PRESS RELEASE BIELEFELDER KUNSTVEREIN - EXHIBITIONS 2011 FEBRUARY 12 MAY 01, 2011 OFIS ARHITEKTI / BEVK PEROVIC ARHITEKTI CONTEMPORARY SLOVENIAN ARCHITECTURE MAY 14 JULY 24, 2011 BEYOND GESTALTUNG SEPTEMBER 10 NOVEMBER 06, 2011 NOVEMBER 19, 2011 FEBRUARY 05, 2012 FEBRUARY 12 MAY 01, 2011 OPENING: FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2011, 7 PM Lili Reynaud-Dewar, Cléda s Chairs, Thomas Julier, Several Pots, 2009 Videostill, 2010, In Cooperation with Cédric Eisenring, Courtesy Lili Reynaud-Dewar, Inkjet Print on Paper Kamel Mennour, Paris and Mary Mary, Glasgow Courtesy Thomas Julier and Karma International, Zürich
2 Over the last few years, Lili Reynaud-Dewar (*1975, lives and works in Paris) has been developing a complex œuvre, which revolves consistently around the concept of cultural identity. Her works draw on her own family history to focus on the juxtaposition of individual perspectives and social stereotypes. Time and time again, she illustrates this aspect by means of the development of various 20 th century avant-garde movements and sub-cultures. These develop a different sort of aesthetic consciousness and new forms of resistance at a distance from existing rules and norms. That is why Reynaud-Dewar is also keenly interested in using her works to investigate that eccentricity which determines this sort of thinking, doing and acting, as well as making it possible in the first place. For her installations and audiovisual performances, the artist takes her own designs for stage sets, her own paintings and costume designs to create spaces as scenarios. As she borrows formally from film, theatre and pop music, her works often culminate in a multiplicity that is allegorical and partially archaic. Reynaud-Dewar works amid the tension between reality and fiction. Stories, myths and symbols are just as much the subject as the means of pursuing her artistic quests. The exhibition at Bielefelder Kunstverein sites Lili Reynaud-Dewar s most recent work,»cléda s Chairs«in the centre of the presentation. In the form of large-format paintings, objects and videos it does, among other things, make reference to Pier Paolo Pasolini s sketches about 1970 s Africa. It is the first solo exhibition by the French artist in a German institution. Thomas Julier (*1983, lives and works in Zurich and Brig, CH) works predominantly with photography, video and sculpture as mediums. What is possible using digital cameras, image and graphics programmes, as well as computeraided production, is what determines his pictures, objects and spatial installations. His works display art-historical and pop-cultural motifs as well as the urban and advertising architecture of the public sphere. His own photographs eschew the conventions of the usual realistic photography of documentaries. Instead, they focus on the visual effects of architectural surfaces and structures. Julier understands the seriality of his works as a game with personal as well as other people s banks of images. In this process, the form, time and processes of artistic production gain a particular role. This means that some series of his work are painstakingly handcrafted, often in collective work with artist-friends like Cédric Eisenring or Kaspar Müller, and by using traditional artistic techniques like linocuts. Other series do, in turn, use the possibilities of digital production and machine finishing. In this way, Julier also endows minimalist works with their own poetic qualities. Motifs and methods merge into representation of our post-medial reality. In this, his first formal solo exhibition at Bielefelder Kunstverein, Thomas Julier is showing a selection of current works together with new productions relating to spatiality.
3 OFIS ARHITEKTI / BEVK PEROVIC ARHITEKTI CONTEMPORARY SLOVENIAN ARCHITECTURE MAY 14 JULY 24, 2011 OPENING: FRIDAY, MAY 13, 2011, 7 PM Ofis Arhitekti, Farewell Chapel, 2005-2009 Bevk perović Arhitekti, House D, 2005-2008 Krasnja, Slovenia Ljubljana, Slovenia Courtesy Ofis Arhitekti Courtesy bevk perovic arhitekti In the late 1990 s, a series of architectural practices were founded in Slovenia and their works have increasingly met with international attention and recognition in recent years. Slovenia is still a recent, Central European republic, formed in 1991 out of what was formerly Yugoslavia, and has been a member of the European Union since 2004. Looking back, we can see how new developments have come about in tandem with the country s political and commercial changes. With bevk perović arhitekti and Ofis Arhitekti, Bielefelder Kunstverein is showing two celebrated representatives of this current Slovenian architectural scene in our biannual architecture exhibitions series. Both offices are located in Ljubljana. Their sphere of activity is, however, not limited to the Slovenian capital and to their own country but also encompasses projects completed all over Europe. The exhibition offers a comprehensive insight into the architectural creativity of both practices. This includes the question as to whether the works display common features, despite their differences in architectural stance, which can point to a typically Slovenian identity in architecture and to the East European history behind them. BEYOND GESTALTUNG SEPTEMBER 10 NOVEMBER 06, 2011 OPENING: FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 09, 2011, 7 PM
4 Design is everywhere today. In the light of social, ecological and technological demands, design no longer restricts itself to classical fields of product concepts, but is understood as a formal intervention in the very structures of our culture. This means that other cultural fields, such as art, architecture, politics, society and the production of knowledge are included as a matter of course. The development of this extended concept of design is not only propagated by designers themselves, but is supported and accompanied theoretically by scientists as well as philosophers. One of the most important goals of this process seems to be to search for a design removed from its ostensible functional character as commodity and, in this way, to display new perspectives of design. Parallel to this development, some artists seem to be interested in the everyday utilitarian character of design, as well as for social and creative ideas deriving from historical positions taken by designers. The exhibition at Bielefelder Kunstverein shifts works by designers and artists, all created out of the tension between art and design, into the centre of attention. The exhibition s point of departure comprises parallels in content as well as differences in artistic and creative production. Having regard to the respective conceptual initiatives, however, our intention is not just to investigate the interaction of art and design, but also the relevance and future development of design in artistic concepts as well as in general. NOVEMBER 19, 2011 FEBRUARY 05, 2012 OPENING: FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2011 Luke Fowler, A Grammar for Listening Part 3, 2009 16mm film In Cooperation with Toshiya Tsunoda Courtesy Luke Fowler and The Modern Institute, Glasgow Gareth Moore, Installationview Courtesy Gareth Moore, Catriona Jeffries Gallery, Vancouver and Lüttgenmeijer, Berlin Luke Fowler (*1978, lives and works in Glasgow, GB) works predominantly with film as his medium. His film installations break with the classical approaches of documentary films and their ways of representation. Partially forgotten stories, experimental ideas and ideologies are just as much central to Fowler s films as are the historical and medial parameters of film as well as the relationship between sound and image. In his films and his installations, Fowler is extending documentary conventions by means of the structural elements and forms of presentation in experimental films. Out of combinations of images he shoots himself in original settings with found film material, but also with sound, music, photographs, drawings, interviews and texts, he develops his
5 own auditory and visual cosmos for each of his topics. His most recent works, above all, reveal his interest in structuralist film, as well as the directness of film presentations in the Expanded Cinema projects of the 1960 s. In the first solo exhibition by the artist in any German institution, Bielefelder Kunstverein is showing current installations and collaborations with contemporary composers at the juncture of sound and image. The question at the centre of these works relates to how a significant dialogue between seeing and hearing can arise today. Gareth Moore (*1975, lives and works in Vancouver, CAN and Berlin) is a visual hunter and a gatherer. The quest and the way are fundamental elements in his work and form part of his artistic strategy. Moore is interested in the recycling of everyday objects, which have lost any value for many people. He undertakes long journeys to expose himself deliberately to unknown routes, places and situations, in order to find the source of this artistic creativity in just such circumstances. In the same way, he often decides against the structures and routine mechanisms of the art business in favour of unusual places as well as other forms of presentation and collaboration in the context of exhibitions. This way of working results in objects, collages, installations, photographs, films, performances, projects or simply entire exhibitions. These are works seemingly simple in their materials and concepts and yet recognisably precise in the extent of what it is they are using. Moore creates artistic works, which do not conceal the origins of their materials and yet harbour completely new stories. What he is presenting at Bielefelder Kunstverein and GAK Gesellschaft für Aktuelle Kunst Bremen is this artist s first solo exhibition in any German institution and with the exception of an exhibition at Witte de With in Rotterdam in 2008 in Europe as a whole. Gareth Moore is developing a new project for both locations in recognition of this opportunity. In cooperation with the GAK Gesellschaft für Aktuelle Kunst, Bremen. You will find further information related to the exhibition in the press section of our website www.bielefelder-kunstverein.de. CONTACT Bielefelder Kunstverein im Waldhof Welle 61 D-33602 Bielefeld T +49 (0) 521.17 88 06 F +49 (0) 521.17 88 10 kontakt@bielefelder-kunstverein.de www.bielefelder-kunstverein.de