Art @ The Met
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EDWARD WRIGHT
Edward Wright was born in 1971 in Sydney, Australia; he received his Master of Fine Arts from Goldsmiths College in London. Reminiscent almost of the manner of the Old Masters, he focuses on a genre that has all but vanished from contemporary art: in his many large-sized individual and group pictures Wright employs the iconography of classical portraiture, but gives new meanings to his pictures through slight formal variations. What at first glance seems to be a realistic depiction of the portrayed features is in fact grotesquely exaggerated and in part a distinct parody of the human face. Edward Wright is an attentive observer of how economic, social and cultural conditions are presented in the media. His darkly enigmatic portraits expose contemporary culture where negative dispositions like cynicism and egoism have become the accepted norm. Edward Wright is based in London and Lucerne.
2007, polyester resin, glass fibre, sheet metal glass, original roof of a Porsche, 95 x 542 x 279 cm, courtesy: MET Hotel
Heir
2007, oil and acrylic on canvas walnut frame, 150 χ io6 cm, courtesy: MET Hotel
EDWARD WRIGHT
Edward Wright was born in 1971 in Sydney, Australia; he received his Master of Fine Arts from Goldsmiths College in London. Reminiscent almost of the manner of the Old Masters, he focuses on a genre that has all but vanished from contemporary art: in his many large-sized individual and group pictures Wright employs the iconography of classical portraiture, but gives new meanings to his pictures through slight formal variations. What at first glance seems to be a realistic depiction of the portrayed features is in fact grotesquely exaggerated and in part a distinct parody of the human face. Edward Wright is an attentive observer of how economic, social and cultural conditions are presented in the media. His darkly enigmatic portraits expose contemporary culture where negative dispositions like cynicism and egoism have become the accepted norm. Edward Wright is based in London and Lucerne.
Museo del Prado 2
THOMAS STRUTH
Born in 1954 in Geldern in Germany, Thomas Struth studied at the State Academy of Arts in Diisseldorf with Bernd and Hi Ma Becher. Today he is one of the most well-known representatives of the "Becher School". His creative process is one of intensive study and exploration of his subjects in comprehensive work groups. His street views, por¬traits, landscapes and museum pictures subvert ingrained patterns of how we view art; they broaden our understanding of photography as an art form. In his museum pictures, taken in the most famous art collections of the world, Struth examines the relationship between visitor and institution. He focuses on the viewers' postures that reveal their, often unconsciously held, attitudes towards the artistic masterpiece. What seem to be mere "snapshots" turn out to be psychological diagrams of the way art is viewed and received. Thomas Struth is based in Dusseldorf.
Madrid, 2005, c-print 185,42 χ 200,66 χ 6,1 cm, courtesy: The MET Hotel
Dervish 12
2004, video, courtesy: MET Hotel
JENNIFER STEINKAMP
Jennifer Steinkamp was born in 1958 in Denver, USA. In 1991 she received her M.A. in Fine Arts from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. Her installations merge aspects of computer animation, video art, painting and architecture. "Dervish 12" is inspired by the dervish dance that symbolises the soul's deliverance from its earthly bonds and communication with the heavenly sphere. In the installation, four computer-animated trees turn their branches alternately to the left and to the right in slow, steady movements, while the trunks of the trees are immovably rooted in the ground. In the United States Steinkamp's works are represented in major collections and museums. The artist has been participating in important international group exhibitions like the Istanbul and Cairo Biennale. Jennifer Steinkamp is based in Santa Monica, California.
Untitled (Paul Wegener)
ZBIGNIEW ROGALSKI
Zbigniew Rogalski was born in 19/4 in Oqhrowa Bialoslocka in Poland. He is one of the most distinctive representatives of the current generation ol influential Polish artists. In his works photography and painting are intertwined; I he liouipe I'ueil like ellect', ol the lesull ing compositions make for sliiniiini: ailistii; views. Ilyperiealistically painted lelleclions are superimposed onto motives that present ephemeral moments ol observation as much as reflections that interfere with them. Rogalski's break through to international acclaim came with his "Elevator" series. They show interior views of passenger lifts. Names of prominent individuals are spelled onto a breath clouded spot on the lift's brushed aluminum wall cladding, like the name of German actor, director and script writer Paul Wegener renowned tor his "Golem" movies from the 1920s. Zbigniew Rogalski is based in Warsaw.
James
2007, polycarbonate, light bulb, 194x79,5x63cm courtesy: The MET Hotel
JORGE PARDO
Born in Havana, Cuba, in 1963 and raised in the United States, Jorge Pardo is well known for his interdisciplinary approach to art that merges the fine arts, architecture and design. He experiments with the creative possibilities on the borders of those disciplines, testing their everyday applicability and aesthetic autonomy. Many of his works combine free art installations and purposeful architecture, like his redesign of the exhibition architecture of the Pre-Columbian Collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Pardo describes his stand-alone sculptural works like "James" as his personal "sketches", which he uses to test out ideas. The resulting insights about material, form and colour inform and shape his larger sculptures and installations. Jorge Pardo is based in Los Angeles and New York.
Three Women
BILL VIOLA
One of the world's most well-known video artists, Bill Viola was born in 1951 in the United States. Since the 1970s, when video technology became available to a larger public, he dedicated his work to this medium. He contributed immensely to the establishment ol video as an accepted medium of artistic expression. The themes of his early works centre on fundamental human experiences like birth and death. In the beginning of the 1990s he developed a motif which has since dominated his work: his large-scale video installa¬tions show people under water, resting, floating or fighting against the floods in extremely decelerated slow motion. This theme goes back to a crucial event in Viola's own life when he almost drowned as a child, an experience he in hindsight describes as positive and peaceful. In "Three Women", like in other works, water is a multi-layered symbolic catalyst for liberation and a broadening of the mind. Bill Viola is based in Long Beach, USA.
2008, colour high-definition video on plas ma display, 9:06 min, 156,21 χ 92,71 χ 12,7 cm, courtesy: Chandris Collection
Untitled
2006, pencil, charcoal, c-print, paper aluminium foil on paper, 281,9 * i52>4 cm, courtesy:The MET Hotel
JANNIS VARELAS
Born in 1977 in Athens, Greece, Jannis Varelas studied at the Athens School of Fine Arts, the University of Fine Arts in Barcelona, and at the Royal College of Arts in London. He garnered international recognition and acclaim after participating in the "Prospect.l New Orleans" international contemporary art biennial and in the first Athens Biennale, "Destroy Athens". Varelas is an artist dedicated foremost to drawing; with pencil and gouache he creates life-size and larger-than-life size works that are highly associative. His motives are drawn from a wide and very diverse range of cultures and media. Formal aspects of traditional icon painting encounter contemporary and at times sexually charged images from news and life-style magazines. Jannis Varelas is based in Athens and Vienna.
Fukuyama
ANDREAS GURSKY
Andreas Gursky was born in 1955 in Leipzig in the former GDR, but was raised in the Federal Republic of Germany. In 1987 he graduated as a master scholar with Bernd and Hilla Becher at the State Academy of Arts in Diisseldorf. Within just a few years he has become one of the most well-known and influential contemporary photographers of the world. Using a large-format camera and digital finishing, Gursky creates monumental, often seemingly mysterious works of high precision and depth of focus. They have become icons of contemporary photography. His artistic goal is to create an "encyclopaedia of life"; the main theme of his large-format photographs is the loneliness of the individual in mass society. Works by Andreas Gursky are represented in the most important international collections and museums and are sold for premium prices. He is based in Diisseldorf.
2004, c-print, 305,4 χ 207 cm courtesy: Chandris Collection
Hymn
2008, video, 3:65 min courtesy:The MET Hotel
MAXIMILIAN ERBACHER
Maximilian Erbacher was born in 1970 in Rosenheim, Germany. He studied at the Univer¬sity of Ulster, Ireland, and at the Academy for Media Arts, Cologne. His oeuvre, consist¬ing of installation, photo and video, is always concerned in one way or another with a desire many people share: the wish to reconstruct within the globalized world and with the means of modern media a sense of home that they deem long lost. German folk music shows, which are presented to millions of TV viewers, are an important theme in Erbacher's work. He is particularly interested in the simulation of home-like rites and cul¬tural codes that are presented as authentic when they are already fundamentally altered by being broadcast via modern mass media. His video "Hymn" deals with the "Beichle Jutz", a song that is performed by hundreds of yodelers during the Swiss Yodeling Festival in Aarau every year. In the video, the artist appears to be a marshaler on an airfield -symbol of the hypermobile globalized world - where he pretends to soundlessly conduct the "Beichle Jutz" that has become something of secret national hymn for many Swiss.
Marauder
CARLA AROCHA
The artist, who was born in 1961 in Caracas, Venezuela, studied art at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and at the University of Illinois, Chicago. Her large installations have been shown in exhibitions all over the world. They consist of interlocking geometri¬cal shapes made from mirrored materials and are a result of the artist's deep interest in the properties of surfaces and in materials like acrylic glass, mirror or steel. The syntax and expressive forms of Arocha's works are influenced heavily by her studies of avant-garde movements such as constructivism and suprematism, hard-edge and Op Art. Her clearly structured patterns engage in a fascinating interplay with the space surrounding the installations, drawing the viewer into complex observations about reflection and transparency. Carla Arocha is based in Antwerp, Belgium.
Liquid Jesus
2004, hand-tufted rug (wool) 240 χ 180 cm, courtesy: Chandris Collection
CAROLINE ACHAINTRE
Born 1969 in Toulouse, France, and raised in Germany, the artist holds a Master of Fine Art degree from Goldsmiths College in London. Her oeuvre, which consists of hand-tuft¬ed rugs, linoleum cuts, sculptures and water-coloured digital prints, has been exhibited in solo and group shows all over Europe. Because of the sheer volume of the material, her rugs possess a distinct sculptural quality. The intensely powerful imagery is both surreal and expressive, owing to the sharp contrast between the soft, warm feel of the wool and the rather extreme motives reminiscent of horror images from contemporary heavy metal and goth subcultures. Caroline Achaintre is based in London.
Ship Of Myth , Temple Of Zeus
RALPH BAIKER
Ralph Baiker was born in 1966 in Filderstadt-Bonlanden, Germany. He is a conceptual artist working with the medium of photography. Fundamental to his work is the idea that people make sense of their reality and their environment by giving it cultural meaning, employing certain visual - architectural, regional, historical, linguistic sign systems. Usually, the ori¬gin of such sign systems is traced back to their suspected roots in an authentic experience. Yet in our globalised world signs clash on a daily basis, making it impossible to speak of one authentic origin. Instead, sign systems acquire diverse and even contradictory levels of meaning. In his photographs Baiker searches for the fault lines where sign systems meet. Here people experience the loss of a seeming authenticity while at the same time a trans¬formation of the sign systems takes place that people in turn consider truly authentic. Ralph Baiker is based in Hamburg.
2009, diasec face aluminium honeycomb panel, 235 χ 173,78 cm, courtesy: The Met Hotel
Purple Void
2005, aluminium and acrylic LCD screen, 106,7 x 111,8 x 2,5 cm, courtesy: The MET Hotel
TONY OURSLER
Born in 1957 in New York, Tony Oursler studied at the California Institute of the Arts. After his graduation, he became well known during the period 1977 and 1989 when his videos and installations were shown both in alternative art spaces and museums. Since 1991 he has been creating his work "Dummies", a series of hand-sewn puppets that are animated with the use of LCD projectors. The series caught the attention of a wide international public and sparked some controversy. Today Oursler's work is exhibited in all big museums in the world. In a highly innovative, imaginative and humorous manner, Oursler explores the relationship between the individual and systems of mass media. His combinations of video, sculpture and performance directly address the viewers, confronting them with the works' fundamental message. Tony Oursler is based in New York.
Amber Truisms Living / Blue
JENNY HOLZER
Jenny Holzer is one of the most influential contemporary US artists. Her work is represented in all big collections and on exhibition in most important museums. She was born in Gal-lipolis, Ohio, USA, in 1950. After moving to New York in 1977 she started to work as a conceptual artist, using language as her principal expressive medium. Initially, she installed posters in public spaces; today she prefers the internet and large-scale projections, and LED technology to shape her messages in sculptural forms and publish them. While Jenny Holzer garnered wide international recognition with a large number of both completed and unfinished bodies of works, she is mostly known for her series of "Truisms" that she has been constantly expanding since 1977. Jenny Holzer is based in New York.
2008 12 semicircular LED signs, blue and amber diodes, light filter, each sized 4,8 χ 53 χ 27,6 cm, courtesy: The Met Hotel
Ideal Privacy
deal Privacy 2004, oil on paper, 250 X 150 cm, courtesy: The Met Hotel
Daniel Brahm
Daniela Brahm was born in 1966 in Diisseldorf in Germany; she studied art as a master scholar with Valie Export at the Berlin University of the Arts and was a co-founder of several interdisciplinary groups. In her work, she examines whether and how the art of painting can still adequately represent today's social realities. Photography as a medium of documentation brings important impulses to her work, as well. Freedom, participation, privacy, community and individuality are major themes in Brahm's pictures and installations. As an ongoing project "Ideal Privacy" constitutes a collection of painted "portraits" of architecture considered as an expression of individuality within the rather clearly defined formal language of modernism. Daniela Brahm is based in Berlin.