ART COLOGNE Announces the Final Selection of 20 NEW POSITIONS
Since 1980 the sponsorship programme of "NEW POSITIONS" at ART COLOGNE provides young artists with the possibility to present their works in a 25 square metre area attached to the stands of their galleries. Financial support is provided by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia, the Bundesverband Deutscher Galerien und Kunsthändler (German association of galleries and art dealers) and the Koelnmesse. For this year's ART COLOGNE (26-29 April), a jury of experts composed of the artist Christiane Baumgartner, Eva Birkenstock, Director of 'Kunstvereins für die Rheinlande und Westfalen', Daniel Völzke, Monopol Magazine, Head of Online, Priska Pasquer, Gallery Priska Pasquer as well as Lukas Minssen, Gallery Utermann selected 20 young artistic positions. The Deutsche Telekom will also confer the ART COLOGNE Award for NEW POSITIONS. The award includes a solo exhibition in the Cologne Artothek.
The 20 NEW POSITIONS at ART COLOGNE again offer a wide spectrum of artistic creativity this year: from painting to photography, object art and installation to video and performance. The works of the young artists deal with social phenomena and political developments, (re)-constructed reality, reflect the art business, show site-related installations and interactions, or critically deal with their own artistic expressive means.
The French media artist Clément Cogitore (Gallery Reinhard Hauff, Stuttgart) works with the superimposition of documentary and invented material in his films and photo series. In the process he is primarily concerned with the staging and reconstruction of reality through images. For the "Digital Desert" photo series he photographed uniforms made of a material that can't be detected by the targeting systems of drones. Cogitore took these pictures in the Atlas mountain range at various times of the day and night, where the strewn about high-tech clothing at first glance appears to be the remains of the dead.
Whimsical stories with a direct reference to social reality are presented by the artists Nicola Gördes and Stella Rossié (Gallery Jürgen Becker, Hamburg) in the four films they have realised together since 2013. They approach their themes with humour and playful lightness; in the cinematic realisation, the precise sense for special shooting locations and costumes impress especially, as does the well-thought out use of music and sound.
The duo achieves entirely unique and completely new access to the questions of our time. In many works, Mia Goyette (Gallery Luis Campana, Berlin) deals with the various interventions of human beings into specific material conditions, which she makes visible and once again places in question through new combinations. One frequently reoccurring element involves hands manufactured from casting resin and cement, which, isolated from the body, are represented in their function as acting instruments. The materiality of the paint plays the main role in the work of Franziska Holstein (Gallery Klaus Gerrit Friese, Berlin). Countless coats of paint that have been brushed or poured onto the painting surface overlap in her paintings, in which the work process is visible. Collages of coloured paper form their own group of works. They are based on geometrical shapes that have been varied in many ways and that unite formal stringency with an intuitive sense for colour, form and composition.
Hedwig Houben (Gallery Fons Welters, Amsterdam) is a sculptor and performance artist who reflects upon her understanding of herself as an artist and the mechanisms of the art market in her performances. The sponsorship booth is planned as an interactive project that has been equipped by Houben with a shelving system. In it he presents a collection of copies and models of earlier works, which are rearranged on a daily basis. Andreas Johnen (Gallery Jochen Hempel, Leipzig) transfers watercolour painting to sculptural objects. He applies up to 140 coats of watercolour paint in a process extending over a long period. Movement and counter-movement, colour saturation and drying result in a delicate plasticity, in which time seems to have manifested itself in the material.
Sebastian Koch (Gallery Krobath, Vienna) draws attention to himself with a minimal aesthetic language of form that opens up new dimensions of design and materiality. For his drawings and their sculptural implementation in the space, the artist uses a special kind of combinatorics, in which the most varied parts made of the most diverse materials are combined in modules. Even cast concrete slabs provide Jugoslav Mitevski (Petra Rinck Gallery, Düsseldorf) with a starting point for works in which the specific materiality of the concrete and painting interact with one another. Existing lines, intakes, air pockets and agglomerations that occur during casting are incorporated into the processing. This results in complex structures and finely balanced pictorial structures of great visual and haptic attraction.
Tobias Nink (Gallery Heinz Holtmann, Cologne) creates his objects from worn-out pieces of furniture, the components of which he dismantles and recombines until they have been relieved of their familiar function. The remix of the existing components results in a sculptural construct that seems both familiar and strange at the same time. The substantiality of the works is emphasised by titles like "The General", "Hoppe Hoppe Reiter" and "Totem", which also reveal the inventiveness and sense of humour of the master student of Tony Cragg.
The Hungarian concept artist Peter Puklus (Gallery Conrads, Dusseldorf) works in the fields of photography, installation and performance. He makes the coming about of photographic motifs his theme in complex three-dimensional collages. His image series are studies, sketchbook and voyage of discovery at the same time, which burst formal boundaries and radically expand the photographic space. Puklus moves like a director through his installations, in which he experiments with shapes, light, shadows, time and space.
Architectural forms that appear to have originated from a model set form a central motif in the painting of Titus Schade (Gallery Eigen + Art, Berlin/Leipzig). In stage-like scenarios and type case-like layouts, he develops locations that alternate between model and stage situations. In his images he arranges set pieces of reality into a world unto itself, which is lent a semblance of the mysterious and the unsettling with a baroque system of lighting.
The sculptural works of Toni Schmale (Christine König Gallery, Vienna) are reminiscent of everyday objects, devices, machinery, furniture or architectural details. They offer the visitor an invitation to interact. The artist displaces dimensions and material qualities; makes use of ironic exaggerations to formulate a critique of societal power relations with their stereotypical attributions. The interest of the photographer Arne Schmitt (Gallery Jacky Strenz, Frankfurt/Main) focuses on the architecture and urban planning of the postwar period. In his series of black and white photos, he presents himself as a precise observer who makes the strategies of the politicians and city planners visible.
The work of Andreas Schmitten (König Gallery, Berlin) is located in the field of tension between room installation, autonomous sculpture, model and furnishings. In 2013 he created "A Set for the Schmela Building, Bar and Hall", and subjected the minimalist-cool building to a radical transformation with self-made furnishings and coloured light. In his space-oriented stagings, he creates a very special atmosphere, in the process connecting interior and exterior, art and reality.
Ralph Schuster (Gallery Linn Lühn, Dusseldorf) prefers to work with coloured pencils and stains on MDF or wood. In his mostly small-format works, he creates pictorial worlds alternating between abstract alienation and constructed reality. In surreally insinuated spaces, he combines figurative and non-figurative relics that defy interpretation.
The attitude towards life of adolescents at the threshold of adulthood is the theme of various short films by Paul Spengemann (Produzentengalerie Hamburg). "The Inaccessibility of Greek Antiquity and its Consequences" plays in a humanist secondary school in which pupils carry utensils through corridors void of human presence. All details appear to be charged with meaning. The conclusion of the film is provided by the presentation of a Greek poem in a dimly lit basement, which creates an atmosphere reminiscent of a psychological thriller. In the film "Philosophieren" (philosophising), one accompanies a group of young people spending a weekend in the holiday home of their parents. One experiences six different characters full of insecurity and uncertainty.
The sculptor Péter Szalay (acb Gallery, Budapest) works with the most varied materials, and occasionally with found objects, which he transforms. His sculptures and installations contain many references to and citations from the history of art; zalay refers to the readymades of Marcel Duchamp, among other things.
The multi-layered works of Stefan Vogel (Gallery Fred Jahn, Munich) shimmer between collage, painting and drawing, between a spatial experience and poetry. The artist works with the most varied media, techniques and formats, which extend from small glass series to space-filling canvasses; the linguistic-poetic level plays a key role. The viewing and making accessible of the work becomes an extended process, something like when one steps onto a floor work consisting of in some cases wobbling concrete slabs and embedded drawings.
The American Christine Wang (Gallery Nagel Draxler, Cologne) assumes a position in her artistic practice in relation to socio-political themes, which she approaches with the most varied means. Cardboard boxes, which she has imprinted with hashtags in a golden font, refer on the one hand to homeless people, who use signs of this kind as props for begging, while they on the other hand refer to the keywords of reduced Internet communication. She makes use of the pictorial language of religious representations from the 15th century for a series of very recent paintings. Kenny Wong (Pearl Lam Galleries, Hong Kong) is interested in researching visual patterns, movements and sound structures. His kinetic installations are located between real and virtual space, between reality and dream.
A selection of Artists who received a New Positions in the past (until 2010):
* 1980 - ATV alternative television: Marcel Odenbach, Ulrike Rosenbach, Klaus vom Bruch (Gallery Philomene Magers, Bonn)
* 1981 - Siegfried Anzinger (Six Friedrich/Sabine Knust, Munich), Candida Höfer (Konrad Fischer, Düsseldorf)
* 1982 - Erwin Wurm (Nächst St. Stephan, Vienna)
* 1983 - Stephan Balkenhol (Gallery Löhrl, Mönchengladbach), Gunther Förg (Max Hetzler, Cologne), Peter Kogler (Gallery Krinzinger, Vienna), Thomas Schütte (Konrad Fischer, Düsseldorf)
* 1984 - Pia Fries (Gallery Munro, Hamburg), Rosemarie Trockel (Philomene Magers, Bonn), Günter Umberg (Gallery Anselm Dreher, Berlin)
* 1987- Thomas Ruff(Rüdiger Schöttle, Munich), Dirk Skreber (Gallery Schmela, Düsseldorf), Andreas Slominski (Produzentengalerie, Hamburg)
* 1990 - Rainer Ganahl (Philomene magers, Bonn)
* 1991 - Willhelm Mundt (GalleryLuis Campana, Frankfurt/Cologne)
* 1992 - Thomas Demand (Gallery Tanit, Munich), Karin Kneffel (Galerie Schütz, Frankfurt), Beat Streuli (Gallery Conrads, Düsseldorf), Corinne Wachsmuht (Johnen & Schöttle, Cologne)
* 1994 - Olafur Eliasson (Lukas & Hoffmann, Cologne), Tracey Emin (White Cube, London), Lothar Hempel (Daniel Buchholz, Cologne), Carsten Höller (Schipper & Krome, Cologne)
* 1995 - Lukas Duwenhöger (Gallery Lukas Hohn, Ull), Clay Ketter (Andreas Brandström, Stockholm), Aernout Mik (Deweer Gallery, Otegem), Gregor Schneider (Konrad Fischer, Düsseldorf), Joep van Lieshout (Fons Welters, Amsterdam)
* 1996 - Catherine Yass, Laure Genillard, London
* 1997 - Eberhard Havekost (Gallery Gebr. Lehmann, Dresden)
* 1998 - Anne Chu (AC Project Room, New York) Elger Esser (Gallery Friebe, Lüdenscheid), Anton Henning (Wohnmachine, Berlin), Dana Hoey (Friedrich Petzel, New York), Yves Netzhammer (Stähli, Zurich), Tal R. (Mikael Andersen, Copenhagen), Yinka Shonibare (Stephan Friedman, London), Piotr Uklanski (Gavin Brown's Enterprise, New York)
* 1999 - Matti Braun (Luis Campana, Cologne), Birgit Megerle (CFA, Berlin), Neo Rauch (Eigen + Art, Leipzig)
* 2000 - Bjorn Dahlem (Luis Camapana, Cologne), Marcel Dzama (Richard Heller, Santa Monica), Urs Fischer (Hauser & Wirth & Presenhuber, Zurich), Jim Lambie (Modern Institute, Glasgow), Nicole Wermers (Produzentengalerie, Hamburg)
* 2001 - Martin Eder (Eigen + Art, Berlin/Leipzig), Shirana Shahbazi (Bob von Oursow, Zurich)
* 2002 - Lori Hersberger (Bob van Oursow, Zurich)
* 2003 - Christoph Rückhäberle (Kleindienst, Leipzig)
* 2005 - Tjorg Douglas Beer (Produzentengalerie, Hamburg), Thea Djordjadze (Sprüth Magers, Cologne/Munich/London), Anette Kelm (Gallery Crone, Berlin), A.L. Steiner (Rove, London)
* 2006 - Jorinde Voigt (Fahnemenn Projects, Berlin), Ekrem Yalcindag (Karl Pfefferle, Munich)
* 2008 - Secundino Hernandez (Gallery Heinrich Ehrhardt, Madrid)
* 2010 - Michal Budny (nächst St. Stephan, Wien), Michail Pirgelis (Sprüth Magers, Berlin)
