INTERVIEW: LUC FULLER

all images: Luc Fuller "Standing Paintings" / each work Untitled, 2014 / © Luc Fuller / Courtesy the artist and ROD BARTON, London

40 "Standing Paintings" currently occupy the floor space of Rod Barton's gallery in London, each displaying the outlines of Wu-Tang Clan's symbol "W" on their front side. They were created by 1989-born American artist Luc Fuller, who employs his art to explore cultural appropriation, the merging of sub- and high-culture and eventually in the meaning-production of signs, arrangements and exhibition formats. While painting is a medium commonly defined by its spatial distance to its spectators and its status as an object on a wall that is to be observed, Luc inverts this scheme and incorporates his paintings in an environment, rendering them into a "democratic" pattern. Visitors thus walk through the paths formed by his works, they enter a scene of art – a painting-scape. Also in other exhibitions that Portland-based Luc did, he repeatedly questions the classic terms of installation, materiality and space – everything is, as he once said, in "flux". In our interview with the artist, Luc told us about why and how Wu-Tang Clan's symbol is a part of his work, his fascination with subcultures and about his playful and similarly  ambitious approach of reconsidering exhibition formats.

RASMUS NILAUSEN: PARERGON

all images: Rasmus Nilausen "Parergon" (09-31.05.2014), Fundació Suñol Barcelona, architecture by Martí Anson, © the artists, courtesy the artists & their galleries / photos by Roberto Ruiz and García | Galería, Madrid. 

In the very moment when we enter an exhibition space, we are aware of the institutional framing and thus perceive art, as Winfried Menninghaus calls it, within an "art scheme". From here, we are schooled to consider every encounter with an object or another subject as staged and guided. In the current solo show "Parergon" by Danish artist Rasmus Nilausen, this relation is reversed: In the center of Fundació Suñol's clean white-cube'ish backyard space in Barcelona his paintings are arranged inside a temporary, wooden house by Martí Anson. Initially built for the Parisian Palais de Tokyo, the so called "Catalan Pavillon. Anonymous Architect", remains a work in progress. Neither walls nor windows are fixed. The roof was attached at a later stage. Demonstrating its imperfection, the architecture's unfinished character creates a level of spatial intimacy and withdraws the artificial distance to the paintings, releasing them from their superiority.

ANNA VIRNICH: WHEN YOU DANCE WITH THE DEVIL

all images: Anna Virnich "When You Dance With The Devil" (Apr 4 – May 17, 2014) at DREI, Cologne // courtesy: the artist; DREI, Cologne // © Anna Virnich

The flesh-tinted silk cloth lied in a corner of a small textile shop in Sri-Lanka, when Anna Virnich first discovered it. Stained with grease, perhaps serving as a napkin, the salesman refused Virnich's request to purchase the piece, arguing that it was too dirty and certainly not meant for sale. It took her a while to successfully convince him, but eventually she was able to bring the cloth, along with many other textiles and items from Sri-Lanka back to Germany. Now, sewed together and neatly framed on long wooden stretchers, the unchanged flesh-tinted silk transformed into a work of art (Untitled #15, 2014), hanging on the walls of Galerie DREI in Cologne and still smelling of patchouli. 

INTERVIEW: IGNACIO URIARTE

all images: Ignacio Uriarte "Writing, Drawing" at Figge von Rosen in Cologne, Couertsy Figge von Rosen, © Ignacio Uriarte

The works of Spanish-German artist Ignacio Uriarte are extremely labour-intensive: the process for his drawings and installations follows a precise routine, in which he develops delicate systems for each single piece. This routine of scribbling and drawing becomes a source, a clue for the next project. As most of the drawings are based on patterns that seem to follow a geometric logic, they appear neat on first sight. But Ignacio's art always comprises ambivalence – it reveals humor, curiosity, criticism, beauty. Using mostly tools from the ordinary office world and playing with the banality of production-constraints or of an 8-hour working day, Ignacio found a unique way to interlink his practice with his former career in business administration. In our interview, 1972-born Ignacio talks about how this transition came about, about his current show at Figge von Rosen in Cologne and about his upcoming sound-installation at Berlinische Galerie.

GALLERY WEEKEND BERLIN 2014

Florian Meisenberg "Somewhere sideways, down, at an angle, but very close" at Galerie Wentrup Liam Gillick "Revenons à nos Moutons" at Esther Schipper Liam Gillick / detail "Hamilton: A Film by Liam Gillick" in "Revenons à nos Moutons" at Esther Schipper Liam Gillick "Revenons à nos Moutons" at Esther Schipper 

all images: Courtesy the artists and their galleries / photos by artfridge

Gallery Weekend in Berlin: For the 10th time 50 participating galleries celebrate the opening of their newest exhibition during the weekend. Organised for the first time by ABC-director Maike Cruse and former interim-director Christiane Rhein, the weekends' program includes artist-talks, performances and film screenings. And as usual, its not a bad idea to start the gallery tour with a plan in mind. Where to go? Since Berlin does not only have one center, but many, the main gallery districts, such as Mitte, Potsdamerstrasse and Charlottenburg are far away from each other and it takes a considerable amount of time to come from one place to the other. With this in mind, my tour was based on a only a few picks and highlights, although spread all over the city. Here are my TOP 5:

INTERVIEW: MICHAIL PIRGELIS

from the top: Installation views, Michail Pirgelis, 'adopted', Sprüth Magers Berlin, February 7 - March 5, 2014 / Courtesy Sprüth Magers Berlin / © Michail Pirgelis

Wanting to become an archeologist when he was a child, greek artist Michail Pirgelis today works with other and much larger kinds of artefacts: He employs original fragments of aeronautic bodies, transformed into wall-objects, giant sculptures or room-filling floor installations. His first airplane object ‘Ikarus’, which he created in 2001, already introduced the dialectic between flying’s symbolic weightlessness and its distressingly massive construction components. Playing on this ambiguity, Pirgelis continues to prepare dismantled airplane modules, transforming its technical skeleton into graceful objects. As in his recent solo-show “adopted” at Sprüth Magers Berlin [photos], the awareness of a small threshold between the tragic relict and the implied elevation is always present. In a short interview with the Cologne-based artist, Michail told us about his practice and what the dream of flying implies to him.

INTERVIEW: KM TEMPORAER

portrait shot: Lennart and Elisa © photo by Trevor Good // installation images: "surplus living" exhibition at km temperer during 14/03/2014 - 23/03/2014, courtesy the artists, Copyright 2014 IG Photography

Anna-Lena Werner: Elisa and Lennart, in 2012 you founded KM Temporaer
 – an off-space for art in Berlin. Many of your exhibitions profoundly stress 
the political relation between the digital world and the art market. They also posed critical questions to current tendencies of artistic positioning. What was the initial motivation to start KM Temporaer?

Elisa R. Linn: We were especially interested in the format of the thematic group exhibition as a testing field to make constellations in a transdisciplinary process that isn’t necessarily dependant on art. With our projects we have tried to investigate the potential of this exhibition format and the idea of creating sustained dialogues which aren’t limited to a specific part of the art scene and instead address many actors with different backgrounds entering into interaction
 with each other.

Lennart Wolff: The artist selection therefore was a major step for activating this potential. We consciously choose artists positioned at the intersection between rejecting marketing systems, young emerging artists and those who are commercially successful and represented by 
galleries. An important aspect is also to disclose different generational, cultural 
and social influences that characterize and shape the creative practice 
and provide individual views on certain socially relevant issues. Thus
 displaying contradictory artistic positions enabled us to contextualize
 the art works in a new way as well as to contemplate and reflect on the
 art pieces considering multiple perspectives.

ART COLOGNE 2014

Art Cologne 2014 Dike Blair at booth Linn Lühn, Düsseldorf Florian Meisenberg at booth Wentrup, Berlin Grayson Revoir at booth Jan Kaps, Cologne Michail Pirgelis at booth Sprüth Magers, Berlin, London Tatiana Trouve at booth Johann König, Berlin Paul Cowan and Tony Lewis COLLABORATION at booth Shane Campell, Chicago David Ostrowski at booth Peres Projects, Berlin Liam Gillick at booth Kerlin Gallery, Dublin // all images by artfridge // Courtesy the galleries // © the artists

"The white colour on the painting has a different tone, than the one on the wall behind it," a galerist explains a curious visitor, who was interested in the artist's motivation to present a blank canvas at the art fair. Its official: The new minimalism hit its peak. This is one of the most predominant trends, currently displayed at the 48th edition of ART COLOGNE: From predecessors, such as Günther Förg (Galerie Bärbel Grässlin) and Imi Knöbel (Galerie Nächst St. Stephan), to current emerging artists, such as Sergej Jensen (Galerie Neu), David Ostrowski (Peres Projects), Michail Pirgelis (Sprüth Magers) and Paul Czerlitzki (Laurent Godin) – minimal and beautiful, physically scant and reduced wall objects are setting the tone of the fair's contemporary segment in 2014. 

OLAF METZEL: GELBES MAUERSTÜCK

All images: Olaf Metzel "Gelbes Mauerstück" at Wentrup Berlin (4th of March - 19th of April), Courtesy Galerie Wentrup, Berlin  © Olaf Metzel

It all started in the late 70s during the 'German Autmn', when policemen entered Berlin's art academy UDK and devastated several studios of the art students. Among them was Berlin-born Olaf Metzel – at that time with a major focus on classic italian art. His interests and forms of expressions changed after that event: he chose vandalism and documented the selective destruction via video. Contrary to many artists, who have unsuccessfully tried to provoke, to appeal for revolution or who miscalculated their audience's economy of attention, Metzel managed several times to cause an outrage. There is always a taste of riot surrounding his art. His public sculpture "Turkish Delight" (2007) in Vienna for example, which showed a naked girl wearing a headscarf, was tipped over and caused a massive amount of hate mails. In 1987, Metzel placed the public work "Randale-Denkmal", consisting of steel barriers and supermarket trolleys, at Joachimsthaler Platz in West-Berlin – exactly the spot where policemen and protesters clashed many times. After conservative dissenting votes, the work was relocated to an industrial party area in the former east. 

INTERVIEW: MIE OLISE

All images: Mie Olise, "Between the Stratum and the Unstable" at DUVE Berlin, March 7 – April 17, 2014, Courtesy Mie Olise and DUVE Berlin

Massive roller coasters, dramatic vessels and houses lifted by scaffolds – Mie Olise, a 1974-born artist from Denmark  – strategically dissembles the constructions of large architectural objects, in order to use their most basic composition as motifs for her art. Each project, often including paintings and wooden installations, is carefully researched and accompanied by a profound background story – whether it is real or fictional. Having studied both, architecture and art, Mie still intertwines the aesthetics of both disciplines with each other. In her current show *Between the Stratum and the Unstable* at DUVE Berlin, she investigates the visual and architectural language of the native Indians and experiments with other media, such as yarn and fabrics. In an interview, she answered us questions about her practice, her inspiration and her daily working routine.

INTERVIEW: JESSICA SANDERS

all images: copyright and courtesy Jessica Sanders

Sugar, salt and beeswax – Jessica Sanders, a young artist based in Brooklyn, New York mostly employs organic materials for her collection of cross-genre art works. Time changes the appearance: the materials break or melt, so that the process in itself becomes the final work. Her sculptures and paintings carry a similar aesthetic, that is both, minimal and corporeal. In a short interview Sanders answered us some questions about her artistic process and her interest in material's tactility.