Guests at Haus am Waldsee: Alloro - Fellows of Villa Romana 2009/2010
03 Jul - 15 Aug 2010
“Alloro” presents the eight artists, who won Villa Romana award for the years of 2009 and 2010, at Haus am Waldsee. This year, Anna Heidenhain, Sebastian Dacey, Anna Möller, Martin Pfeifle live and work at the artists‘ villa in Florence, Italy, while Olivier Foulon, Kalin Lindena, Eske Schlüters and Benjamin Yavuzsoy have completed their residency in 2009. For the very first time, these eight internationally operating artists present themselves with their latest works which have been in part conceived exclusively for this show of on-site-installations, paintings, videos and works on paper in a Berlin art institution.
The Villa Romana-Award is the oldest award for contemporary art in Germany and currently is one of the most prestigious prizes for young artists. It has been awarded since 1905 and is tied to a ten month residence of the winners at the villa in Florence. Among past winners are Georg Kolbe, Käthe Kollwitz, Max Beckmann, Horst Antes, Georg Baselitz, Anna Oppermann, Katharina Grosse, Simon Dybbroe Möller and Clemens von Wedemeyer. Since 2008, the respective winners are presented in exhibitions in Germany. In February of this year, the artists Anna Heidenhain, Sebastian Dacey, Anna Möller and Martin Pfeifle have moved into the studios of the Villa Romana, while in 2009 Olivier Foulon, Kalin Lindena, Eske Schlüters and Benjamin Yavuzsoy lived and worked at Via Senese 68. In the exhibition at Haus am Waldsee, the Villa-Romana-winners jointly introduce themselves to the Berlin public with new works. Anna Heidenhain, born in 1979 in Wiesbaden, has shifted her artistic practice gradually from a sculptural form into the social space and the ambiguous zones between art and design, object and representation. Sebastian Dacey, born in 1982 in London, works in his mostly large-scale oil paintings with both abstract and figurative signs and their bond with the surface as well as art history. The relationship between body and concept is an essential feature of the works by Anna Möller, born in 1980 in Hamburg. In installations, works on paper and videos, she deals with topographies, their accessibility and unreliability. Martin Pfeifle‘s work is characterised by large and light constructions which transform architectonic space into a shell of physically tangible shift and expansion. He was born in Stuttgart in 1975. Eske Schlüters, born 1970 in Leer/East Frisia, works in the processing of texts and images by appropriating visual and acoustic fragments of given film material while partly deconstructing shots, re-assembling or re-shooting them. Olivier Foulon‘s works (born in 1976 in Anderlecht) are concerned with issues of representation and the act of showing, frames of reference in image production, their predecessors and reiteration, the status of model and copy, indications and history. Benjamin Yavuzsoy, born 1980 in Bremen, produces textual miniatures, “video letters” and short videos which challenge the code of intimate and public spaces and the construction of what is own‘s own and what is alien. Kalin Lindena, born in 1977 in Hanover, works in drawing, painting, sculpture and film. The fulcrum of her artistic practice is the ambivalence of citation and authenticity, of expression and the hermetic fragment. Villa Romana-Fellows are chosen by jury which changes every year. Jurors for the Villa-Romana-Award 2010 were Dr. Susanne Gaensheimer, director of Museum für Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt/Main and curator of the German pavillon at the Biennale Venezia 2011,, and the sculptress Rita McBride who has been a professor at Kunstakademie Düsseldorf since 2003. The previous year‘s awards were decided by Susanne Titz, director of Museum Abteiberg in Mönchengladbach, and the artists Eran Schaerf who was born in Tel Aviv and has lived in Berlin since 1985.
The Villa Romana-Award is the oldest award for contemporary art in Germany and currently is one of the most prestigious prizes for young artists. It has been awarded since 1905 and is tied to a ten month residence of the winners at the villa in Florence. Among past winners are Georg Kolbe, Käthe Kollwitz, Max Beckmann, Horst Antes, Georg Baselitz, Anna Oppermann, Katharina Grosse, Simon Dybbroe Möller and Clemens von Wedemeyer. Since 2008, the respective winners are presented in exhibitions in Germany. In February of this year, the artists Anna Heidenhain, Sebastian Dacey, Anna Möller and Martin Pfeifle have moved into the studios of the Villa Romana, while in 2009 Olivier Foulon, Kalin Lindena, Eske Schlüters and Benjamin Yavuzsoy lived and worked at Via Senese 68. In the exhibition at Haus am Waldsee, the Villa-Romana-winners jointly introduce themselves to the Berlin public with new works. Anna Heidenhain, born in 1979 in Wiesbaden, has shifted her artistic practice gradually from a sculptural form into the social space and the ambiguous zones between art and design, object and representation. Sebastian Dacey, born in 1982 in London, works in his mostly large-scale oil paintings with both abstract and figurative signs and their bond with the surface as well as art history. The relationship between body and concept is an essential feature of the works by Anna Möller, born in 1980 in Hamburg. In installations, works on paper and videos, she deals with topographies, their accessibility and unreliability. Martin Pfeifle‘s work is characterised by large and light constructions which transform architectonic space into a shell of physically tangible shift and expansion. He was born in Stuttgart in 1975. Eske Schlüters, born 1970 in Leer/East Frisia, works in the processing of texts and images by appropriating visual and acoustic fragments of given film material while partly deconstructing shots, re-assembling or re-shooting them. Olivier Foulon‘s works (born in 1976 in Anderlecht) are concerned with issues of representation and the act of showing, frames of reference in image production, their predecessors and reiteration, the status of model and copy, indications and history. Benjamin Yavuzsoy, born 1980 in Bremen, produces textual miniatures, “video letters” and short videos which challenge the code of intimate and public spaces and the construction of what is own‘s own and what is alien. Kalin Lindena, born in 1977 in Hanover, works in drawing, painting, sculpture and film. The fulcrum of her artistic practice is the ambivalence of citation and authenticity, of expression and the hermetic fragment. Villa Romana-Fellows are chosen by jury which changes every year. Jurors for the Villa-Romana-Award 2010 were Dr. Susanne Gaensheimer, director of Museum für Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt/Main and curator of the German pavillon at the Biennale Venezia 2011,, and the sculptress Rita McBride who has been a professor at Kunstakademie Düsseldorf since 2003. The previous year‘s awards were decided by Susanne Titz, director of Museum Abteiberg in Mönchengladbach, and the artists Eran Schaerf who was born in Tel Aviv and has lived in Berlin since 1985.