All Monotypes from the series „Horses“ 40 cm X 30 cm
We are a visual artist duo based in Berlin and Switzerland, collaborating for over twenty years. Our work focuses on the image — its materiality, specifically, the notions of the body and the representation of form.
The photographic image is the starting point for all our research. We interrogate its meaning, exploring it as both a vehicle for ideas and a window into everyday life, as well as the realities and issues of contemporary societies. Our primary field of research and source material is the Internet. We photograph images from the web directly, through a computer screen. The distortions resulting from this „reappropriationist“ process are integral to our creative practice.
These captured images then undergo extensive experimentation on paper through our “drip-printing” technique—a transfer process akin to monotype. Repeated hundreds of times, this method introduces elements of chance and unpredictability, deconstructing and fragmenting the prints. This procedure imbues them with a richer, multi-dimensional reading potential.
By treating photography as a material, we delve into its substance — its ink and the forms it shapes — breaking down its figurative elements to shift them toward abstraction. The resulting paintings, created entirely in ink, extend this dialogue between photography and painting, taking a distinctly painterly approach.
Photos by Alexine Chanel, Fanny Bovey and Jörg Hasheider
The book handmade by Wil Pennycook, photographies by Michel Nolan, poems by Wil Pennycook
In addition to making handmade books and writing poems, Wil Pennycook has also worked in the fields of photography and video/installation. Documentaries you find here: https://www.wilpennycook.com
Nature Morte 1, Installation, 3 x Embroidery, nylon curtains 220 x 180 cm
Nature Morte 2, 12 pieces, watercolour on plywood, 297 x 210 cm plus text
Automatic Drawings, graphit on paper, Canson Akvarel A3
” In 2021 – 23 I have worked to explore the possibilities and challenges of line and drawing. I have experimented with „Automatic drawing“, as several surrealists also did. I continued working with the drawings and „sampled“ them into new constellations. In the process, special universes are created, composed of abstractions and recognizable creatures.
Going on by transforming some of the drawings into watercolours and lithografic prints, I created a series of works for this exhibition. The works are related to nature and the organic: pollution, climate change and sustainability are essential topics, as something that changes, transforms and destroys.
The strange abstractions and ambiguous fragments invite the viewer into a different landscape, a universe of its own.“
Under the surface 2 and 3, lithographic prints, ARCHES cotton paper, 50 x 65 cm
Pulp, watercolours on paper, Canson Akvarel A3
Nach einer unendlichen Wiederholung ist der Ursprung vergessen……. Woodboxes with glasfront, drawings and screenprints, each 10 x 20 x 30 cm
Karina Mosegård lives and works in Copenhagen, Denmark. After studying at the Royal Danish Academy of Arts she graduated with a master degree in fine arts at the University of the Arts, Berlin. She participated in more than 100 exhibitions in Europe, Japan and Canada.
Trésor, 11 photographies and 11 mirrors installed opposite in the corridor
Cabane, Que ma joie demeure de Jean Giono installed at Lake Geneva,Cully
ALEXINE CHANEL (FR) works with photography, video, performance, installation, collage, and sculpture. The media is typically dictated by the nature of each project. What links these different forms of expression is a vibrant interest for collecting, describing, categorising, and documenting various structures, emotions, systems, and memories. Chanel calls attention to everyday occurrences, apparently mundane facts and widely accepted traditions or structures, reorganising these according to new, experimental systems, thus permitting a new reading of them. The central theme of this body of work is the relationship between societal structures (spanning from religion, cultural traditions, to industry, administration, institutional matters) and the individual, its emotions and idiosyncrasies. It is the occasional discordances between these different types of organisms that interest Chanel.
(….) While the new paper cuts remain geometrically abstract and are sometimes dominated by strong stripes reminiscent of Pop Art, Schaefer’s earlier wall collages show finer and curvier lines as well as inclusions of writing or figurative elements. The associations that his works evoke therefore span a wide range from Sonja Delaunay, Fernand Léger, Alexander Calder, Bauhaus to Pop Art, Op Art and Comics. But every viewer of Schaefer’s works feels one thing: rhythm. Music. And no matter whether delicate or powerful, there is hardly a negative tone to be found. “Despite the lack of messages, my works reflect my inner music, the rhythm, the `be easy, be happy´ that I try to maintain in good times and bad.” (….) Excerpt of the text by Gallery Kurt-Kurt-Berlin. The full text and a documentation of the exhibition you find here: https://kurt-kurt.de/projekte/marco-p-schaefer-2020/
Paper cuts made from painted paper, each 20cm X 30cm
Paper cuts made from painted paper, each 40cm X 60cm
All Photographies Inkjet on Hahnemühle 40 cm X 40 cm
„Unobserved photography on public transport has a long tradition, from Walker Evans to Tom Wood; but Petrov Ahner’s digitally created series is […] coherent in itself and opens up a new dimension in the broad field of street photography, which seems to combine even the conceptual and the instinctive.
Formally, the focus is initially on indifferent reflections and reflections on the glass surfaces, and on shadowy, de-individualized figures on the other side. In the picture of this situation, the fogged up or graffiti- or tag-scratched panes of the suburban trains cause seemingly superficial injuries to the faces and bodies behind them, when they can be seen more closely, so much so that everything within the picture merges. The window pane is usually a transparent separating layer, a protection between inside and outside, but here it is often opaque due to extensive soiling, condensation or ice-flower-like freezing over and is therefore more comparable to a semi-transparent curtain […].
Some photographs are abstract, others remain realistic and yet puzzling because of the multiple layers of reality and images that overlap. Petrov Ahner visually freezes the everyday moments before the doors of trains open and the previously so shadowy is personalized for a moment, but can still hardly be grasped. He is interested in the fleeting and accidental encounters of unknown people, which in this form only a photographer or writer with a special eye can capture so excellently […].”
Extract of the text on Koinzidenzen (coincidences) by Dr. Matthias Harder, curator Helmut Newton Foundation
Petrov Ahner, born in 1965, worked from 1994, after his assistantship in Munich and Miami,15 years as a fashion and portrait photographer in Paris. With the documentary „Out of the dark“ about illegal immigrants in Paris, he distanced himself from the fashion world and in 2009 moved to Berlin, where he devoted himself entirely to the production of artistic photo series. The series „Coincidences“, shown in excerpts in the exhibition, has been published as a limited edition book by Edition Carpentier.
Das ist die Wahrheit (This is the Truth) 140 of 500 pieces
Marco Goldenstein works on serial drawing projects over long periods of time. Wall-filling graphic installations are created. The drawings of the installation „This is the truth“ were created over 2 years while working in a call center. Hence there is a connection to the classic telephone drawings, fleeting scribbles lost in thought that could appear on a notepad during a business call. Drawn with blue ball pen and based on the form of the bubble, they together create an overwhelming variety of patterns and signs.
Also part of the exhibition are selected works from the serial „Lockdown“ which all in all comprises 120 pieces.
The designs here can be thought of as an imaginary spiritual refuge that has to be abandoned and reconstructed again and again. Manifestations of time created in a late-capitalist open-plan office, variations of self-localization removed from temporality, patterns, rituals, models, vanishing points, communication, …… There ist still space between the lines.
Marco Goldenstein, born 1968 in Oldenburg, is a painter and draughtsman. He was co-operator and curator of the project space „Hochparterre Berlin StudioSalon“ in Berlin Kreuzberg from 2015-2020.
The happiness of a soap bubble is short and glorious. Anyone who breathes life into it and sees a part of himself, freed from all heaviness, float away, hardly more than a round glimmer, but breath of his own breath, must feel a little bit like a god.
Marco Goldenstein’s graphic variations under the title „Das ist die Wahrheit“ initially seem like a late reminiscence of this moment of happiness. In their crowdedness and multiplicity, his bubbles and spheres, circles and rings, which are continuously set in motion anew and condensed into fabrics, foams, streams or meshes, could seem like the result of a childlike, naïve creative joy and playfulness. The fact that this impression soon gives way to a growing uneasiness may be due to the fact that the truth, which according to the title is to be represented here, is composed of a large number of parts that differ widely in form and structure. In contrast to the sphere, which formally dominates the drawings, the A4 formats are arranged without distance in a wide band to form a grid.
This truth, whatever is hidden behind it, looks at the viewer as if from a cell with a hundred eyes. Nothing rounds out here; only through the structural violence of the arrangement do the drawings remain connected. One finds oneself surrounded by it and overwhelmed by beauty and apprehension in an almost sublime way, if one experiences sublimity according to Burke like a „delightful horror“.
It is all the more astonishing that this perception owes itself to the nervously meticulous drawing of a plain biros and hardly art-suspicious everyday utensils from a late capitalist open-plan office: it is probably no coincidence that the majority of the pictures were created in the call centre of an polling institute where Goldenstein earned his living. Excerpt from a text by Emanuel Maess
From the series „Lockdown“ pastel on paper 40 X 40 cm
The artist in conversation
5th of May, Openingof the Art Space
with my works: Organic Shapes, Egg Shaped, Ancestry and Pretty Pressure Dance
Being busy providing Malaysian Satay with peanut sauce and drinks to our visitors, we missed taking pictures during the opening. So an exhibition view is what you get.
For more pictures and information about the works please scroll down to previous posts.
Ancestry 50 pieces, various sizes
From the series Organs and Machines 25 X 18 cm and 20 X 15 cm
2 years ago I left Berlin and moved to Cully, a small village at Lac Leman, between Lausanne and Montreux. I renovated a small, very old house in the centre of the village.
The Houseto the laketo the vineyards
The work is not yet done, but I established my atelier and a small gallery.
Entrygallery space gallery in the atelierworking in the atelier
And of course I started working.
organic shape 7
ANCESTRY AT AU TOPSI POHL
The last exhibition in Berlin before Covid and moving to Switzerland took place in the wonderful Jazz-club Au Topsi Pohl. Unfortunately the club now is closed: The „Au Topsi” spirit left its body and floats around as potential, now and again visible like snow through a lamppost in a park in Denmark a century ago. Many thanks to the team for great concerts and nights and the support for the exhibition.
The work Ancestry comprises 50 collages on early 20th century photographies in contemporary frames. It is actually conceptualized as a 3 m x 5 m wall installation
ancestry at au topsiancestry at au topsiancestry at au topsidetail
ANCESTRY: THE BOOK
During Covid we transformed Ancestry into a book. Besides the images of the 50 collages, the book contains an introduction written by myself and a synergy text by D. Holland-Moritz. Both texts in german and english. It was designed and partially made by hand by Alexine Chanel. Photographies by Petrov Ahner. There is an edition of 50 numbered copies. Thanks to Frank Benno Junghanns for the help.
Zwitschermaschine, Berlin October 2019 Sound Happening: Narval (Evgenija Wassilew & Peter Strickmann)
Please scroll down for CVs and the text „About working with flowers“ from my catalog
Organic Shapes
Organic Shapes 5, 6, and 3
Egg shaped 3 (pink egg)
Organic Contamination
Ancestry
Sound Happening: Narval
Peter StrickmannEvgenija Wassilew
Photographies by: Petrov Ahner, Frank Benno Junghanns and the artist
The Duo Narval draws on sounds of possible languages. The minimal and sculptural sound happenings emphasize contrasts, sparseness and timbre and meet in improvisations between chance and control.
Peter Strickmann: Objects, Feedback, Wind, Ceramics, Smartphone
Peter Strickmann
installs, performs and manipulates audible activity in public and private
environments, observing, confronting and questioning the habits of hearing in
both routine and extraordinary contexts. He realizes installations, essayistic
projects/field trips, as well as situational sound actions and concerts in
various groups, duos and solo.
Evgenija Wassilew’s work
comprises installations and objects, performative sound recordings as well as
sound and text based records. In doing so, the respective recording,
translating and compositional methods touch limits and possibilities of
communication, in which different worlds of perception encounter.
About working with flowers
The flowers used provide a wide range of color, reaching from white to deep purple. These colors change with the process of drying and pressing, whereby the blossoms of one plant, depending on the moment of „harvesting“ and the state of wilting undergo different changes. The results of this process are not exactly predictable. The pressed blossoms are not homogenous; each blossom is intricately different from the next, with varying shapes, color patterns, and veining creating diversity among the material.
Another important feature of the organic material is their transparency. Working with the color and intensity of the pigment in the process of overlaying the flowers, the levels of transparency create a necessity to find balance among the varying blossoms.
The individual pieces in the body of work “Organic Shapes“ are constituted of 200 – 300 blossoms, although 400 – 500 blossoms are pressed to realize each work. A limited, heterogeneous (s.a.) stock is available, embedded in constellations of ongoing change. Through the inspection of the available material and the definition of the shape, diverse combinations can be formed from gradients of color and transparency.
From this point on, the work evolves through the interaction of the artist with the blossoms.
The trajectory of making is substituted by a process of mediated growth that is induced by the singular qualities of each blossom. The work grows with and from the material.
The process of growth, thought to be in contrast to the process of making, is the starting point in the material and realization of the artistic process united in one.
Tim Ingold describes this way of production in an encompassing reflection of worldcreation as follows:
“The maker´s ambitions, in this understanding, are altogether more humble than those implied with the hylomorphic model. Far from standing aloof, imposing his designs on a world that is ready and waiting to receive them, the most he can do is to intervene in the worldly processes that are already going on, and which give rise to the forms of the living world that we see all around us – in plants and animals, in waves of water, snow and sand, in rocks and clouds – adding his own impetus to the forces and energies in play.“
The aesthetic direction of these pieces, which is briefly described here, has developed since 2016. It was realized with “Usambara (Hybrids)“ and “Organic Contamination“. With the most recent works, “Organic Shapes“ it has fully unfolded.
The pieces of the Organic Shape / egg-shaped series integrate aspects of similitude and mimikry into the morphogenetic process.
