   |    | ![Robert Flynt & Nicolas Spinosa
untitled / sin nombre
aus der Serie [:tandem]
unique inkjet print with mixed media, 42cm*30cm, 2010](http://werkstattgalerie.org/content/events/thumbs/31_3.jpg)   | 01 Daniel Hourdé 02 Robert Flynt 03 Robert Flynt & Nicolas Spinosa 04 Nicolas Spinosa 05 Gerhard Hintermann aus der Serie 06 Zachari Logan 07 Nicolas Spinosa 08 Gerhard Hintermann aus der Serie 09 Robert Flynt |
Memento
Robert Flynt, Gerhard Hintermann, Daniel Hourdé, Zachari Logan,
Gio Black Peter, Nicolas Spinosa
Exhibition Dates: 05.06.-10.07.2010
Opening Reception: 04.06.10 from 8-11 pm
The current exhibition is focussing on the body between life and death and is asking the question which traces are left behind after death and how visiual art can capture this.
One example can be seen in the mixed media installation from the sculpturer Daniel Hourdé in which a lifeseize pencildrawing of a male couple is underlayered with real linen.(180cm*146cm, 2002).
In his installation «Jims world» Gerhard Hintermann is giving a hommage to the Swiss photographer Karlheinz Weinberger (1921–2006), Photographer for the legendary gay magazine “Der Kreis”.
Weinberger led during the 50's and 60's, typical for those times a double life. Working daytime in a warehouse and in his sparetime, making erotically charged pictures of Beatniks, Rockers and men with tattoos.
From 2001 till 2006, Gerhard Hintermann attended Karlheinz Weinberger, his mentor and friend. During this time he also organized Weinbergers extensive archive.
Photos taken in Weinbergers home, shortly after his death, reflect his bourgois life mixed with the Beatnik lifestyle cult. Next to a sofa with crocheted covers, cherub figurines and a standard-lamp, attributes of bourgois „Gemütlichkeit“, hang the emblems of motorcycle clubs – mismatched worlds. The typical conflicts of gay men throughout the Post War aera.
Large-sized colour photos printed on vat paper stand for a posthume portrait and are also an allegorie for life as a gay in the 20th century. The photos are supplemented with a slide-show, with pictures which so far have not been on view.
The artists Robert Flynt and Nicolas Spinosa shared strong interest in the performative act in relation to the making of visual art, with an intensive focus on the body and its re-presentation.
Their initial meeting consisted of three intensive photo shoots built around Spinosa’s practice: initially he served as a model for Flynt’s idiosynchratic shooting technique: tracing the body with flashlights in a completely dark room over relatively long exposure periods. Then Flynt traced Spinosa during the “performing” of his painting creations, following the body as it was painting, imprinted, traced and drawn on large sheets of paper on the studio floor. Additional shooting with completed earlier paintings on both the walls and floor of the studio created additional imagery, and Spinosa was also actively engaged in the making of the photographs through drawing with light (via other flashlights), as well as through conventional mark making.
Flynt subsequently edited the photographic images, using many for his own work, often layered or sequenced with found imagery. The modified digital files were emailed to Spinosa, who had them printed out as light-jet prints and then further drew and painted on these already collaborative images: the [:tandem] series.
The final products are naturally unique images, neither entirely photographs nor paintings, the result of a multifaceted “conversation” between the two artists, where the line between one individual’s aesthetic and the other’s has become almost completely blurred.
Werkstattgalerie
Eisenacher Str. 6
10777 Berlin
Germany
Near Nollendorfplatz U1-U4, Bus 179
Web: www.werkstattgalerie.org
Email: info@werkstattgalerie.org
Phone: +49.30.21002158
Open: Tu-Fr 12-19h, Sa 12-18h
   |    |    | 01 Formation 02 Holon 03 Multivision II 04 Germany I 05 Germany II 06 Germany III 07 Revolutionäre Energie 08 Organisierte Rev. Energie ist Key 09 Movement Motion |
ter Hell : Movement Motion
Vernissage: Mittwoch, 05.Mai 2010 ab 20 Uhr
Ausstellung: 06.05.-28.05.2010
Die Ausstellung “ter Hell: Movement Motion” konzentriert sich auf das jüngste Schaffen des Künstlers ter Hell .
ter Hell's ungegenständliche Malerei hat Abstraktion von Farbräumen, Systematisierungen, Zeichen- und Schriftstrukturen zum Gegenstand.
In seiner Bildsprache postuliert er eine Veränderung von Bewusstseinsstrukturen, von Auflösung hin zum energetischen Verständnis und zur „Collage-Identity“.
Ausgangspunkt seiner Malerei sind präzise gesellschaftstheoretische Analysen, die uns die komplexen Wechselwirkungen zwischen Individuen und Gesellschaft verdeutlichen.
Als wesentliche Kraft dieser Wechselwirkung definiert ter Hell „X“, die organisierte revolutionäre Energie. Diese ist notwendig, um im Spannungsfeld widerstreitender egoistischer Einzel- und Gruppeninteressen ein neues Bewusstsein von Identität, der Collage-Identity zu entwickeln.
Werkstattgalerie
Eisenacher Str. 6
10777 Berlin
Tel.: +49.30.21002158
Nähe Nollendorfplatz: U1-U4, Bus M19
Öffnungszeiten: Di-Fr 12-20h, Sa 12-18h
    |     |    | 01 Grant Vetter 02 Roni Feldman 03 Roni Feldman 04 Grant Vetter 05 Casey Vogt 06 Casey Vogt 07 Jon Barwick 08 Jon Barwick 09 Ryan Peter Miller 10 Elizabeth Ferry 11 Elizabeth Ferry |
curated by Edward Lucie-Smith and Roni Feldman
19th March-16th April 2010
Opening Reception: Friday 19th March 2010 at 8 pm
BERLIN COLLECTIVE presents Artist Talks moderated by Marc Glöde and Sophie Eliot Sunday 21st March 2010 at 5 pm
Jon Barwick, Roni Feldman, Elizabeth Ferry, Ryan Peter Miller, Grant Vetter, Casey Vogt
The six young American artists in this show have formed a group that they have named ‘Cacophonic’. Forming groups is, of course, the traditional way in which young artists band together in order to get a hearing. Think, for example, of the Futurists at the start of the 20th century and of the Surrealists who followed them. Roni Feldman, a member of the group and my co-curator, says that their work is a reaction to a decade that began with planes crashing into the World Trade Center in New York, and ended with an equally resounding economic crash – a period of “complexity and dissonance, marked by a clamorous rise in technology, especially the technology of information, as well as by wars and other forms of disaster.” He and his colleagues engage with a world of conflicting values, in the visual arts as well as in politics, and welcome the uproar that results. “We are wary of didacticism.” He says, “and recognize that a work of art is, first and foremost, a unique sensory experience. The balance between content and physical presence in our work reflects an enduring optimism in the face of the odds that we believe is typical of our generation of American artists.”
Jon Barwick constructs mixed-media paintings that acknowledge the hyper-paced, technology-driven, media-saturated society of the Twenty-First Century. The multi-layered compositions reflect the complexities of the information age, and capture the singular moment of everything happening at once. Imagery for these works originate as drawings and doodles but are scanned, photographed, printed, or redrawn before reaching the final composition. By maintaining a dialogue between the hand-drawn and computer-generated, Barwick creates visual metaphors for our day-to-day interaction with technology. The resultant fields of color and imagery are at once beautiful and overwhelming. They present a sublimation of information.
Roni Feldman applies the blurred, ethereal nature of airbrushed acrylic to paint multitudinous human features. He forms tensions between individual and crowd, abstraction and representation. Using varying degrees of matte and gloss black paint, the imagery may be invisible at first glance, but as viewers pass before them, the figures refract revealing an elaborate composition. In them, whirls of figures celebrate, mourn, protest, consume, dance, and embrace alongside others that drown, burn, and dissolve. Feldman’s crowds evoke the power and ecstasy of unified intention alongside a potential descent into mob mentality. The compositions recall the idealistic pursuit of 1960's psychedelia, van murals, and other airbrush art forms, but in Feldman’s work, airbrushed paint is like a thin veil that separates utopia and dystopia, civilization and chaos.
Elizabeth Ferry blurs the edges between the corporeal and ethereal. Ranging from simple grids to elaborate stacks of folded fabric, Ferry composes color and form into rhythms that perpetually, illusionistically reconfigure themselves. Through carefully cued light and site sensitivity, they shift from mundane materials to enigmatically charged visual sensations. For example, at first glance Ferry’s grids appear as formal white structures set upon a wall painted with bright colors. However, a move from side to side reveals that the edges of the structure are painted with discordant dashes of fluorescent hues that refract upon the wall. Subverting the fast pace of everyday transactions between people, places, and information, Ferry applies abstraction and illusion to offer moments of sensitive reflection.
Ryan Peter Miller uses paint as both his material and subject. Each of Miller’s works expresses an inventive application of paint. In one work, he applies paint as multitudinous stacked units in a tower. In another work he casts acrylic paint as puzzle pieces. In a third piece, Miller casts a full body self portrait in white acrylic paint. For Miller, paint is raw material, loaded with turgid historical significance, that can be grouped and restructured into non-traditional supports. Miller calls painting a democratic process, reflective and responsive to history and culture, but with endless potential for evolution and re-contextualization.
Grant Vetter’s Rendition paintings are slathered with sinewy gobs of fleshy hues. The works effect the transcendent painterliness of Abstract Expressionism, but also the corporeal gore and almost forensic examination of mutilated skin. The word “rendition” implies a subjective experience or recollection, but is also defined as “deportation for war crimes” and “torture by proxy.” Although Abstract expressionism was often seen as a symbol of democratic freedom and individual expression, Vetter explicitly takes up the themes of trauma, subjection and oppression as it relates to the current War on Terror.
Casey Vogt creates ornate, mandala-like compositions that serve as a backdrop for politically-charged figurative scenes. The most recent figures explore Americans' relationships to drug use, the War On Drugs, and the pharmaceutical industry. The backgrounds are composed of masses of layered dots and myriad colors, recalling a pharmacopoeia of pills.. They act as a painterly and metaphysical contrast to the
socio-political narratives presented by the figures. With their euphoric colors and psychedelic compositions, Vogt's work proposes painting as another mind-altering substance.
Werkstattgalerie
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10777 Berlin Phone: +49.30.21002158
Near Nollendorfplatz:
Tube U1-U4, Bus M19
Open: Tu-Fr 12-8 pm, Sa 12-6pm
    |     |     | 01 Mitra Farahani 02 Mitra Farahani 03 Mitra Farahani 04 Fereydoun Ave 05 Mitra Farahani 06 Fereydoun Ave 07 Ramin Haerizadeh 08 Narmine Sadeg 09 Ramin Haerizadeh 10 Nikoo Tarkhani 11 Ramin Haerizadeh 12 Nikoo Tarkhani |
IRANIAN BODIES
Opening Reception: Friday 19th February at 8pm
Curated by Edward Lucie-Smith and Janet Rady.
Fereydoun Ave, Mitra Farahani, Ramin Haerizadeh, Narmine Sadeg, Nikoo Tarkhani.
Iranian contemporary art, with the exception of the cinema, has only swum into western consciousness fairly recently. Because of the political tensions between the West and Iran, it is still largely misrepresented and misunderstood. Before looking at the specific cases offered by this exhibition, there are some general observations to be made. The first is that Iran possesses an extremely ancient culture, going back some three thousand years. The art of the present day has deep roots in that culture – to an extent often missed by western observers. The second is that Tehran, the largest city in the Middle East, with a population of nearly 8 million, has a lively indigenous art world. Most of the leading Iranian artists still live in their own country, at least part of the time and are proud to do so. The third is that, despite the Iranian Islamic Republic’s reputation for moral repression, the Iranian art of the present is often paradoxically very much concerned with the human body, and is frequently subtly infused with sexual connotation. The present show is designed to illustrate that fact.
Its contents will come as no surprise to anyone who has either visited Tehran, or who has any acquaintance with earlier Persian art and literature. Safavid miniatures from the time of Shah Abbas (1588-1629) often illustrate erotic subject matter. Hafez, Iran’s best-loved poet (ca. 1320-1390), as the entry on him in Wikipedia notes, “took as his major themes love, the celebration of wine and intoxication, and exposing the hypocrisy of those who have set themselves up as guardians, judges and examples of moral rectitude.” Striking features of today’s Tehran cityscape are huge propaganda murals. Many celebrate the tragic heroes of the bloody Iran-Iraq war of 1980-88. They are linked to an age-old Shia cult of martyrdom, but the protagonists are represented as if they were Hollywood film stars, looking out from the billboards on the Los Angeles Sunset Strip. With their handsome features and swimming eyes, these handsome young men seem designed to appeal to men and women alike.
The exhibition offers the work of five artists, two men and three women. The work of the men, Fereydoun Ave and Ramin Haerizadeh, demonstrates clearly how firmly rooted Iranian contemporary art is in Iranian popular culture. Fereydoun Ave’s series of digital prints, Rostam in Late Summer Revisited, refers to one of the heroes of the great Iranian epic, the Shahnameh or Book of Kings, written by the poet Ferdowsi around 1000 a.d. As Iranians know, Rostam's symbolic attributes of manly strength and martial valor reappear today in the wrestlers known as pahlavans, who are practitioners of a traditional Sufi cult of physical exercise. This cult of wrestling permits a greater degree of male nudity than is usually permitted in Iran, and encourages an admiration of the male body.
Ramin Haerizadeh’s Men of Allah series, with its lubricious, effeminate mullahs, based on self-portraits of the artist, is inspired by a kind of Iranian folk theater called Taaziye, popular in the 19th century and still current today, where women’s roles are played by men. In one scene, much liked by the Iranian public, Ghassem, the brother of Imam Hossein, the founder of the Shia branch of Islam, is married to a chador-clad female who turns out to be a bearded man. The result, in Harizadeh’s hands, is a sly satire on clerical manners and morals. It is worth noting that Iran is the only Islamic nation with a strong theatrical tradition, which often relates, as here, to an equally strong tradition of figurative art. This tradition embraces images of effeminacy as well as images of strength, as is witnessed by the numerous portrait miniatures of seductive page-boys from the time of Shah Abbas.
The images offered by the three women artists are even bolder than those offered by the men. Aficionados of contemporary art who know little or nothing about Iran are always surprised to discover how many gifted women artists the country produces. Yet the Iranian artist with the biggest international reputation is undoubtedly Shirin Neshat, who remains true to her roots though she has now lived for many years in America. Another reaction, when westerners discover that women create a good deal of the most interesting art now being produced in Iran, is to assume, despite this, that women artists are constantly inhibited by a struggle against the conditions Iranian society imposes on them. The truth is that Iranian art made by women does have a strongly feminist streak, but that this feminism is different from its western equivalent. In particular, women artists living and working in Iran do not want to give up their roots in Iranian culture, and are offended to be thought of as being victims perpetually preoccupied by victimhood.
The three artists featured here have been chosen to illustrate the boldness of their approach. Nikoo Tarkhani deals with the female body, and her sometimes fragmented nude self-portraits powerfully convey her sense that women in a contemporary Islamic society are struggling to piece together a contemporary identity. They can be compared, in this sense, with the very different self-portrait images of Ramin Haerizadeh. Mitra Farahani, who is a film maker in addition to being a painter and a maker of graphic works, tends to focus on the naked male body, which she treats on occasion with a boldness that easily exceeds most of the treatments of this subject one sees in the West. The sculptor Narmine Sadeg seems to refer to the strong tradition of puppet theater in Iran. The Iranian director Behrouz Qaribpour has become internationally famous for his puppet opera presentations, and recently received a major Italian award for his work. The puppet plays are closely related to the Taaziye school of live theater. The word Taaziye means ‘elegy’, and productions are typically presented in connection with the Day of Ashura, when Shia Muslims lament to death of the Imam Hossein. They can be thought of as the equivalents of Christian Passion Plays, yet, like the Passion Plays of the Middle Ages, tragic subject matter does not exclude an element of robust humor. It is noticeable not only that Sadeg’s figures can be swung about at will on the rods that pierce and support them, but also that her nude males have conspicuously small genitals. As a result they seem like images of powerlessness - a retort to Fereydoun Ave's images of strength.
Iranian contemporary art is constantly in dialogue with the society that surrounds and supports it. Like art in many Middle Eastern and Far Eastern societies, it invites the spectator to read visual images on several different planes, both linear and temporal. This gives a resonance and depth that is now often lacking in western equivalents.
(Edward Lucie-Smith)
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D-10777 Berlin
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Opening Hours: Tu-Fr 12-20h, Sa 12-18h
Phone: +49.30.21002158
Mail: info@werkstattgalerie.org
    |     |     | 01 Oleg Tolstoy 02 Oleg Tolstoy 03 Oleg Tolstoy 04 Sam Jackson 05 Sam Jackson 06 Sam Jackson 07 Luke Jackson 08 Luke Jackson 09 Luke Jackson 10 Hugo Dalton 11 Hugo Dalton 12 Hugo Dalton |
BRITISH ART NOW
Exhibition curated by Edward Lucie Smith.
Oleg Tolstoy, Luke Jackson, Sam Jackson, Hugo Dalton
Opening: Friday 13th November 2009 from 8 pm with an introduction
from Edward Lucie-Smith.
The Artist will be present.
Sunday, 15th November at 4 pm
MannSbilder Fotosalon with Edward Lucie Smith: Flesh & Stone
@ Werkstattgalerie
Though the exhibition features only four artists, it is intended to give a kind of snapshot view of what is happening in the London art world today.
The current view of London as a center for avant-garde activity was formed rather more than a decade ago, and was linked to the rise of the so-called BritPop artists or YBAs (Younger British Artists). It reached an early culmination with the Sensation! Exhibition of 1997, seen at the Royal Academy. The works in this were drawn entirely from the holdings of one individual, the advertising magnate Charles Saatchi.
Some of the artists closely associated with the YBA movement have gone on to major international celebrity, chief among them Damien Hirst. Some have faded from the scene. One at least is dead. Angus Fairhurst committed suicide in 2008, at the age of 41. The fact is that the survivors are no longer young- they are now all in their forties.
The British, and indeed the international, art worlds have however been unwilling to recognize that times have changed, that there are newer kinds of art being made in London. Indeed, the tendency has been to feature artists who are felt to be ‘typically British’ because they are paler carbon copies of those who immediately preceded them.
The four artists featured here have been chosen to stress difference, not likeness. One, Oleg Tolstoy, is a photographer. In London, as elsewhere, photography is increasingly important as a creative medium. As his name suggests, he is not of British descent, and perhaps this gives him a sharper eye for what is happening in British society. However his work belongs entirely to the contemporary London context and stresses, in particular, the variety of types that are now to be seen in the streets of a huge, ethnically diverse city. His images speak of togetherness, and at the same time of apartness. That is typical of London today.
Hugo Dalton is a maker of projections, who also produces a wide variety of other kinds of installation work. He has undertaken commissions in New York and in Hong Kong, and recently collaborated with Christopher Wheeldon’s international dance company Morphoses. When they performed last month at Sadlers Wells, several reviewers commented that they represented a revival of the eclectic, experimental spirit of the Ballets Russes, as this existed in the 1920s, after Diaghilev’s severance from Russia. One way in which Dalton differs from his seniors is that, like Diaghilev and his designers, he is not afraid of elegance.
The two painters, the brothers Sam and Luke Jackson, offer a radical break from the giganticism of much recent painting. Their work is radically miniature, and is intended as a rebuke to the rhetorically overblown quality of much recent art. A similar spirit can be found in some of the recent work made by artists of the Leipzig School in Germany. The Jacksons’ link to their YBA predecessors is that they are not afraid to be provocative. Their small works often ask large questions about sexuality, politics and aspects of human personality. Their paintings are the tip of an iceberg: I know of a number of other young artists now working in Britain who paint on the same scale and in a similar fashion, though perhaps (it must be said) with a little less punch. In the Jacksons’ hands, a small painting can be a karate-chop.
Edward Lucie-Smith
With many thanks to Kay Saatchi, for her help with this project.
Werkstattgalerie
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10777 Berlin
Nähe Nollendorfplatz U1-U4, Bus M19, 187
Öffnungszeiten: Di-Fr 12-20h, Sa 12-18h
Tel: +49.30.21002158
info@werkstattgalerie.org
   |    |    | 01 Klaus Vogelgesang 02 Bernhard Heisig 03 Ter Hell 04 Alexander Zakharov 05 Genia Chef 06 Jean-Ulrick Désert 07 Edward Lucie-Smith 08 Solveig Karen Bolduan 09 Sylwek Luczak |
„Comet Prussia"
Exhibition 24.09.-31.10.2009
Opening: Thursday 24th September 2009 from 8 -10 pm
with an introduction by Edward Lucie-Smith
Solveig Karen Bolduan, Genia Chef, Jean-Ulrick Desért,
Bernhard Heisig, Ter Hell, Edward Lucie-Smith, Sylwek Luczak, Klaus Vogelgesang, Marc Wayland, Alexander Zakarov
No state unites so many contradictions as are to be found in Prussia. The name comes from a Baltic tribe; this tribe had nothing to do with the Brandenburg heartland. It became a kingdom outside the framework of the Holy Roman Empire. For the most part of its history its territories were never contiguous with those of the imperial realm. Prussia was first and foremost an idea, a world conjured up by force of will. Sometimes it was a vision of an ideal community. It was a kingdom whose rulers invited intellectuals to be their guests, and which offered refuge to Huguenots. It was also a kingdom that made its rebellious soldiers run the gauntlet.
It gained its intrinsic energy from its own contradictions, and flew like a comet through history until its fall in 1945. Prussian virtues – diligence, honesty, loyalty and simplicity –were the virtues of an organism with a delicate constitution, of a state always in danger of catastrophic collapse. Carl Zuckmayer described the Prussia of Wilhelm II as exhibiting a shrunken version of its original ideals.
This country, which had spawned a number of fundamentally different protagonists – among them Frederick II, Alexander von Humboldt, Otto von Bismarck, Wilhelm II and Marlene Dietrich – lost its material identity at the Potsdam Conference of 1945, which banned the very idea of Prussia.
Works by artists examining this idea are now on show at the WerkstattGallery, Berlin from 24 September to 31 October.
They attempt to show what the Prussian state-idea has become today, purging it of nostalgia (as was of course necessary) and projecting it on to a contemporary screen.
Artists from America, Germany, Great Britain, Poland and Russia use this screen to exhibit their own personal view of Prussia, thus extending seemingly broken lines of development into the present.
Werkstattgalerie
Eisenacher Str. 6
10777 Berlin
U1-U4 Nollendorfplatz
Open: Tu-Fr 12-8 pm, Sa 12-6pm and by appointment
  |   |   | 01 Master Patrick 02 Master Patrick 03 Master Patrick 04 Gio Black Peter 05 Gio Black Peter 06 Gio Black Peter |
Ob Kunstevents, Society- und Glamourpartys oder schwule Szeneveranstaltungen, auf dem roten Teppich mit Filmstars oder im queeren Underground mit Subkulturgrößen – Master Patrick ist mit seiner Kamera immer vor Ort. Als der „Mann mit der schwarzen Ledermaske“ ist der in Freiburg im Breisgau als Patrick Bartsch geborene Multi-Media-Künstler längst zum unübersehbaren, omnipräsenten Szenefigur geworden.
Von Österreich aus führte sein Weg über Frankreich und Köln schließlich nach Berlin. In seiner Ausstellung „Berlin Years“ zeigt Master Patrick nun eine Auswahl seiner in den vergangenen fünf Jahren in der Hauptstadt entstandenen Fotoarbeiten.
Neben klassischer Studiofotografie – inszenierte Porträts beispielsweise von Filmregisseur Rosa von Praunheim und Männeraktstudien – stehen dokumentarische Bilder von Laufstegen, Konzertbühnen und roten Teppichen (mit Bildern u.a. von Tom Cruise und Nina Hagen). Einen ganz besonderen Stellenwert nehmen jedoch seine Momentaufnahmen aus dem vielfältigen queeren Leben in Berlin ein.
Für Master Patrick gibt es keine Perfektion: weder den perfekten Menschen, die perfekte Stadt oder das perfekte Kunstwerk. In jeder seiner Arbeiten wird man Fehler finden: „bewusst gesetzte wie z.B. Steckdosen in einem Porträtbild oder unbewusste wie unkorrigierte Farbspritzer bei Acrylarbeiten“, erklärt Master Patrick. In den für die Ausstellung ausgewählten Arbeiten stehen Schnappschüsse gleichberechtigt neben aufwendigen Inszenierungen, Glamour neben Trash. Weltstars im Rampenlicht finden sich einträchtig neben Underground-Exzentrikern, klassische Dokumentation kollidiert mit dem ironischen Spiel mit Klischee und Banales mit Erhabenen.
Als graphische Ergänzung zeigt die Ausstellung neueste Arbeiten des Undergroundkünstlers Gio Black Peter. Dieser inszeniert sich in seiner Heimatstadt mit exzessiven Sex-Performance-Shows und –Videos, arbeitet als Maler, Zeichner, Fotograf, Musiker und Gelegenheitsschauspieler. So war er beispielsweise in Bruce LaBruce letztem Film, dem in Berlin gedrehten schwulen Zombie-Trash-Streifen „Otto Or Up With Dead People“, zu sehen.
Die Bilderwelten des in Guatemala als Giovanna Andrade geborenen und im Alter von fünf Jahren in die USA emigrierten Künstlers beschäftigen sich gleichermaßen mit der sexuell aufgeladenen queeren Subkultur und der farbenfrohen New Yorker Straßenkunst.
Gio Black Peter verwendet für seine Zeichnungen vorgefundene Materialien wie z.B. U-Bahnpläne und Plakate als Malgrundlage. Seine expressiven Kunstwerke werden so in vielschichtiger Weise zu einer Reminiszenz an das alte New York - ein mit Graffiti bedeckter Dschungel, in dem das Gefühl der Gesetzlosigkeit regierte und jede Nacht ein neues wildes Abenteuer versprach.
(Text:Axel Schock)
Vernissage:
Donnerstag 20.August 20-22h, mit einer Einführung von Rosa von Praunheim , danach Afterparty@SLUM
2.September: MannsBilder -Master Patrick führt durch die Ausstellung,
um Anmeldung wird gebeten
Finissage: 5.September 15-18h
Werkstattgalerie
Eisenacher Str. 6
10777 Berlin
    |     |     | 01 Ikarus (2008) 02 Die Nacht (2007) 03 Die Spielzeit (2008) 04 Die Szene (2009) 05 Der neue Standard (2008) 06 Die Flucht (2008) 07 oT (2009) 08 oT (2008) 09 Spielzeit II (2008) 10 Benjamin und Pauline (2009) 11 Touristen (2009) 12 Manipulation (2009) |
Die Malerin Tania Kandratsenka (*1980) lebt und arbeitet in Minsk/Weißrussland. Sie ist Dozentin an der dortigen Kunstakademie. Erstmalig in Berlin zeigt sie einen Bilderzyklus in dem sie Kindheitserinnerungen und historische Zitate zu kompositorisch kraftvollen Bilder verarbeitet.
Tania Kandratsenka ist zur Eröffnung der Ausstellung anwesend.
Werkstattgalerie
Eisenacher Strasse 6
10777 Berlin-Schöneberg
www.werkstattgalerie.org Phone: +49.(0)30.2100 2158
info@werkstattgalerie.org Tu - Fr 12 - 20h, Sa 12 – 18h
    |    |    | 01 Frank Gabriel 02 Dimitris Yeros 03 Vladimir Tatarevic 04 Gianluca Chiodi 05 Robert Flynt 06 Jonathan Webb 07 Roberto Rincon 08 Marc Wayland 09 Tobias A. Feltus 10 Edward Lucie-Smith |
„Mankind:Versions & Perversions“
Exhibition curated by Edward Lucie-Smith from 4st April – 15th May 2009
Opening: Friday, 3rd April 2009 8-11 pm
Participating Artists:
Gianluca Chiodi (Milan), Tobias A. Feltus (Edinburgh), Robert Flynt (New York),
Frank Gabriel (The Hague), Edward Lucie-Smith (London), Roberto Rincon (London),
Vladimir Tatarevic (Belgrade), Marc Wayland (London), Jonathan Webb (Paris),
Dimitris Yeros (Athens).
This selection of male imagery is an attempt to break through some of the stereotypes that now
characterize this particular photographic genre. On the one hand, photographs of the nude or nearnude
male are thought of as controversial, because of their homoerotic content, which contravenes
social norms in many cultures. On the other hand, they are avant-garde in a fashion that doesn’t
usually apply to female nudes. The latter tend to annoy entrenched feminists, who see them as proof
of the theory of the ‘controlling gaze’ – proof of the way in which male scopophilia demeans
women. The rest of the world simply tends to think of them as kitsch, which is to say as images that
may indeed provide erotic stimulation, but which have little or no presence as artistically intended
object.
The link between erotic representation and the idea of avant-gardism is of course a long established
one. Erotic content tends to guarantee the bold, controversial nature of images that, without this,
would seem tamely unexceptional. In other words, eroticism is the easy route to shock, and shock
and artistic experimentation are now, at least in the minds of the general public, inseparably joined.
Additionally, where nudes are concerned, naked males have somehow achieved a position of artistic
if not social respectability that is now for some reason denied to females.
The present, extremely international anthology of photographic images of the male uses an
extremely wide variety of techniques, and shows how far the term ‘photography’ can now be
stretched. It also demonstrates very different approaches, on the part of individual photographers, to
the same subject matter. Human bodies have been a central theme for art, and particular for western
art, since the time of the Greeks and the Romans. And for long periods, it was the male body that
preponderated, while representation of women, clothed or naked, took a very secondary place. This
show is intended to interrogate that tradition, and also to revive it. If anything in it can be regarded
as truly avant-garde, that is an accident of history. Indeed, if there is anything revolutionary about it,
this can be found in the way it questions many clichés about the nature of artistic innovation.
Edward Lucie-Smith (March 2009)
      |       |       | 01 Marianne Hopf 02 Marianne Hopf 03 Marianne Hopf 04 Marianne Hopf 05 Marianne Hopf 06 Marianne Hopf 07 Natasza Niedziolka 08 Natasza Niedziolka 09 Natasza Niedziolka 10 Natasza Niedziolka 11 Natasza Niedziolka 12 Natasza Niedziolka 13 Natasza Niedziolka 14 Natasza Niedziolka 15 Natasza Niedziolka 16 Sylwek Luczak 17 Sylwek Luczak 18 Sylwek Luczak |
The First Day Of Spring 10.Februar – 07.März 2009
Marianne Hopf, Natasza Niedziolka und Sylwek Luczak
Vernissage: Montag 09.Februar 2009 ab 20 Uhr
mit Musik von Austin Brown und Gabe Molnar.
Die Ausstellung zeigt zwei Künstlerinnen und einen Künstler mit sehr eigenen Positionen zur Verwendung von Form, Farbe und Licht.
Marianne Hopf's Bilder sind weder motivisch noch bezüglich ihrer Gattung einfach zu verorten: Haben wir es mit gegenständlicher oder abstrakter Malerei zu tun? Gebührt dem malerischen Ereignis, der schieren Aktion oder der Darstellung fremder Welten der Vorrang? Welten, die- sofern wir sie denn überhaupt lokalisieren wollen- am ehesten im mikrobiologischen Bereich anzusiedeln wären. Entscheidender als das „Was ?“ ist, wie sich hier der spontane, intuitive Pinselduktus mit den transpersonalen Strukturen verbindet. Diese harmonische Spannung zwischen Struktur und Emotion machen den herben Reiz ihrer Arbeiten aus.
Mit dramatischem Gespür lässt Marianne Hopf Kräfte und kontrastive Formen aufeinander und ineinander treffen, und beweist sich dabei als originäre Zeichnerin, der es um Vielschichtigkeit, wachsende Raumtiefe und Transparenz geht.
Natasza Niedziolka, Meisterschülerin von Prof. Tal R an der Düsseldorfer Kunstakademie, scheint uns zunächst in eine spielerische, naive (Traum-)Welt zu entführen, doch liegt Ihrem Schaffen ein strenges Konzept zu Grunde: Durch eine konsequente Formenreduzierung und Vereinfachung weniger Bildelemente entwickelt Sie eine vielschichtige eigene Bildsprache.
Diese Vereinfachung wird häufig durch eine Überarbeitung mit ungewöhnlichen Materialien wie Stoffen , Reisszwecken und Tackernadeln gebrochen, wodurch die Werke eine neue Komplexität erhalten. Mag Ihre Farbwahl zunächst ihren Ursprung in folkloristischen Trachtenmustern haben, so entwickelt Sie auch diese konsequent weiter wie der Betrachter an Ihren Holzskulpturen „peacock towers“ erleben kann.
Sylwek Luczak, international bekannt durch seine Licht- und Videogroßprojekte (Berlin Lights) , bringt uns durch seine Licht/Videoinstallation „3...6...9...seconds of light“ während der Berlinale dem Frühling näher. Die Kompositionen von Bildern entstehen im Raum meistens zufällig und wiederholen sich fast nie.
Die Arbeit erzählt vom Einfluss des Lichts auf unsere Wahrnehmung. Der Zuschauer steht mitten drin und kann selbst zahlreiche Zusammenhänge zwischen den verschiedenen Schichten entdecken.
Seine Arbeit wird unterstützt vom Polnischen Institut Berlin und Pool Production GmbH / FilmFestival Cottbus.
Werkstattgalerie
Eisenacher Strasse 6
10777 Berlin-Schöneberg
www.werkstattgalerie.org
info@werkstattgalerie.org
Phone:+49(0)30 21002158
Di - Fr 12-20 h, Sa 12-18 h
           |            |           | 01 Hans Abbing 02 Anja Müller 03 Roland Berger 04 Black Peter 05 Brian Kenny 06 Brandon Herman 07 Alexander von Agoston 08 Ivar Kaasik 09 John Kirby 10 Martina Minette Dreier 11 Rinaldo Hopf 12 Pascual Jordan 13 Jonathan Webb 14 Carlos Forns Bada 15 Christopher Schulz 16 Gonzalo Orquin 17 Raphael Perez 18 Jörg Nikolaus 19 Nicolaus Schmidt 20 Henning von Berg 21 Raphael T. Deinert 22 Ivo Hofste 23 Gerhard Hintermann 24 Alex Mene 25 Roberto Rincon 26 Aleksandr Schumow 27 Steam 28 Alexis W. 29 Etienne Zerah 30 XerXeX 31 Slava Mogutin 32 Alberto de las Heras |
      |       |       | 01 Jn.Ulrick Desert 02 Jn.Ulrick Desert 03 Jn.Ulrick Desert 04 Rinaldo Hopf 05 Rinaldo Hopf 06 Rinaldo Hopf 07 Nänzi 08 Gerhard Hintermann 09 Master Patrick 10 Nänzi 11 Genia Chef 12 Genia Chef 13 Thomas Gabriel 14 Rorro Berjano 15 Raphael Otto 16 Miguel Soler 17 Angie Bonino 18 Angie Bonino |
      |       |      | 01 Selbst mit Rose 02 BRD-Schwimmer 03 Königin Luise 04 Drei mal Sechs 05 Freiheit 06 Romeo-Carsten mit Messer 07 Erinnerung an Romeo und Julia 08 Romeo mit Gläsern 09 Zwei Freunde 10 Selbstportrait mit Palette 11 Weiterleben 12 Vergewaltigug 13 Das ganze Leben 14 Gekreuzigt 15 CSD-Umbrella 16 Warum Kunst? 17 Perche Arte? |
    |     |     | 01 Michael Kopietz 02 Alexander von Agoston 03 Jürgen Wittdorf 04 Pascual Jordan 05 Greg Day 06 Mischa Gerwick 07 Alexander von Agoston 08 Golo Gott 09 Michael Roggenbach 10 Jürgen Wittdorf 11 Pascual Jordan 12 Rinaldo Hopf |
      |       |      | 01 St. Sebastian 02 Skulls 03 Little Buddha 04 Hidden Place 05 Secret of the Rose 06 Day and Night 07 Körperrolle 08 Kopfrolle 09 Beijhos2 10 Beijhos 11 Körperrolle2 12 Kubus 13 Pyramide 14 Kugel 15 Ich bin ein Findling 16 Salome Portrait 17 Katharina |
    |     |    | 01 Alexis W 02 Jürgen Wittdorf 03 Rinaldo Hopf 04 Mesaoo Wrede 05 Michael Müller 06 Ines von Sassen 07 Alexander von Agoston 08 Martin von Ostrowski 09 Michael Kopietz 10 Pascual Jordan 11 Paul Kremp |
 |
      |       |      | 01 Rinaldo Hopf 02 Micha Gerweck 03 Muskboy 04 Tulip Enterprises 05 Cocopierre 06 Jan Schüler 07 Jürgen Wittdorf 08 Michael Müller 09 Pascual Jordan 10 Ohm Phanphiroj 11 Walter Pfeiffer 12 XerXeX 13 Edward Lucie-Smith 14 Master Patrick 15 Jörg Nikolaus 16 Anne Hody 17 Martin E. Kautter |
Opening of the exhibition
My gay eye 19.10.07 at 6 p.m.
together with the presentation of the anthology My gay eye 4
published by Konkursbuchverlag.
Introduction by Claudia Gehrke (Publisher) und Rinaldo Hopf (Curator)
with works by
Alexis W, Bernd Banaski, Cocopierre, Greg Day, Micha Engbert, Frank Gabriel, Micha Gerweck, Anne Hody, Rinaldo Hopf, Pascual Jordan, Martin E. Kautter, Paul Kremp, Edward Lucie-Smith, Master Patrick, Bas Meerman, Slava Mogutin, Michael Müller, James F. Murphy, Muskboy, Jörg Nikolaus, Roger Payne, Walter Pfeiffer, Ohm Phanphiroj, Matthias Roloff, Rene Schmalschläger, Jan Schüler, Pet Silvia, Jörg Simon, Wieland Speck, Oliver Spott, Schwules Museum Berlin, Spritzz.com, David Trullo, Tulip Enterprises, Anja Weber, Jürgen Wittdorf and XerXeX
  |   |  | 01 Ines von Sassen 02 Michael Kopietz 03 Solveig Karen Bolduan 04 Martin von Ostrowski 05 Solveig Karen Bolduan |
not available
 |  |  | 01 Isfahan Ornament 02 Stones 03 Berliner Grotesque- Türeinfassung |
    |     |    | 01 "Jesus & Johannes" 02 Christus gekreuzt 03 Enjoy Opus Dei - Part 1 04 Fishers of Men (2005-2006) 05 Ecce Homo Videoinstallation 06 Maria Magdalena 1 07 The Last Moment 3 08 Abendmahl 09 Friendship - Krieger 10 Les garcon fruits de la passion 11 Die Peinigung Jesu |
![Robert Flynt & Nicolas Spinosa
untitled / sin nombre
aus der Serie [:tandem]
unique inkjet print with mixed media, 42cm*30cm, 2010](http://werkstattgalerie.org/content/events/31_3.jpg)
