Poster Design Béla Feldberg — Poster Design: Béla Feldberg

With Minhyeok Ahn, Rasoul Ashtary, Rachel Ashton, Nooshin Askari, Jackson Beyda, Giulio Bonfante, Jack Brennan, Theresa Büchner, Juliet Carpenter, Tamar Chaduneli, Clyde Conwell, Rashiyah Elanga, Lydia Ericsson Wärn, Béla Feldberg, John Hussain Flindt, Alexis Gautier, Yun Heo, Evan Jose, Atiéna R. Kilfa, Sonia Knop, Sam Lasko, Jing Lin, Dominik Litwin, David Moser, Luis Polyanszky Worth, W. Rossen, Maximiliano Siñani, Robin Stretz and Alex Thake.

From the classes of Monika Baer, Gerard Byrne, Willem de Rooij, Judith Hopf, Hassan Khan, Tobias Rehberger and Haegue Yang and former professors Douglas Gordon, Peter Fischli and Amy Sillman as well as former guest professors Keren Cytter, Cyprien Gaillard, Sung Tieu, Wu Tsang, and former interim professor Nikolas Gambaroff.

This year's graduate exhibition Medium Rare includes works by 29 students from all seven fine art classes, and it will take place on two floors in a temporarily used office building at Untermainkai 27–28, directly on the Main River and near the Städelschule. The 29 artists, who describe themselves in ironic self-reflection and with reference to the “Frankfurt Kitchen'' designed by Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky in 1926 as "half cooked" after their education, will show new works including: paintings, sculptures, video, sound works, photographs, prints, drawings, installations, and performances.

The exhibition is curated by Alke Heykes.

Medium Rare is made possible by major support from Hessisches Ministerium für Wissenschaft und Kunst. Significant support is provided by Allen & Overy LLP, Ernst Max von Grunelius – Stiftung, Sammlung Pohl gGmbH, and Städelschule Portikus e.V.. Additional support comes from blackolive advisors GmbH.

Graduate Prizes

1) Theresa Büchner (Städelschule Portikus e.V.)
2) Jack Brennan und Rashyia Elanga (Sammlung Pohl gGmbH)

Jury

David Dreyfus (Representative, Städelschule Portikus e.V.), Fatima Hellberg (Director, Bonner Kunstverein), Dr. Ana Pohl (CEO, Sammlung Pohl), Sarah Gilder (Director, Sammlung Pohl), Prof. Yasmil Raymond (Rector, Städelschule and Director, Portikus)

Photos: Eric Bell

Graduates 2022

Minhyeok Ahn

b. 1990, South Korea
Class of Amy Sillman, Nikolas Gambaroff, and Monika Baer

Minhyeok Ahn is recently working on sculpture representing objects which he encounters in his environment. Mainly, the objects are from his life, games, fairy tale novels, travel, or everyday life. As he goes through the various worlds, Ahn is interested in the process of objects disappearing on both the physical and the conceptual side. His works, such as a very thin plate of marble or a light bench swaying in the wind, seem to one day weather into dust, lose their shape, and disperse into the air.

Minhyeok Ahn
U-Bahn Station, 2022
Kambala wood, plexiglas, light
approx. 230 x 400 x 100 cm

Rasoul Ashtary

b. 1991, Iran
Class of Willem de Rooij

In his work, Rasoul Ashtary approaches a psychoanalytic practice mediated by sound, drawings, and paintings in order to expose the intense momentum within the banality of everyday life. Inspired by the legacy of surrealism, automatism, occult, conspiracy, and paranoia, he develops an assembling technique in which within it he breaks down the span of movement and revisions it into a less materially stressed form where currency and circulation show themselves toward thin, anemic layers of paint and inconspicuous, transparent brush strokes.

Rasoul Ashtary
Untitled, 2022
Oil on canvas
150 x 200 cm

Untitled, 2022
Oil on canvas
150 x 200 cm

Rachel Ashton

b. 1995, United Kingdom
Class of Gerard Byrne

Rachel Ashton is a film maker who previously studied an undergraduate degree in Fine Art at Goldsmiths College, London, 2018. As a director she takes an approach of passivity allowing all cinematic elements to live equally on the same plain. This means that often places, interpersonal relationships and music behave parallel as protagonists in her work. Rachel Ashton engages with the complex relationships of the rural environment and the people who live amongst it. Her films witness how communities can come together when faced with difficult circumstances.

Rachel Ashton
Living Too Late, 2022
28:00 min
35:00 min

Nooshin Askari

b. 1989
Class of Judith Hopf

Nooshin Askari lives and works between Tehran and Frankfurt am Main. In their practice, they use drawing, sculpture, and video to examine spaces that invent language to reinterpret and rearrange spectacles.

موتوا قبل ان تموتوا
Dimensions variable

Jackson Beyda

b. 1995, unseceded Tongva territory
Class of Willem de Rooij

Jackson Beyda works with performance and sculpture. In their performances, Beyda uses extended acts of reading to oscillate between fictive and historical spaces and to explore different modes of attention. Their sculpture maintains a poetic and materialist insistence on the incomplete, leaky, and non-categorical. Beyda’s work is informed by an anti-disciplinary reading practice and a commitment to the principle of opacity. Before studying at the Städelschule Beyda received a BFA from The Cooper Union, New York.

Jackson Beyda
[the] Natural History of an Interview, 2021
Graphite on cold-press paper
34 x 41 cm

Jackson Beyda
[the] Natural History of an Interview, 2021
Graphite on cold-press paper
34 x 41cm

Jackson Beyda
[the] Natural History of an Interview, 2021
Graphite on cold-press paper
34 x 41 cm

Jackson Beyda
stage, 2022
500 x 400 x 16 cm

Citations, 2021-2022
Performance with Arnaud Ferron, Aran Kleebaur, and Aerin Hong

Giulio Bonfante

b. 1997, Italy
Class of Judith Hopf

Always fascinated by painting, Giulio Bonfante has found the fundamental point of reference for his practice in the twists of its recent history. He feels part of a young tradition in which painting means trying to paint while wondering if that’s a good idea, caring about the destiny of painting despite being skeptical about its current relevance. It’s an approach that doesn’t require clear intentions. Instead, it needs a sincere interest and an emotional involvement in painting’s evolution, in its relationship with contemporary art and the contemporary world, and in all the people who have contributed and will contribute with its passion to their history.

Giulio Bonfante
Untitled, 2022
Mixed media on canvas
90 x 140 cm

Giulio Bonfante
Untitled, 2022
Mixed media auf Leinwand
90 x 140 cm

Giulio Bonfante
Untitled, 2022
Mixed media on canvas
95 x 185 cm

Jack Brennan

b. 1984, UK
Class of Peter Fischli and Hassan Khan

Jack Brennan’s works often begin with symbolic systems such as laws, folk art, heavy metal, or numbers, but take various forms – wood sculpture, assemblage, photocopies, walks. Recent shows were in Brussels and Dublin. He runs a space for artistic production and exhibition on a plot of land next to the A66 in Frankfurt Rödelheim, which could be said to be an investigation into land use. From 2003 to 2006 he studied physics at University College London, then, later, the history of science.

Jack Brennan
Sensitive Worm, 2021-22
Oak wood, laser print on paper, acrylic paint, ponal 3 glue
330 x 40 cm Ø

Sensible Worm, 2022
laser print on paper
Dimensions variable

Theresa Büchner

b. 1993, Germany
Class of Willem de Rooij

Theresa Büchner develops cinematic, photographic, and text-based works. Making use of visual and verbal narrative tools, she precisely selects motifs from her surroundings to form narrations which evoke the poetic attraction of the everyday. She began her studies at Hochschule für Gestaltung in Offenbach and went on to study at Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam until 2018. Since 2019, Theresa Büchner has been continuing her studies at HAW Hamburg and at the Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main. Her short film Demolding a Daughter premiered at Nederlands Film Festival and was nominated for the Steenbergen Photography Stipendium in 2018. Büchner’s video work Droopy Rose (2021) premiered at Kasseler Dokfest, where she was nominated for the Golden Key, the prize awarded for the best documentary work by young filmmakers.

Theresa Büchner
Erbmasse, 2022
Pigment inkjet print, domestic artefacts, steel
Series of 6, 60,5 x 90,5 cm each

Erbmasse, 2022
Pigment inkjet print, domestic artefacts
Series of 6, 60 x 90 cm each

Juliet Carpenter

New Zealand
Class of Gerard Byrne

Juliet Carpenter's works often foreground psychological and emotional experiences and amplify qualities of these narratives that are considered hysterical or disturbed. In her artistic practice, she uses film and video and is mainly interested in the ways that individuals produce themselves as characters, especially through contemporary image technology.

Juliet Carpenter
DIZZY, 2022
HD video, color, sound
11:11, loop

Production credits
Producer: Henry Davidson
Director of Photography: Joey Bania
1st Assistant Camera: Cormac Dunne
2nd Assistant Camera: Nina Nadig
Production Designer: Matthew Bianchi
Lighting Designer: Robert Sampławski
Costume Designer: Luka Mues
Hair and Make Up Artist: Lillian Schumacher
Sound Recordist: Nina Nadig
Sound Design: Maily Beyrens
Production Assistant: Gabrielle Cox
DIZZY: Shade Théret
With special thanks to Tendai John Mutambu

Tamar Chaduneli

b.1991, Georgia
Class of Willem de Rooij

Tamar Chaduneli was born in 1991 in Rustavi, Georgia. She studied at the media art faculty at the Tbilisi State Academy of Arts as well as Cultural Mediation at the Center of Contemporary Art, Tbilisi. In 2017, she started at the Städelschule in the class of Willem de Rooij. In her work, she focuses on cosmology in new media and investigates the ways technology can be used in spiritual practices.

Tamar Chaduneli
A weekend with God, 2022
Video/sound embroidery

A weekend with God, 2022
Video/sound embroidery

Clyde Conwell

US
Class of Monika Baer

*Rooted in the Southern United States, Clyde blossomed after receiving their BA in Studio Art from Bard College in 2008. Graduating during an economic collapse, Clyde surrendered their painting practice to a DIY music community. ):)|(:( This stemmed from ten years of collaboration, organizing, and performance across the USA. Clyde vocally fronted various bands, lyrically prioritizing accessibility, queer visibility, and the importance of nuance. Songwriting mirrored the mechanics of their painting and developed their socially minded practice into direct action. Transitioning back to painting, serendipitously through studying forestry and woodworking. <>•<>•<> Clyde completed coursework towards an MFA at the University of Georgia before attending the Städelschule 2020–2022. In painting, Clyde recognizes the canvas as a place of subjective empowerment, like a stage. _-_ Here the personal is adapted to challenge the cyclical nature of ideologies and power. By accepting the limitations of the frame, the canvas acts as a prosthesis of the self, offering a point of departure for constant experimentation. Though not as a form of destruction, but as a tool for subsequent dialogue. For Clyde the canvas is an ecological site representing the interconnectivity of art and life. ((/))*

Clyde Conwell
((Nay Sir Cis)), 2022
Performance accompanying five paintings and four sculptures

SUB\ure, 2022
Oil on canvas
130 x 195cm

She was In`’;`,’`flamed, 2022
Oil on canvas
195 x 130cm

__/:\Tossed/:\__, 2022
Oil on canvas, gessoed plaster
47.5 x 195 x 130cm

ReFLEX_-_, a RIPe sacrifice, 2022
Oil on canvas
165 x 165cm

From be~hind, 2022
Oil on canvas
130 x 90cm

Rashiyah Elanga

b. 1997, France
Class of Gerard Byrne

Rashiyah Elanga works with animation, installation, performance, and music with a diversity of sculptural material and textiles, all united in the intensity of their colors. The narrative trajectories that connect their projects are often elusive and highly metaphorical. Her fictions contain recurring references about exile and the plight of peoples, to metamorphosis, and the idea of place, whether natural or alien.

Sleep until your dream of floating. Dream until your edges soft. Dream before the screen shows game over.

Rashiya Elanga
The kingdom of the Coro-sympaths, 2022
Video and metal, plastic, polystyrene, paint, fabric
7:00 min

Lydia Ericsson Wärn

b.1994, Sweden
Class of Monika Baer

Lydia Ericsson Wärn’s art practice encompasses painting, video and installation. In recent works, she investigates painting as an essential yet conflicted medium. The work explores notions of the image, the self-portrait and the gaze, as well as interior and exterior perspectives on the body and its functions. Recent solo and group exhibitions include Galerie Nordenhake, Stockholm (2022), Kulturhuset, Stockholm (2021) and Kunst- und Kulturstiftung Opelvillen Rüsselsheim (2021).

Lydia Ericsson Wärn
Eavesdroopers, 2022
Wallpaper
Dimensions variable

For the Beat of a Heart, 2022
Oil on sewn canvas
120 x 90 cm

“Lub-dub”, 2022
sound, radio, chairs
09:00 min, loop

In Memory of the Recurring, 2022
Oil on canvas
50 x 30 cm

Béla Feldberg

b. 1992, Germany
Class of Tobias Rehberger and Cyprien Gaillard

Béla Feldberg studied at the Städelschule with Tobias Rehberger and Cyprien Gaillard since 2018. The starting point of his work is the observation of city space and its urban phenomena. In his meticulous observations, he always includes reflections on identity and participation in the social construct of the city. His presentation through sculptures, photographs and installations also often contains pop-cultural references from science-fiction comics in combination with architectural history.

Béla Feldberg
This is my happy house — I'm happy here, 2022

Untitled (self-portrait)
Plaster, found objects, building boards, acrylic glass, euro containers, MRT scans, b/w prints
61 x 198 x 38 cm

3x Untitled
Aceton print, kappa boards, artist frame
100 x 140 cm

John Hussain Flindt

b. 1993, UK
Class of Gerard Byrne

John Hussain Flindt grew up in Manchester. He studied at Chelsea College of Arts, London from 2013 to 2016, and moved to Frankfurt am Main to study at the Städelschule in 2018.

John Hussain Flindt
Tales, 2022
Video

Alexis Gautier

b.1990, France
Class of Gerard Byrne and Wu Tsang

Alexis Gautier explores the relationships at play in cultural transactions, collaborations and the creation of narratives. Often created with other individuals, his work initiates a space for drifts and slippages, reflecting on the notion of exchange, authorship and the protocols of exhibition-making. Gautier had solo exhibitions at Museum M, Leuven, Blue Mountain School, London, CIAP Kunstverein, Genk, basis, Frankfurt am Main, BOZAR, Brussels, and took part in MANIFESTA 13, Marseille, and the New Wight Biennial, L.A.. He is currently a resident at the WIELS Center for Contemporary Arts in Brussels and is a recipient of the GüntherPeill Stiftung stipend, leading to a solo exhibition at the Leopold-Hoesch Museum, Düren, in September 2022.

Alexis Gautier & Fang Yaqi
(MacGuffin Series) Alexis’s Green #E60, 2021
Porcelain, metal, print on paper
198 x 88 x 0,7 cm

Alexis Gautier & Fang Yaqi
(MacGuffin Series) Sanju's Celadon #5468, 2021
Porcelain, metal, print on paper
200 x 83 x 0,7 cm

Alexis Gautier & Fang Yaqi
(MacGuffin Series) Fang’s Cigarette Ash, 2021
Porcelain, metal, print on paper
198 x 97 x 0,7 cm

Alexis Gautier
Thaumatrope, 2022
Aluminium
50 x 30 x 17 cm

Fabulations Series, 2021-2022
Various media on paper
13,5 x 21 cm

Blue Back Fabulation, 2022
Inkjet print on paper
200 x 300 cm

Yun Heo

b.1990, South Korea
Class of Judith Hopf

Yun Heo’s work considers the intersection of politics and fantasy in urbanism and pop culture. Mainly through sculptural installations, she examines the often comical relationship between empathy and pop, endeavors to rearrange hope by playing with a certain generational aesthetics. Yun lives and works in Frankfurt am Main, where she is completing her Meisterschüler at the Städelschule in the class of Judith Hopf.

The Tiny Drop of Life, 2022
Thermoplastic, wood dust, choco müsli, cacao powder, spelt, buckwheats, flaxseed, rice, polyurethane foam block, apoxie sculpt, epoxy resin, glass fibre.
The logs ca. 28 x 38 x 140 cm, the biggest drops 10 x 63 x 95 cm, the smallest drops 2 x 2.5 x 2 cm, dimensions variable

Evan Jose

b. 1988, USA
Class of Monika Baer

Having given up on a lucrative writing career, Evan Jose has entered the field of painting to explore various long-standing possibilities amidst this terrain. Here he finds natural painting, engaged with the earth and its weather, sylvan miasma, lunararia. Technical questions of optical phenomena merge with displaced enthusiasms buried in this trash world.

Mineral picture
Mineralbild
Oil on wood, 2021

…and having arrived in places where I see no trace of men, I breathe more at ease, as though I were in a refuge where their hatred no longer pursues me
… und an Orten angekommen, wo ich keine Spur von Menschen sehe, atme ich leichter, als wäre ich in einer Zuflucht, wo ihr Hass mich nicht länger verfolgt
Oil on wood, 2022

The way in which a man loses his proper goodness of mind is like the way in which the trees are denuded by axes and bills. Hewn down day after day, how can the mind retain its beauty? But there is a developement of its life day and night, and in the calm air of morning, just between night and day, the mind feels in a degree those desires and aversions which are proper to humanity, but the fee g is not strong, and it is fettered and destroyed by what takes place during the day. This fettering takes place again and again, and the restorative influence of the night is not sufficient to preserve the proper goodness of the mind.

Die Art und Weise, wie ein Mensch seinen guten Geist verliert, ist wie die Art und Weise, wie die Bäume von Äxten und Schnäbeln entblößt werden. Tag für Tag abgehauen, wie kann der Geist seine Schönheit bewahren? Aber es gibt eine Entwicklung seines Lebens Tag und Nacht, und in der ruhigen Morgenluft, genau zwischen Nacht und Tag, fühlt der Geist in gewissem Maße jene Wünsche und Abneigungen, die der Menschheit eigen sind, aber das Gefühl ist nicht stark, und es wird gefesselt und zerstört durch das, was tagsüber vor sich geht. Diese Fesselung findet immer wieder statt, und der stärkende Einfluss der Nacht reicht nicht aus, um die eigentliche Güte des Gemüts zu bewahren.
Oil on wood, 2022

On the mountain where I was alone, I made a reflecting pool for the moon. (As pictured by an AI, in the style of Cezanne)
Auf dem Berg, wo ich allein war, machte ich einen reflektierenden Teich für den Mond. (Wie von einer KI abgebildet, im Stil von Cezanne)
Oil on wood, 2022

der Zweite summende Zappa
Oil on wood, 2022

Atiéna R. Kilfa

b. 1990, France
Class of Willem de Rooij

Atiéna R. Kilfa studied at the Städelschule in the class of Willem de Rooij from 2017 until 2022. Through photography, video and installation, she explores how personal and cultural memory conflict and overlap. Kilfas most recent work draws on her interest in the composition of dioramas, still lifes and tableaux vivants as sites charged with commercial narratives and social hierarchies which she opens up to speculation. Her first solo institutional exhibition will open at the KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, in October 2022 and after that at Camden Arts Center, London, in January 2023.

NM11, 2021
Inkjet on dibond

70E1, 2022
Rotten epoxy hand, black silk, 3d printed epoxy plug, glass, wood, led light

Sonia Knop

b. 1995, Siberia
Class of Judith Hopf

Sonia Knop’s films and installations have a counter-linear logic with an emphasis on triangulating the genres of thriller, true crime and experimental documentary. Obsessive and overt reference to certain historical actors or figures is also central to her working process, often resulting in exaggerated or alienating over-performances by amateur actors and friends. Displaced and confused identities in characterless locations are a place her work wants to position the viewer within. She ensues a sort of transhistorical cohabitation, entangled by a range of historical complexities and morally ambiguous set-ups. The work offers a prismatic understanding of reality and selfhood streaming from a permanent sense of non-national belonging and divided cultural identity, Knop experiences through her biography. Her works were shown at the New Wight Biennial UCLA, Los Angeles, 2020, 67. Oberhausen International Short Film Festival 2021, On Art Film Festival Poland, 2020, La Plata International Independent Film Festival Argentina, 2020, Opelvillen Rüsselsheim 2019, Festival der jungen Talente, Frankfurter Kunstverein, 2018, Kornhäuschen Aschaffenburg 2018, Center For Contemporary Art Tel-Aviv, 2016. She was an exchange student at Cooper Union New York (2020) and scholarship holder of the Ernst Ludwig Ehrlich Studienwerk.

The Nice Observatory, 2022
HD video installation 4-channel
5:00 min, loop

Sam Lasko

b. 1992, US
Class of Judith Hopf

Sam Lasko’s works most often take the form of sculpture and installation. In her practice she uses space to explore tensions between language, image, and the body. While her works can function as stand-alone objects, they often respond to sites and carry a performative aspect in the making and lifespan of the work. Before coming to Frankfurt am Main in 2017, she briefly studied ceramics with German artist Gerit Grimm in Wisconsin while receiving a BA in Sociology. Laskos is also currently an MFA candidate at the Bard Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts in upstate New York.

Tripod Studies On Tables, 2022
Clay, ceramic, paint, wood, table

Tripod Studies On Table I, 2022
Clay, ceramic, paint, wood, table

Tripod Studies On Table II, 2022
Clay, ceramic, paint, wood, table

Tripod Studies On Table III, 2022
Ceramic, wood, table

Tripod Studies On Table IV, 2022
Ceramic, wood, table

Jin Lin

b.1990, China
Class of Gerard Byrne

Jing Lin studied multimedia art at Xiamen University from 2015 to 2018 and obtained an MFA. Since 2019, she has been studying under Gerard Byrne at the Städelschule. Her earlier artistic practice was often triggered by everyday surroundings and "events." By extracting memories or emotions from these events, she transports them into a new body to explore the complex and poetic nature behind them. Her works have already been exhibited in China, Iceland, and Ireland.

Jing Lin
The Rest Note In the Process of Gold Price Change, 2022
Mixed media

Dominik Litwin

b. 1996, Poland
Class of Hassan Khan

Dominik Litwin, born in Warsaw in 1996, graduated with a bachelor's degree from the Department of Intermedia at the University of Arts in Poznań. His practice questions information forms and communication/ thinking methods. Often, his works disrupt superficial views of so-called contemporary artists. Part of it is expressed in not fulfilling assumptions/ orders defined by forms/ gatekeepers. His interdisciplinary practice finds echo in the entangled economical / social fabric.

Dominik Litwin, 2022
Factory
Video, 3:38 min

David Moser

b. 1993, Switzerland
Class of Haegue Yang

David Moser often uses cheap, mass-produced, everyday materials such as glass, stickers, doormats, screws, sunglasses, construction lasers, sheet metal, aluminum profiles, and furniture from fast food restaurants. His sculptures engage with guidelines of social standardization of objects and draw attention to the traces left by their users. What interests him is the cultural code, as proletarian as it is queer, that is inherent in these objects and materials. Moser has developed a practice that explores how time and death collapse in the materiality of these banal objects. He mostly uses these objects in installations that highlight a failure, loss, or disparity in the context of psychological and class issues. In particular, Moser's work explores how human desire and repression emerge as the traumatic remains of a dysfunctional society.

David Moser
DeWalt construction laser level, green, 16 x 33 x 45 cm, model Nr. DCE089D1G-QW, 2022

Doormat, 2022

Non-Adult Echo, 2022
59 x 89 cm
ESG glass 8mm, aluminium profile

Maximiliano Siñani

b. 1989, Bolivia
Class of Gerard Byrne

Maximiliano Siñani explores the treatment of the signifier of an object that is given a new significance through a sculptural manipulation. As for the past years, he has been working with rocks to research the shape of the color and what they coin to the ancient semiotics to these days. His works were shown at El Museo del Barrio, New York (2014), 67, New York (2015-2017), Era Aurora, Torino (2018), Museo Nacional de Arte, La Paz (2019). He was selected to represent the Bolivian Pavilion in the 59th Biennale di Venezia 2022.

Maximiliano Siñani
Apacheta n9, 2022
Oil on 1067 rocks
250 x 250 x 300 cm

Luis Polyanszky Worth

b. 1991, Germany
Class of Willem de Rooij

Luis Polyanszky Worth studied under the tutelage of professors Willem de Rooij, Jenny Nachtigall, and Sung Tieu. Polyanszky Worth’s practice primarily enfolds on the basis of spoken and written language and the composition of music and sound. Recent group exhibitions include: Camden Art Centre, London (2022); Kressmann Halle, Offenbach (2021); Canopy, Malmö (2020), Portikus, Frankfurt am Main (2020), and Kölnischer Kunstverein, Cologne (2019).

Luis Polyanszky Worth
Beginning With the End in Mind, 2022
Open window, sound
30:00 min, site-specific dimensions

W. Rossen

b. 1995, Netherlands
Class of Willem de Rooij

W. Rossen lives and works in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. He has attended the class of Willem de Rooij since 2019.

Robin Stretz

b. 1996, Germany
Class of Tobias Rehberger

In his moving image works, sculptures and installations Robin Stretz explores mechanisms of cultural production and world making. His projects collect and combine narrations from diverse contexts with subjects from the margins of art, architecture, film, and popular culture, revealing unexpected correlations and underlying structures. Employing a range of materials, from animated sequences to found footage, the center of Stretz’s practice is formed by his film and video works. In In the Anaheim Loop a rumor, about an unrealized film production by Paul McCarthy, serves as the starting point for a sequence of comic style drawings, changing to the rhythm of a single snare-drum, speculating on what the rumored work might have looked like. Grainy Google Street View images, accidentally taken at night and discarded for their lack of information, serve as a backdrop for a voice-over, recounting fan theories about celebrities staging their own deaths, in In Anticipation of a Night. The silent film Untitled Adaptation combines observational footage, showing intricate scenes of shifting box arrangements and changing environmental conditions, inside an unidentified storage facility, with excerpts from various science fiction short stories as title cards, revealing only at second glance, that the entire work is shot using miniatures at various scales. Stretz’s installations transform the spaces in which his moving image works are shown and render haptic, what is latent in his films, enhancing and complicating the experience of viewing his works. Informed by rumors, myths and anecdotes, blurring the divide between document and fiction, his works simultaneously deconstruct, recombine and give new form to their subjects.

Robin Stretz
Untitled Adaptation (Version II), 2021
Video, silent
08:03 min

Sum of Its Parts, 2022
Sound, six descriptions of “Pieces”, 1989
10:34 min

Untitled, (Container for “Pieces”, 1989, by Laurie Parsons), 2022
Digital print
20 x 30 cm

Photo: Eric Bell

Alex Thake

b. 1991, Germany
Class of Haegue Yang

Alex Thake’s work depicts animals, people and objects in portraits of collision. By boxing the subject in minimal, architectural settings, she pronounces shifting bodily states in sculpture, film, and text.

Alex Thake in collaboration with Sasha Lukashenkova
Receding Animal, 2022
Projection on advertising wall
28:00 min

Alex Thake
Un bel dì, vedremo, 2022
Plastic jerrycan, geld-automat touch screen, raspberry pi

Rubberneck, 2022
Leather riding saddle, chromashift auto lack, hardware

Armature, 2022
Detention mirror, fender bracket, radiator dial, lack

Photo: Eric Bell