Exhibition "TITLED" with Khaled Barakeh - Viola Bittl - Lena Ditlmann - Christoph Esser - Young Joo Lee - Att Poomtangon



TITLED

Khaled Barakeh - Viola Bittl - Lena Ditlmann
Christoph Esser - Young Joo Lee - Att Poomtangon
Curated by Adela Demetja

Opening: 26. June 2015, 7pm
Duration: 27. June - 15. August 2015

GALERIE HEIKE STRELOW
Schwedlerstraße 1-5
D-60314 Frankfurt am Main
Phone +49 (0) 69-48 00 544-0

The group exhibition “Titled” brings together six emerging artistic positions. All the exhibiting artists, apart from having in common the connection with the city of Frankfurt, share - in their practice - an analogous aesthetic articulation.  By using a variety of mediums like painting, drawing, sculpture, video and installation the exhibited works propose a similar approach of apprehending the political nature of aesthetic representation. Though some of the works are abstract representations, other ones figurative and some of them explicit, they all share one common attribute; that of creating a space where questioning the given becomes possible. As Jaques Rancière argues in The Politics of Aesthetics, a dispute over what is given and the frame within which we sense something is given - generating dissensus - is for him the core of the politics. As a result of the controversial aesthetic regime of art, which for Rancière consists on the tension  and confusion between autonomy and heteronomy, the selected artworks inherit this conflict, producing elements capable of speaking twice: from their readability and from their unreadability.


For Rancière, esthetics enables the freedom in judgment, suggesting the politics, where questions how the world is organized emerge, opening up possibilities of changing and redistributing the same world.

The starting point for the exhibited artworks are the personal realities, situations, and relationships of the artists. Issues and struggles driven by the reality contribute to their artistic creation. Although at times the final artwork is transformed and translated in a way that its distance to reality is enormous, essential elements remain inherited in the work, enabling to retrace and reread those initial conditions from an universal point of view.

The artistic practice of these artists is mainly a conscious process of identifying, analyzing, understanding and depicting, resulting in compact and elaborated artworks, naming and visualizing a specific reality or condition, a process from where the exhibition takes its title.

The core of the exhibition and its artworks are the inter-human relations and the human correlation with the environment in the present.

Adela Demetja

_____________________________________________

Adela Demetja is a curator and writer born in 1984 in Tirana, Albania. She holds a Master in Curatorial and Critical Studies from Städelschule and Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. She is one of the founders and director of Tirana Art Lab – Centre for Contemporary Art based in Tirana. She curated a number of international exhibitions and events in different European countries. Thematic exhibitions she has curated include: „The aesthetic of the small act at Action“ Field Kodra in Thessaloniki and „Voices of Truth“ in Villa Romana in Florence, Italy. Recently she co-curator the third edition of the international contemporary Project Biennale D-0 Ark Underground taking place in Bosnia and Herzegovina. She lives and works between Germany and Albania.

Khaled Barakeh, born in 1976 in Damascus Suburb in Syria, graduated in 2005 from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Damascus, and completed his MFA at Funen Art Academy in 2010 in Odense, Denmark. He has exhibitied at the Künstlerhaus Stuttgart; Golden Thread Gallery, Northern Ireland, Kunsthalle Brandts, Overgarden, Denmark, Smack Mellon in New York City, and many other institutions. Barakeh finished his Meisterschüler with Simon Starling, at the Städelschule Art Academy in Frankfurt am Main in 2013. He lives and works in Frankfurt/Main.

Viola Bittl, born in 1980 in Bavaria, Germany. She studied at the Art Academy in Munich by professor Sean Scully and further studied and graduated in 2011 from Städelschule in Frankfurt/Main by Professor Christa Näher. In 2013 she was a scholarship holder of Else- Heiliger-Fonds, Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, Berlin and her works have been shown in solo and group exhibitions among others in institutions like Kunsthaus Wiesbaden, Eigen+Art Lab Berlin, LeRoy Neiman Center for Print Studies, Columbia University New York, Konrad-Adenauer- Stiftung Berlin, basis project space, Frankfurt am Main, Zollamt, Museum of Modern Art Frankfurt/Main, Tirana Art Lab.

Lena Ditlmann, born in 1982 in Augsburg, Germany. She studied at the University of Art and Design Offenbach (hfG) from 2005 - 2012 by professor Heiner Blum with the focus on photography and design. In 2012 she was a scholarship holder of Dr. Marschner foundation.

Since 2014 she studied at the Städelschule Art Academy by Judith Hopf. Her works have been shown in solo and group exhibitions in the 1822- Forum in Frankfurt/Main, Darmstädter Tage der Fotografie and basis project space in Frankfurt/Main. She lives in Frankfurt/Main.

Christoph Esser, born in 1982 in Essen, Germany. He studied at the Folkwang University of the Arts from 2004- 2008 with the focus on photography and experimental design by Gisela Bullacher and Jörg Eberhard. 2007 - 2008 he completed a nine-month study abroad at the Academy of photography in Gothenburg, Schweden by Karl-Johan Stigmark and Niklas Östholm. From 2009 he studied at Städelschule Art Academy with professor Tobias Rehberger, and graduated in 2013. His works have also been shown in solo and group exhibitions at basis in Frankfurt/Main, foundation Opelvillen in Rüsselsheim, platform for young artists in Essen, Laden No. 5, Balmoral in Bad Ems, the Zollamt, Museum of Modern Art in Frankfurt/Main and at So Ba in Tokyo, Japan. Christoph Esser lives in Frankfurt/Main.

Young Joo Lee, born in 1987 in Seoul, Korea, she started her Bachelor of Fine Arts in the field of painting at the Hongik University in Seoul before she continued at the Städelschule Art Academy in the field of film by Douglas Gordon in Frankfurt/Main. She finished her Meisterschüler at the Städelschule Art Academy in Frankfurt in 2013. Her works have been presented in international institutions like the HAU in Berlin, at the Curitiba Biennial in Brazil, the foundation Opelvillen in Rüsselsheim, Lichter Filmfestival in Frankfurt and at the Kunsthaus Bregenz. Young Joo Lee lives in Seoul and Frankfurt/Main.

Att Poomtangon, born in 1973 in Bangkok, Thailand studied sculpture at the University of Chiangmai in 1999, Thailand. He finished his Meisterschüler with Tobias Rehberger at the Städelschule Art Academy in Frankfurt/Main in 2009. In 2008 he participated with a site-specific installation at the exhibition "Fare Mondi - Making Worlds", 53rd International Art Exhibition, Venice Biennale. His works have been shown in numerous international group and solo exhibitions, among others at Pinakothek der Modern in Munich, Nassauischer Kunstverein in Wiesbaden, Portikus in Frankfurt/Main, Irish Museum of Modern Art Dublin. Att Poomtangon lives in Frankfurt/Main.

http://www.galerieheikestrelow.de/