artist residency | swatch art peace hotel

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work by alec von bargen

work by alec von bargen


taking a short break from the berlin winter and dropping back into shanghai briefly: i will be participating as one of the artists in residence at the swatch art peace hotel until 22 january, 2015.

although the time will go by too quickly, it is wonderful to be back in the mainland working alongside the other 17 artists here on the bund again after my initial residency here in 2011.

the other current fellow artists in residence include alexandre and john gaillaelena monzodominique othenin-girardyuan jinhuachiara luzzanasofia ortizzhu yesandro del pistoiajuliana onggeorge van weteringbao lixinjovanna  toselloson kwang-jumaria pazcontreras buzetaphillip reed, and heidi bryce.

it’s so refreshing to see how many positive changes have happened since i was last working in this building three years ago. looking very forward to this time of heavy creative focus while working in an old and much-loved home.

FACES & TRACES | images



it’s nice to feel that the energy and artwork are very much alive and present in the exhibition and studio spaces of the swatch art peace hotel, even as shanghai begins to get colder.

being able to see the artwork by some of my most favorite humans as their ‘traces’ are displayed together in one place is a great feeling. the work collected from the combined three years’ worth of past artists-in-residence that have lived and created at the saph in shanghai has completely invigorated the walls with new life.

thrilled to be living and working here again over this upcoming stretch of winter weeks ahead. below are images from the exhibition including a painting from my mixed media brain series, on display and in the catalog.

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open studio | BLO Atelier images



thank you to everyone that came to blo atelier’s open studio event as part of lange nacht de bilder last thursday and friday: it was a lot of fun.

rumors have surfaced of another open studio event to happen here soon… more details on this and more upcoming blo events can be found on their website here.

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open studio | Blo Atelier, 6 – 7 nov

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as part of lange nacht derbilder 2014 – hosting various project spaces, galleries and artist studios based in the lichtenberg district – blo atelier presents performances, workshops and audio + visual work by its artists.

claudia clemens | jorge lequite | johannes bucholtz | almut muller | kathryn gohmert | feryel atek | nancy gorlach | thomas knoof | till gruhl | claudia hirschberger | daniel rabe | luz schewinski | maria fernandez verdeja | sabine alex | conni saaid rabe | constance schrall | nils bornemann | michi sheffler | hana el degham | johnny kortlever | irina novarese

for more information about lange nacht de bilder 2014, blo atelier and its artists, please visit the blo atelier website or the facebook page.

it would be great to see you there.

thurs – fri, 6 – 7 nov |  18:00 – 24:00

kaskelstraße 55, 10317, berlin – lichtenberg

s7/s5 nöldnerplatz

 

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FACES & TRACES | Swatch Art Peace Hotel

 

i’m very pleased to announce my work will be included in the exhibition, FACES & TRACES, hosted at the swatch art peace hotel in their shanghai location on the bund as part of the celebration of the hotel’s 3 year anniversary.

with it’s official opening this weekend, FACES & TRACES will showcase the “traces” selected from the works given to the residency program by it’s 139 former artists-in-residence.

celebrations continue with a street art festival on the Bund.

the exhibition is open to the public from november 1, 2014 through the end of the year.

follow the link above for more information about the exhibition and other events in the swatch program on the swatch website.

if you are in the area, please try to go view this group exhibition [and enjoy it on my behalf, as i won’t be there in person]!

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new studio | blo ateliers, berlin

images below from the new studio space at BLO ateliers, berlin! see the BLO website for more info on the facilities and other artists based in this post-industrial wonderland. more details coming soon about our upcoming open studio event on 7 november. stay tuned to this blog for more information or subscribe to my newsletter here for updates closer to the date.

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UNBREAKEN finissage | L’atelier-ksr

after a full week of interactively exploring possibilities, the artists of the unbreaken project are pleased to present the results of our combined research from the collective exercising of our ‘living’ publication.

this friday, 19 september, 6:00 – 9:00 pm, the unbreaken project concludes at l’atelier-ksr with the unbreaken finissage.

we would be delighted to see you there.


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UNBREAKEN | opening + publication launch images


thank you to all who came out last saturday 13 sept] and made the unbreaken launch such a memorable evening!

now that our ‘living publication’ has been activated, a week of exercising it has begun. see the facebook page here for updates to the weeklong program as we apply our living publication in the reality around us and research the affects.

you are warmly invited to join all unbreaken related explorations going on this week around berlin by rsvping to: affect@agoracollective.org or else very welcome to drop by the gallery space of l’atelier-ksr to check in and be a part of our process as it builds toward the unbreaken finissage on friday, 19 september, from 6 – 9 pm at l’atelier-ksr.

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UNBREAKEN | L’atelier-ksr [13 – 19 sept]

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UNBREAKEN


alice bucknell | aviv benn | daniel almgrenrecén | jol thomson | josé cori | kathryn gohmert | rune bosse


book launch | opening: saturday, 13 september, 7:00 pm


l’atelier-ksr | 34 grossbeerentstrasse | 10965 Berlin – Kreuzberg | u6/7 mehringdamm | u1 möckenbrücke


an experimental collaborative publication exceeds its material boundaries and finds its selves taking over spaces, relationships and even dreams. passages are channeled through a stream of collisions and implosions in  and around the space of l’atelier-ksr between 13 – 19 september, 2014



facilitated by fotini lazaridou-hatzigoga, diego agulló, yves mettler,  sarah lewis, john holten, judith lavagna. coordinated by paz ponce.”


[coordinates and details for further events during the week to be updated soon]

 

upcoming exhibition: unbreaken | l’atelier-ksr

 

coming soon: the exhibition of AFFECT Module II artists at the gorgeous l’atelier-ksr project space in kreuzberg [13 – 19 september].

more details coming.


 

 

artists-in-residence | affect module ii

 

just in case you wanted to know a bit more about the other six artists I’m spending nearly every waking minute collaborating with during these last several weeks – you can read more about them and their brilliant work now on the AFFECT website.

[josé cori]:

josé cori was born in freiburg, germany in 1989. he studied both visual arts and aesthetic at pontificia universidad católica de chile, in chile [2008-2013]. he focuses mainly on installation and painting, and now lives and works in berlin.

[rune bosse:]

[bio-poem] if i was a plant, in the summer of 1987. sprouting between the forest and the beach, on southern zealand in denmark. then i would grow, become interested in growing. later in life through being moved and moving, collect nourishment from different soils and places, play with, and on, the different grounds. i would learn and seek inspiration in my natural surroundings. it would be a trigger in my work. both thru questioning the world, how is it put together? and the possibilities of assembling it in new ways. I often would find myself confused and not sure of where i was going, then locating the starting point or origin, would make it possible to create a line and see a connection, it would give me direction knowing the nature of things. maybe from two thousand and nine till eleven putting my roots in the royal danish academy of fine arts and afterwards taking part two and a half year in the institute for spatial experiments lead by olafur eliasson in berlin. still playing with things that grow.

[kathryn gohmert:]

kathryn Gohmert [1983] is from the united states. she received her ba in art from the university of texas at austin before relocating to the uk, then china. in the last six years, while based mainly in shanghai, she has been working throughout china in a succession of studio spaces that include the songzhuang artist village in beijing and 696 weihai lu in shanghai. her range of mediums now include illustration, video, mixed media, installation and performance art. She is currently based in berlin.

[jol thomson:]

despite years of university educations, along with all the accrued debts, he still cannot specifically name more than five types of trees [of which he assumes there must be many many others]. and while preferring not to align himself with a specific nation, he anyways profusely enjoys maple syrup and “the great outdoors,” though not enough to know the systematic classifications or taxa of the types of things that might be “out there.” while waisting his time reading and thinking about things he could never fully comprehend, he becomes occasionally bored and resorts to making sounds into volumes, rhythms and patterns – or he goes swimming – or he just stares off into deep space. . . recently, upon trying to decide whether his capacity to remember was getting better or not, he realized he simply couldn’t recall how it was in the past anyways, quickly forgot the whole endeavour, and got to the task of rearranging a collection of favourite stones kept on and around his working table.

aviv benn:

aviv benn [b.1988,] is a tel-aviv based artist. through direct, expressive paintings and while using a scope of visual language ranging from street to folk art, aviv explores in her work imagery from classical painting and folk art – referencing often the symbols of skulls, masks and self portraits – alongside the investigation of “inner worlds,” as can be seen most recently in her latest series, dealing with the concept of death anxiety. benn’s thick oil paintings often combine “direct” materials primarily used in street art – xerox transfers, black and white prints and [of course] spray paint. aviv holds a bfa from the bezalel academy of arts and design in jerusalem, where she graduated with honors in 2013. she is mainly based in tel-aviv and jerusalem.

[alice bucknell:]

alice bucknell is a visual artist, writer, researcher and thinker based in chicago, il. her practice is located at the intersection of art, aesthetics, and social spaces. her anthropological research takes up the social authority of public/installation art and the production of art spaces [i.e. artist collectives] in the urban environment as a platform for both knowledge production and sharing. as a visual artist she considers topics of memory and commemoration; the phenomena of nostalgia, embodiment, and affect; in addition to the aesthetics of atmosphere and [be]longing. She considers her art practice to be an additional form of fieldwork. she is currently investigating the role of contemporary art in constructing new narratives of social experience within both the built and imaginary environments of detroit and berlin, paying particular attention to the ways in which visual and performance artists can [re]activate the space and politics of emptiness in the modern cityscape. this experiential-experimental project, taking the form of both a publication [upcoming, 2015] and a website, also explores the ways in which abandonment and urban voids have in turn become aestheticized; the relationship between history, fantasy, memory; and the productive and hazardous possibilities that shape these changing social, spatial, and visual dialogues.

[daniel almgrenrecén:]

daniel is working as choreographer, performer, movement coach, workshop facilitator and project manager. he is systematically problematising choreography as creative practice by looking in to the fields of education, management, architecture and design thinking. daniel holds a ba in choreography from sndo at the amsterdam school of the arts and has also studied theology and drama. since 2011 he is through his work exploring the notions of home that have so far resulted in the experiential works native realm in 2012 and near that place in 2013.

 

 

August 22, 2014.--

book sprint | AFFECT module ii


our first publication, trial-by-fire-style.

all the joys and frustrations of the book-making process performed in a single day.

this “book sprint” project was facilitated by john holten, co-founder of berlin-based publishers, broken dimanche press. see more of john’s work here.

the birth of a book in images:

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This entry was posted in relatedworkand tagged on August 11, 2014.--

skill exchange | agora collective, images


the idea behind the skill exchange workshop, led this weekend by the individual artists collectively making up AFFECT’s current artists-in-residence group, was that each artist had a very specific technique / methodology which had been purposefully developed in their life, becoming fine-honed to the point of near superpower level.

with the ultimate design of passing on unusual skills to strangers and thereby empowering them, each artist devised the details of the specific workshop they felt most masterful and capable in leading.

topics included how to successfully avoid conversation on airplanes, traveling backwards at top speed, composing haikus, nordic rope-tying techniques [survival], how to successfully avoid paying rent, the art of climbing trees like a ninja assassin, and the ancient dutch technique of expertly cloning plants.

my tree-climbing workshop.

my tree-climbing workshop.

my tree-climbing workshop.

my tree-climbing workshop.

my tree-climbing workshop.

my tree-climbing workshop.

plant-cloning workshop by rune bosse.

plant-cloning workshop by rune bosse.

haiku-writing workshop by jose cori.

haiku-writing workshop by jose cori.

how to avoid conversations on airplanes by alice bucknall.

how to avoid conversations on airplanes by alice bucknall.

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skill exchange | agora collective [sat, 26 july]

the second edition of AFFECT: agora’s program for collaborative artistic practices is pleased to invite you to partake in the first collective event developed by the current artists in residence: alice bucknell [us], aviv benn [il], daniel almgrenrecén [se], josé cori [de], jol thomson [us], kathryn gohmert [us], rune bosse [dk].

right at the beginning of the “contextualizing” phase of the program, facilitated by diego agulló, the recently arrived participants have been learning from one another specialized skills, abilities and super powers — such as the world famous texan tree-climbing technique, how not to pay your rent, northern rope survival – just to name a few…

on the occasion of “AFFECT PRESENTS,” an event format developed by agora to celebrate the presence of their new residents, the artists decided to extend the dynamics of this introductory phase of the program and share it with an open audience in a series of short workshops accompanied by virgin smoothies.

join us in a day of mutual exploration and skill exchange.

when: saturday, 26th july
time: 6 – 9 pm
where: agora collective
mittelweg 50, berlin-neukölln

[AFFECT is conceptualized by agora collective e.v. and module ii is moderated by fotini lazaridou hatzigoga, facilitated by diego agulló, sarah lewis, yves scherer, john holten, judith lavagna and coordinated by paz ponce.]

www.agoracollective.org/affect


feel free to join & share the event on facebook here.

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creative beginnings | affect module ii

we’ve had a productive day here in the workspace of AFFECT’s top floor full of creative discourse, multi-disciplianry inspiration, and the early developments of the concept and structure behind what will be some spectacular final work.

also being undertaken at the moment is the collective formation and release of two publications, under the brilliant guidance of john holten from renegade publishers, broken dimanche press.

see the photo documentation below for proof that artists [and their egos] from different disciplines and countries are not only able to work together within a shared space, but even live to tell about it … while producing something nice along the way.

more is coming soon. in the meantime, please enjoy this ridiculously short video of performance artist, daniel almgrenrecén, helping us warm up between sessions.

also be sure to take a look at the FUEL ARTISTIC EXCHANGE project if you haven’t yet [20% there already].


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Dance: Daniel AlmgrenRecén, Melba Kolektyw (Marysia Stokłosa, Ilona Trybuła, Rafał Dziemidok) Music: DJ Lenar Festival Ad Libitum + SIC!l 23.Oct.2011 @ Labor...

I created this video with the YouTube Video Editor (http://www.youtube.com/editor)

artist dinner | affect module ii |


and we’re off to a great start so far … being courted with a delicious meal at agora collective’s cozy downstairs cafe is a dangerous thing to get used to, but its a wonderful way to get to know the creative minds that will be working closely together for the next ten weeks.

after touring the building and spending a relaxed evening talking with the organizers, artists, writers and facilitators in agora’s gorgeous garden, it’s clear that the people here have all come together to develop something striking and original in this space during these next few months. looking forward to getting started.


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fuel artistic exchange | goal met [17 days left]



so as of yesterday evening, berlin time, the kickstarter goal set for the campaign funding my current artist residency in berlin has been met! unbelievable!

an enormous amount of gratitude goes to every single person that has been a positive part of this project so far: the amount of encouragement, support and love that’s been shown to me – sometimes in unlikely and unexpected places – has been very touching and i’m very grateful.

and now, as my ongoing project with AFFECT module ii is now fully funded, i am very excited to begin customizing the personal rewards chosen by my backers, and start sending them on to their final destinations.

if you still want to be a part of the action, and are worried that you’ve missed all the fun, rest assured: there are a few rewards still available – from original and limited edition artwork to personalized, handwritten haikus – there are 17 days to go during which you can still be a part of this project while its live [the image below can take you to the || FUEL ARTISTIC EXCHANGE || page on kickstarter’s website].

have a lovely weekend and stay tuned.


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