drei Arbeiten sind nun das erste Mal frei zugänglich zu hören“. (Foto: Gaëtan Aguado)
Du findest alle drei Soundpieces von „Past, Future, Fear“ zusammen mit weiteren Arbeiten der Künstlerin in Form von Fotomaterial und einem CV auf ihrer Homepage/ CV and other Works at: www.gabriellezimmermann.de
The two Frankfurt artists Özlem Günyol and Mustafa Kunt talk in an interview about their latest work and how the pandemic has surprisingly changed their approach. We present the work here in advance.
Hortense Pisano: Dear Özlem, dear Mustafa, what are you working on right now?
Özlem Günyol, Mustafa Kunt: At the moment,we are working on two projects that are related to the human body in different ways. While one of the projects deals with the body’s relation to outer structures, the other examines the body itself as a central theme.
The second one is almost finished, which is a self-portrait project that consists of two stencil rulers which are made with the cross-sections of our bodies from top to the bottom. The project is called “Herself/Himself” and it is about the experience of isolation.
We were in Izmir, Turkey as the pandemic started to spread in Europe in March 2020. As the borders closed, we had to extend our stay in Izmir until the end of June 2020. During this period, especially the first 3 months, we had to go into lockdown. Not being able to go out, except for shopping once every two weeks, was almost like an experiment on the self.
As we are in constant communication with our surroundings, the experience of very limited interaction with others – both visually and tactilely, didn’t just created a distance to the other things but as well as to the self. With limited interaction, most of the definitions of the self that are created by the relations with the surroundings got lost. Paradoxically, this happened at a time when we were by ourselves more than ever.
„Herself/Himself” is an outcome of this paradoxical situation. It attempts to reposition one’s self in new circumstances and underlines the isolation by materialising the body. This repositioning creates a space to contemplate whether the new circumstances provide a closer look or further distancing of understanding ourselves.„
Does the pandemic change your work? If yes, how? And if not, why not?
The pandemic has changed the way we live life. First, it has slowed down everything. In our case, the studio work is needed when it comes to finalizing the work. The creation part is almost always connected to the things happening around us. So, limited interaction changed the way we work as well.
Things change and continue in new directions all the time, however this time, the difference was having had an experience in a collective level. We’ll see the effects of this collective experience on our work in time.
The reopening of museums and exhibition halls could be an opportunity to rethink to rethink the exhibition practice. What would you like to see change as you would like?
We expect that these institutions don’t just continue with their programs when things start to get back to normal, but also make a room to think of the effects of this collective experience.
I find, on the one hand, you have found a new language to express yourself: parts of your own body are „processed“. Using your own body as material is something new, isn’t it?
Yes, materializing our body in this way is something very new in our work, however our approach is quite similar to our work in general. There are some early works as well, where we had used our bodies directly during the school days.
What process is documented in the two photos? What are the dimensions and what kind of material is used? Are the depicted drawings the body measurements, and dimensions? Have you transferred these then to the rulers?
At first, we took the cross-section moulds of our bodies from top to the bottom using plaster as our material. Then these moulds were used to make the drawings of the cross-sections. Afterwards, these drawings were scanned, brought together in a computer program and then used to make the vector drawings. The vector files are used to make the final design of the rulers.
Are these rulers the final work ? How would you show this work later in an exhibition?
Side by side on the wall.
This way of measuring and taking measurements fits very well with the conceptual approach of your work.
Yes, there are multiple pieces of work that we have made with the idea of measuring or scaling.
Many thanks to both artists to present their new work here and to give insight into their working methods.
Selection of works:
Özlem Günyol and Mustafa Kunt have been working together since 2005. In their works, they investigate representation of individual and collective belonging, meaning of language, symbols, and information conveyed by the media, as well as their link to culturally coded patterns of understanding. This way, they contribute to the critical reflection on current societal questions of cultural and societal affiliation. With their artistic approach they structurally alter and transform the way these questions are being answered. In order to do that, the artists use methods such as translation, coding, deconstruction, classification, juxtaposition, and superimposition. Özlem Günyol (d. 1977, Ankara) and Mustafa Kunt (d. 1978, Ankara) after graduating from Hacettepe University Ankara in 2001, they moved to Frankfurt to continue their education at Städelschule. Artist’s selected prizes include; Städel-Prize, DE (2005); Jürgen Ponto-Stiftung Work Grant, DE (2008); J.W. Hector Kunstpreis, 2nd Place Award, DE (2009); ars viva Prize for Fine Arts, Kulturkreis der Deutschen WirtschaftDE (2012); Hessische Kulturstiftung Travel Grant 2015-16, DE (2014); HAP Grieshaber Preis der VG Bild-Kunst, DE (2017). Özlem Günyol and Mustafa Kunt live and work in Frankfurt am Main.
… in Brasiliens Küstenstadt Salvador de Bahia ist das tatsächlich so. Das komplette Gespräch mit dem brasilianischen Künstler, Jovan Mattos, über die erschwerten Realisierungsbedingungen von Street Art heute und über das Arbeiten mit dem typischen Pflasterraster, das die Straßen in Bahia prägt, findet ihr im Anschluss an diesen Video-Beitrag.
Während die Museen kurz vor der erneuten Schließung stehen, bleibt die Straße für alle offen. Dies gilt insbesondere für Brasiliens Hauptstädte. Auch die Küstenstadt Salvador de Bahia verfügt über zahlreiche Graffitikünstler. Ihre Zeichen, Codes, Texte und Bilder sprühen die urbanen Aktivisten sowohl auf die teils leerstehenden Holzhäuser der historischen Altstadt als auch auf die moderne Betonarchitektur der autoreichen Neustadt. Jovan Mattos, Jahrgang’ 83, gehört zur Szene. Wem gehört die Stadt?, fragen eindringlich seine Graffitis, die er mit GIFs kombiniert. Die Digitalisierung und Überwachung des urbanen Raumes findet gerade weltweit statt. In Brasilien wird das Thema Sicherheit in den Stadtzentren immer weiter vorangetrieben. Jovan Mattos Graffitis beschäftigen sich mit diesen Schnittstellen, der Mensch im digitalen Zeitalter, zwischen Kontrolle, Überwachung und Vereinsamung sowie der Sehnsucht nach Kommunikation, Austausch und einem direkten Miteinander – Voraussetzung einer jeden städtischen Kultur. Ein Thema, das uns also alle angeht.
While the museums are about to close again, the street remains open to all. The Brazilian coastal city of Salvador de Bahia has numerous graffiti artists. The are urban activists spray their signs, codes, texts and images on the partly empty wooden houses of the historic old town as well as on the modern concrete architecture that characterises the car-rich new town. Jovan Mattos, born in ’83, belongs to the scene. Who owns the city?, his graffiti ask us, which he combines with gifs. The digitalisation and surveillance of urban space is happening all over the world right now. In Brazil, the issue of security in city centres is being pushed further and further. Jovan Matto’s graffiti deals with the interfaces, the human being in the digital age, between control, surveillance and loneliness as well as the longing for communication, exchange and a direct togetherness – prerequisite of any urban culture. A topic that concerns us all.
Hortense:Jovan, du lebst in Salvador de Bahia, in der drittgrößten Stadt Brasiliens. Eine Stadt, deren koloniales Erbe noch überall spürbar ist. Es ist eine charmante Stadt, reich an Kulturgeschichte, die aber von vielen Spannungen gekennzeichnet ist. Salvador verfügt zugleich über eine rege Szene an jungen Künstlern, Gestaltern, Performern. Ihr sorgt für frischen Wind im Kulturbetrieb und ihr prägt das Stadtbild nachhaltig durch eure Interventionen und Räume mit. Der urbane Raum ist auch Thema deiner Doktorarbeit, was erforscht du? / Urban space is currently the subject of your doctoral thesis, what are you researching?
Jovan:I develop a poetics about the interface for the realisation of urban art. For this, I play visually with familiar symbols of contemporary communication, such as a computer keyboard or a mobile phone. Equipped with a black and white stencil, I walk through the city – always with the intention of creating poetic interference via the interface…
Another interface is created by using the QR code to display GIFs and videos on the street. My aim is to explore what can be human, sublime or subjective in the in-between space to create narratives in what is conceived as this space and time of passages to create an interface between the urban space and the virtual space.
Hortense: Mich würde interessieren, wie Passanten auf den bisweilen gefahrvollen Straßen, auf deine Graffitis und Barcodes reagieren? Gehen sie auf deine Bilder zu?/ How do people deal with the graffiti and barcodes? How do they approach the images?
Jovan: I actually follow the works, especially those on the more common routes that I take. And so I observed once a family taking a photo of themselves next to my picture „conversa01“. They took a photo with their mobile phone but didn’t decipher the code. The staging in the code carries a certain hermetism because of this lack of culture of decoding.
conversa01, 2019
There is another interesting aspect of „conversa01“: I chose a small abandoned playground that was overgrown with tall grass and bushes. After my intervention, the park and the playground was suddenly taken care of. Maybe because I did something obvious, they cared about the place again, maybe also because the work tells a bit about the digital world in which children live and how at the same time parks are abandoned .
What surprised me was to see that my work was not erased during the renovation. It is a completely illegal work and it was obtained.
Hortense: Graffitis haben in Salvador eine große Akzeptanz. So gibt es etwa erfreulich viele Künstlerinnen in der Sprüherszene, du hast davon berichtet und eine habe ich dann getroffen. Hat sich der Umgang im urbanen Raum zuletzt verschärft? Deine Arbeit „dronefobia“ von 2019 verstehe ich als deutliche Kritik an der digitalen Überwachung des Stadtraums./ Has the interaction in urban areas recently become more severe?
Jovan: Salvador has been benefiting from a political fight between right and left wing, based on who builds more improvements to the city. But this changes almost nothing. Slavery and secular system of inequality have produced a structure of urban violence in which the experience of such obscurity creates a desire for some state surveillance.
„For the urban artist, therefore, there are two challenges: the state and the law that prohibits our graphic interventions, on the other hand, a society of necessity that harasses us, sometimes violently. In this sense, the freedom of non-surveillance goes hand in hand with the possibilities of spending a night in no-man’s land. To intervene at night in the city is a political act of civil disobedience, as well as an act of courage. „
Dronefobia, 2019
Hortense: Eine Nacht im Niemandsland, was genau meinst du damit? / A night in „no man’s land“, what exactly do you mean by that?
Jovan: What I mean is, when I moved around the city at night to intervene with art, I certainly felt a sense of freedom … but in fact the police can show up at any time, just like everywhere else. On the other hand, if we didn’t have the surveillance of the state, which can be a protection, we would be like in a kind of „no man’s land“, I mean, a territory without law.
Hortense: Weshalb existiert bis heute eine Form der Sklaverei in deinem Land? Könntest du uns das genauer erklären. / Why is that form of slavery still exist in your country today? Could you explain that to us in more detail.
Jovan: In Brazil every year 50.000 to 60.000 people are murdered. It is one of the most unequal countries in the world, with people with a lot of money, a white elite. On the other hand, most of the poor are black, the beggars are black, the prisoners are black. Many explain this reality by the fact that Brazil was the last country to end slavery. After slavery no piece of land was given to the former slaves, nor a program or historical reparation. So, what I mean is that slavery, and the way it ended, is also responsible for the existence of this structural violence in the city.
Jovan Mattos, Salvador de Bahia, 2019
Hortense: Deine Graffitis visualisieren für mich auch unsere Sehnsucht, ob groß oder klein, miteinander in Kontakt zu kommen. Für diese Sehnsucht findest du stimmige Bilder. Wie sich während des Covid-Lockdowns zeigt, führt uns der reine Austausch über digitale Medien aber in eine körperliche Isolation, womöglich in die Vereinsamung. Ist das deine Kritik als Künstler an den neuen Medien? / Is that your criticism as an artist of the new media?
Jovan: A criticism-confession! (laughs) It is true that this cyberspace encourages encounters between people, allows us to meet many people who have already passed through our lives, to maintain contacts with family and even to meet people in a reasonable way. But on the other hand, there is an affection of loneliness in this relationship with a mass of information, images, sounds and videos.
„The citizen’s room can become a solitary cave, a profile on the Internet can be an avatar or a mask to hide the body and the eye to eye. In this sense, the poetry of the interface is be based on the relation of use of the subject, its facts and subjectivities, its possibilities in this interfaced space.„
All this technocracy interests me, all the interface apparatuses, relations and technological creations, but not only through criticism, but also through celebration. This fetishistic effect that makes people hitch themselves to what “tech”, stimulates me, because it is a self-analysis, an attempt to push away the ghost of arranged identities and easy added values. For me, it’s important to balance between a technophile and a technophobe posture.
HortenseWie hat die Pandemie, Covid19, deine Arbeit verändert?/ How has the pandemic, Covid19, changed your work?
Jovan: It hasn’t changed much, I was always a little too homemade, I go out a little. In addition, this forced virtualization of everyone and everything, reinforced the idea of exploring a virtual, urban, something in the interface, an urban design or a code.
Jovan Mattos, Memória, 2016
In Salvador hast du mir damals eine deiner Wandarbeiten vorgestellt.Dafür verarbeitest du die typischen Pflastersteine Salvadors. /In Salvador, you introduced me to one of your wall works where you used the typical cobblestones of Salvador for it.
Yes, I worked for a few years with Portuguese stone, this technique of creating mosaics in black and white stones for pavements, but I applied this reference to sculpture, fusing the stone with urban objects, an organic and human form in a city context. The pavement thing brought me to the urban, so I made gallery and salon art inspired by the street. This art also had a regional and local reference, like an accent. When I turned to urban stencil art, I was looking for a certain lightness of medium and a direct connection to the urban. Combining the virtual global with the physicality of the local is one of the challenges I try to work on. Today, creating is about connecting the stone with the pixel, light and dark, stone and digital, light and heavy, local and global.
Jovan Mattos, Memória, 2016 – Portuguese Stone – b/w stencil graffiti
Hortense: Was könnte sich deiner Meinung nach in den Museen Brasiliens nach deren Wiedereröffnung, nach dem Lockdown, verändern?/What do you think could change in Brazil’s museums after the lockdown?
Jovan: I would like more young people to go to museums, in the same way that dance parties go today. I would like to see the market more connected to the museum or vice versa, I would like the museum to foster more culture, immateriality and performances, but at the same time, I would like the production of culture to be a less mysterious professional path.
Jovan Mattos, „WI-FI, Zona de Guerra“, 2019Jovan Mattos, „WI-FI, Zona de Guerra“, 2019Jovan Mattos, „conversa01“, Salvador, 2019Jovan Mattos, „Dronefobia“ 2019Jovan Mattos, Memória, 2016
Jovan Mattos was born in 1983 in Salvador, Brazil. He entered the School of Fine Arts at UFBA (Federal University of Bahia) in 2003. He has produced performances, drawings and videos, which he continually enters in salons. He won the main prize at the 2007 Salão Regional de Artes Plásticas da Bahia in Feira de Santana with the work „Boa noite Carlos Gomes“. The sculpture was later exhibited at the MAM (Museum of Modern Art) and at the „Vila Velha“ theatre. The work was very striking in his production, bringing the Portuguese stone and the life of downtown Salvador to his poetics. In 2008 he won the Acquisition Prize at the Bienal do Recôncavo with the work „Minérios“.
He graduated in Fine Arts at UFBA in 2009. In 2010, together with professor David Iannitelli, he designed the set for the show „Mobius“ of the GDC (Contemporary Dance Group) of UFBA. Practiced painting and engraving for a few months in the atelier of the artist Edson da Luz. He did a brief technical training and spent two years working in engineering companies as a designer and modeller of industrial piping. He was invited in 2013 by the artist Vinícius S/a to participate in the artistic residence“ kulturamt“ in Frankfurt, Germany.
The experience lasted 2 months. In 2014 he won the edict of the „Visual Arts Sector“ of the State of Bahia with the exhibition „Minérios“ that counted with the participation of Edgard Oliva, Rosa bulchaft, Erivan Moraes and Umeru Bahia. Today Jovan Mattos continues to develop his research in visual arts as a master student in PPAV (Graduate Program in Visual Arts) in the School of Fine Arts (UFBA).
NeedArtNow: Paola Anziché im Gespräch mit Hortense Pisano
Dear Paola, I appreciate your work very much and would like to show them, as you know, in an exhibition. Now I have the opportunity to use this virtual studio visit to draw attention to the special nature of your sculptural objects, which we would now like to talk about in more detail.
For all non-Frankfurt residents, I would like to briefly introduce the artist: Paola, you were born in Milan in 1975, you also attended the prestigious Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera there (1995 to 1999) and then you came to Frankfurt in 2000 to study at the internationally oriented art academy, the Städelschule. We also know each other from that time. You were in Frankfurt for a total of four years.
My first question: Where did you get the impulse to study at the Städelschule, since Düsseldorf is just as well known and renowned as an art academy? – Did you already want to get away from the tradition-bound medium of painting as a student?Paola:Yes, definitely, I was studying traditional restoration and fresco painting as well mosaics, so I really wanted to explore contemporary art practices, after a visit at my first Biennale di Venezia 1999, I was so excited, than I felt the urgency to make a drastic cut with the past.
Fondazione Remotti, Camogli, 2012
I came to Frankfurt because I had the opportunity to spend a semester with the Erasmus program during my time at the fine art Accademia Brera in Milano, and I choose to come in Germany, so I was selected for the Städelschule. After 8 months I asked for a regular enrollment and I became a full time student. First I was at the Christa Näher class and later in the international class of Tobias Rehberger. In that period, my English was terrible, I was translating letterally from Italian, and my German was zero, so I had to start a new way of expression…
What was it like for you to study at the Städelschule? Great, but also very demanding, I think it was that kind of choice that you take when you are quite young; anyway it was a very important step in my life. At the Städelschule, I stayed four years and three more years in Frankfurt.
Installation view at Fondazione Remotti, Camogli, 2012
Since your return to Italy, to Turin, you have been very productive and have been able to exhibit your work in Turin as well as in many other countries. Let’s talk about how you develop your works: where do you get your ideas Paola?It has been a gradual process; I can talk about it explaining several steps:First step: my work was a in a performative phase, in collaboration with dancers that started in Frankfurt, at that period I was working in Das TAT, so I was really interest in contemporary dancing.Second step: my practice became an environmental work like in the case of the show at the Fondazione Sandretto and at big performance work presented at the Fondazione Merz. The viewer could act in the work. Third step: while I was exploring and researching on the work of Lygia Clark, I shot a film on her classes in Paris, and from that moment on I started to be more interested in the sensorial aspect of physical work. It was a very important and revelatory experience for me – working on this aspect of Lygia Clark’s practice… – because it forced me to go beyond the first look of the artwork, digging deeper into aspects not immediately visible…
SCIAMI, 2020
Fourth step: I can say that today, in my work, I consider organic materials very interesting , my sculptures always have a sensorial aspect , I even use organic materials , as Orange peel , bees wax… and natural fibers It’s like I deliberately put the focus on physicality from the initial performers to the viewer that now become the center of experience. My work consider the relation with the viewer .
„… we need to show the work in public, in my case I need to show it, I can not only work in the studio, I need interaction, I need to talk outside of the studio. I’m not a lonely or solitary person … I’m not attracted at all to virtual tour or 3d or virtual spaces …„ (Paola)
To get a better idea of what your works look like, let’s talk about those materials you choose. They are fabrics and mostly natural materials from which you develop – I think – very poetic objects. I’m thinking, for example, of „Voci II“ from 2012. Are those fruits, pumpkins that you processed? They remind me a bit – the organic forms – of works by Eva Hesse.Actually it is the physical natural material that suggests sculpture to me, or bring me to completion – I do not use any toxic material (like the ones so used in the sixties by artists like Eva Hesse and many others…) – To me the choice of ecological material is very important… lagenarian gourds were used as container in ancient times and still today in countries such as Africa or South Asia. These pumpkins have many functions, the first time I saw them in Brazil, they were used in Candomble – an African diasporic religion – some of these pumpkins look like bottles, barrels – they are containers. In my work „Voci II“, some of the pumping come from Brasil, others from farmers in Italy.
Voci II, 2012
In some countries, pumpkins are also used for processing instruments. Is there a connection between them and music?Yes, in the specific case of the work you mentioned „Voci II“ inside the Calabash there are various seeds, and I was interested in the percussive element produced by those vegetables. So, I developed an interest in anthropological customs and traditions.
To learn more about this: Concerning your way of producing and also the choice of the as already said mostly natural materials, do you refer here to the art and culture of South America?Not so directly… I have been more attracted by botanical gardens and parks. In the case of Rio de Janeiro, the plants that have adapted to the climate in the city were imported from all over the world by Burle Marx, an Brazilian landscape architect. – During my residency program I spent there, some time in Brasile, Bolivia, Cameroon, each of this residency experience where for different purposes.
Touching and Changing Naranca, 2017
Your objects arouse associations in the viewer: sometimes one feels reminded of a woven lamp, sometimes of baskets, sometimes of a mask, for example. But your works probably don’t have these functions at all. Do you consciously play with these interfaces – functional – disfunctional?
I get inspired by anthropological objects, constructions, but for me the important result is the sculptural shape. I like to work with organic shapes so curved and soft lines are very important to me: roundness, it is feminine, mother…„
You mentioned an interest in anthropological customs and traditions, which customs exactly do you mean?I’m interestedin Craft traditions, textile traditions, weaving, basketry, ceramic craft, popular craft, especially textiles because you can read and recognize cultural identity based on material culture. Material culture- as it has been studied for years by anthropologists – is the most accurate and significant expression of human creativity as synthesized over the centuries. For example: Natural fibers were used to weave everyday objects long before plastic invention. And they are so refined so extraordinair that you can see and understand how much knowledge has been put express in those techniques. The result of a collective intelligence expressied in so many century, as in anonymous architecture...
Natural Fibers, 2016
Take for example my work "Sciami": The irregular handmade weaved works are the result of a practice between weaving and painting that draws sequences of patterns. Textures of fabric soaked in melted wax, by working with this material I rediscover the therapeutic qualities and beneficial virtues as beeswax possesses. The works possess their own fragrance, sweet as honey, produced by bees that collect pollen from flowers; the combination of colors - in the soft textures..
One could also see in the materials you use and your turn to customs of non-European cultures, including Arab, South American, and African, an interest in post-colonial issues and coming to terms with them. Would you confirm that?Actually I’m not interested in reproducing pre-existing techniques but I got inspired and I tend to re-work and reinvent techniques, in fact my working attitude is a quite long process… because I have to familiarize with actual technique that I elaborate. In every Research I’m developing, I have to create a new way of working…
Sustainability Thinking, 12 april/ 8march 2020 at the Museo Salvatore Ferragamo in Firenze
Besides your exhibitions you also develop workshops and these often have a social component. What role does this social aspect play in your work?Not really a socialcomponent, but a collective sensory aspect has an important value, I believe in the potentiality of individual people … in my workshop you can be helped to discover your own potentiality.
Finally, the question: Can we learn anything from this breathing space in which we cultural workers all find ourselves at the moment? – Or how do you assess the current situation as an artist?Yes, we need to show the work in public, in my case I need to show it, I can not only work in the studio, I need interaction, I need to talk outside of the studio. I’m not a lonely or solitary person … I’m not attracted at all to virtual tour or 3d or virtual spaces …
Thank you Paola for the interview.
La terra suona, The Earth Sounds, 2016
Paola Anziché (Milan, Lives in Turin and Milan) obtained a degree at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera and at the Städelschule, Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste, Meisterschülerin, Frankfurt, Germany. 2019 the monography „La terra suona/ The Earth Sounds“ has been published by Viaindustriae publishing.
Her work has been exhibited in numerous public and private institutions, including the Salvatore Ferragamo Museum in Florence; Turner Contemporary in Margate, England; the Remotti Foundation in Camogli; the Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Foundation in Turin; the Kichik QalArt in Yarat, Baku, Azerbaijan; the GAM -Gallery of Modern Art of Turin, and Careof, Milan.
She has participated in numerous international residency programs as Temporars at Muzeum Susch, Susch, Switzerland; Kiosko Galería in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia, HIAP Residency Program in Helsinki; SYB Artist Residency in Beetsterzwaag, The Netherlands; RES.O ‘international network for art residencies, Turin; Pact Zollverein Zentrum in Essen and the Centre international d’accueil et d’échanges des Récollets in Paris. She also collaborated teaching at the College of Art at the University of Technology in Taiyuan, Shanxi, China. http://www.paolanziche.net/
„The camera serves as a gateway to a parallel dimension, where queer identities, through the language and power of their bodies, put binary and heteronormative systems to question, the systems that have tried to alienate and suppress them for many years.“
Interview with Jetmir Idrizi, Berlin
Lieber Jetmir, selbstbewusste, sexy Persönlichkeiten entdecken wir auf den Bildern deiner viel beachteten Brasilien-Fotoserie . Eine ganz andere Stimmung eröffnet sich uns beim Betrachten von „Museum of Bad Memories“. So unterschiedlich beide Fotoserien sind, gibt es, wie ich finde, auch eine Art roten Faden, der diese und andere Arbeiten verbindet: deine Beschäftigung mit der Bildung nationaler Identität, ebenso die Frage nach Geschlechter-Identitäten und -Rollen. Worum geht es in deinem neuen Berlin-Projekt „Queerantine“; einige Abbildungen hast du mir zur Veröffentlichung zugesandt./ Dear Jetmir, self-confident, sexy personalities we discover in the pictures of your much acclaimed Brazil photo series. A completely different mood opens up to us when we look at „Museum of Bad Memories“. As different as both photo series are, I think there is also a kind of common thread that connects these and other works: your preoccupation with the formation of national identity, as well as the question of gender identities and roles. What is your Berlin project „Queerantine “ about? You have sent me some images for publication.Jetmir: My idea before moving from Buenos Aires to Berlin on February 2020 was that once: I get here, I will have the oppurtunity to show my work to different photography editors, also curators and have studio visits. But world took another turn and –– all these ideas of meeting people physically somehow vanished.
Since everything suddenly shifted to the Internet, you had to adapt to the situation. It was a matter of finding new ways to make new work. In my case, it evolved like this: I have a projector at home because, as a photographer, I’m interested in working with different artists and taking their portraits. So one day while I was talking to my friends and projecting their portraits on the wall in my living room, I got the idea to photograph them and ask them to pose for me in front of their lap-top or smart phone. I shared the photographic material I produced on my social networks.
Du hast gerade gesagt, du arbeitest mit unterschiedlichen Künstlern?/ You just said you work with different artists?Yes, Actors, Dancers, Models and Musicians …
Wie war das im ersten Lockdown mit teils Ausgangssperren, woher kanntest du deine Modelle der Berlin-Serie?/ How was it in the first Lockdown with partial curfews, how did you know your models for the Berlin series?People that I photograph I mainly find through instagram, friends of friends of friends but I do sometimes stop people on the street.
One day, Xheni Karaj, activist for LGBT community rights in Albaniaand Director of Aleanca in Tirana, told me that she was planning to organize a virtual Pride Parade. She knew my work that I had done during my quarantine in Berlin and now she suggested me to develop a common project that we would call Queerantine. I proposed to photograph young queer people from the Balkans in their homes during quarantine. The exhibition was published on Instagram with my works.
Through my photographic lens i tried to penetrate not only into the physical isolation imposed by the authorities as a result of COVID 19, but also the spiritual, mental and physical isolation that queer people have experienced as their everyday reality throughout human history.
Und jetzt nachdem deine erste virtuelle Ausstellung stattgefunden hat, wie würdest du diese Möglichkeit beurteilen?/Looking back, what would you say your experience was like with your first virtual exhibition?Regarding the Queerantine exhibition the experience was good, there were more then 200 people that followed us and also we have received thousands of reactions. As it happened quite at the beginning of the Pandemic, just 2 months after the lockdown, I think we did quite good considering that we did not have much experience.
Lately I have seen that people started to develop very good virtual exhibitions even with possibility to tour through it. I think this is a quite good idea to consider even when the Museums will open so that people can virtually visit exhibitions which physically they may not be able too.
Du planst eine weitere Fotoserie in Berlin. Kulturelle Traditionen, nationale Bindungen sind erneut das Thema. Diesmal beschäftigst du dich mit der kosovarischen Kultur, deiner eigenen. Sagst du uns, worum es geht?The political and economic circumstances of the 1990s in Kosovo led to a wave of emigration of many families. One of the main destinations was Germany. Currently I am working on a project which deals with the cultural preservation of Albanian/Kosovar traditions by women in the diaspora. In this process, women have a central role. Therefore, this time I would like to focus on the women from Kosovo who brought to Germany their traditional ethnographic clothing and other belongings such as jewelry and other handmade objects.
The tradition of wearing these clothes still continues and therefore even youngergenerations girls from Kosovo when they get married or in some specific events, they travel to Kosovo to buy these clothes and after the ceremony they bring them with to Germany.
With this project the idea is to contribute to Kosovar current cultural heritage by making a visual documentation of Kosovar women living in Germany, photographing them in these clothes and artifacts at the different locations and German spaces which will enable showing the dialogue between Kosovar cultural heritage and the German landscape.
Letzte Frage an dich Jetmir, wie hat sich die Pandemie auf deine Arbeit als Fotograf ausgewirkt?As for everyone else the pandemic was not easy and especially for me as an artist that I moved to Berlin exactly 1 month before it started. Nevertheless due to current improvement of technology I have to say that it wasnt that bad as one may have imagined. Personally if this had happened 20 years ago the consequences would be worst but since we live in times where internet has facilitated comunications with each other I think it made it easier for all of us to mantain in better condition our mental health. Either by being easier to commute with friends and family or in more difficult cases commutincating with professioanl psycho therapists.
Jetmir, vielen Dank für den Einblick in deine aktuellen Projekte und für deine eingereichten Fotobeiträge aus der Queerantine-Serie, die, wie ich finde, uns sehr ästhetisch und einfühlsam zugleich auf weniger beachtete Bevölkerungsschichten in Zeiten der Pandemie Aufmerksam macht. Alle auf dieser Seite abgebildeten Fotos können erworben werden. Interessenten dafür schreiben eine E-Mail an jetmiridrizi@gmail.com oder ich leite die Bestellungen gerne an den Künstler weiter./
Jetmir, thank you for the insight into your current projects and also for your submitted photo contributions from the Queerantine series, which I think aesthetically and sensitively at the same time draws attention to less considered populations in times of pandemic. All of the photographs featured on this page are available for purchase. Those interested in doing so should email jetmiridrizi@gmail.com or I will be happy to forward orders to the artist.
Queerantine, 30 x 40 cm, 8 motifs, Edition: 10, Signed, Inkjet Print. 300,- €
Queerantine is a photographic project about Queer identities in Balkans. As a result of forced isolation due to COVID-19, this photographic project was made possible photographing through video calls using zoom, facetime, facebook. Through my photographic lens i tried to penetrate not only into the physical isolation imposed by the authorities as a result of COVID 19, but also the spiritual, mental and physical isolation that queer people have experienced as their everyday reality throughout human history. The camera serves as a gateway to a parallel dimension, where queer identities, through the language and power of their bodies, put binary and heteronormative systems to question, the systems that have tried to alienate and suppress them for many years. Through this project, queer identities from Albania, Kosovo and the entire Balkans revolt, their bodies are protesting to overcome once and for all the labels, prejudices and collective abuses.
Jetmir Idrizi is an award winning photographer from Prishtina, Kosovo and currently lives in Berlin, Germany. He is a freelance photographer who has studied journalism. After working for 6 years in a daily newspaper as a photojournalist he started his career as a freelance photographer in 2012. His work focuses on social and human rights issues, memory and gender identity. He is the Winner of the first prize in Campaign Category from Sony World Photography Awards in 2016 for his project on gender identity and sexuality in Brazil and also winner of International Photography Prize Gjon Mili in 2012 awarded by National Art Gallery of Kosovo. He has been published in many international newspapers and magazines and also was part of many exhibitions.
Contributions and conversations with actors from art, design, dance and music
Already at the beginning of the pandemic, I had the idea of creating a place in the worldwide web, that would counteract the current emptiness and silence of thought. Since the closure of all the exhibition houses, we have been lacking exchange and the tried and tested places of communication.The question: How does the standstill of cultural life affect artistic production and, in the long run, possibly also curatorial practice?
Is now the time for new ways of thinking? How can the void be filled creatively with our own media possibilities that are available to us despite the closure of the exhibition houses? In the 1990s, the Internet was celebrated in the art world, as an independent communication platform. Why not revive these channels? With new media means.
The lockdown as a pause and at the same time a new start in the cultural sector: now is the time to initiate new ways of thinking in exhibition practice in order to subsequently realize them. New ways of thinking could reveal hitherto unused possibilities for opening up exhibition venues in a contemporary way. I have therefore explicitly asked artists for their ideas with regard to the current situation and the presentation of their work.
How artists have already adapted to the lockdown challenge, what concepts and works they have conceived as well as implemented during this time, I would also like to bring to light on the basis of the conversations held and virtual studio visits.
Why We Need Art Now
Beiträge und Gespräche mit Akteuren aus Kunst, Design, Tanz und Musik
Gleich zu Beginn der Pandemie hatte ich den Wunsch, ein Internetprojekt zu initiieren, um Künstlerinnen, Künstler und Kulturschaffende aus der ganzen Welt miteinander ins Gespräch zu bringen. Es gilt der kulturellen Leere und Gedankenstille entgegen zu wirken. Nicht erst seit der Schließung unserer Kulturstätten fehlt es uns an Austausch und derzeit an den bewährten Kommunikationsorten. So stellt die Frage: Wie wird sich der Stillstand im Kulturbetrieb auf die künstlerische Produktion und kuratorische Praxis auswirken?
Wie kann die Leere kreativ gefüllt werden mit den eigenen medialen Möglichkeiten, die uns trotz der Schließung der Ausstellungshäuser zur Verfügung stehen? In den 1990er Jahren wurde das Internet in der Kunstwelt gefeiert, als unabhängige Kommunikationsplattform. Warum nicht diese Kanäle wiederbeleben? Mit neuen medialen Mitteln.
Der Lockdown als Pause und zugleich Neustart im Kulturbetrieb: Jetzt ist die Zeit, um neue Denkansätze in der Ausstellungspraxis anzustoßen, um sie anschließend zu realisieren. Neue Denkansätze könnten bisher ungenutzte Möglichkeiten zur zeitgemäßen Öffnung der Ausstellungshäuser aufzeigen. Ich habe daher explizit KünstlerInnen nach ihren Ideen mit Hinblick auf die aktuelle Situation und der Präsentation ihrer Arbeiten befragt.
Wie sich KünstlerInnen bereits der Lockdown-Herausforderung angepasst haben, welche Konzepte und Arbeiten sie während dieser Zeit erdacht sowie umgesetzt haben, auch das möchte ich anhand der geführten Gespräche und virtuellen Atelierbesuche zu Tage befördern.
