My work Stunde Null (2009) is presented as a loan at the SB Kaufhalle art space in Eisenhüttenstadt.
It will be presented on Oct, 31 in the course of the following event:

02:00 pm
Podiumsgespräch: Kultur als Motor der Stadtentwicklung

Ort: ehemalige Selbstbedienungskaufhalle, Saarlouiser Straße 60a, 15890 Eisenhüttenstadt
Eintritt: 4 € / 2 € (Eintritt ins Museum)

Kultur gilt als weicher Standortfaktor – so richtig herumgesprochen hat sich das aber noch nicht! In Corona-Zeiten fanden sich Kulturträger als »Freizeiteinrichtungen« neben Spaßbädern, Fitnessstudios und Spielhallen geschlossen im Lockdown wieder.
Dem Anschein nach scheint sie vielen und gerade in der Politik nur schmückendes Beiwerk. Wie auch ihren Wert bemessen? Schmerzhafte Einschnitte bei Museen und Theatern und erst recht in der freien Szene sind rasch beschlossen, wenn das Geld im städtischen Budget knapp ist. Dabei ist Kultur ganz vorn dabei – nach Arbeit und Kinderbetreuung – wenn es um bemessene Lebensqualität, auch das gemeinsame Miteinander in der Öffentlichkeit geht. Kultur spielt eine wichtige Rolle bei der Entscheidung, in eine Stadt wie Eisenhüttenstadt zurückzukehren für junge Leute und Familien nach dem Fortgehen gen Berlin, München oder London. Wie also sollten wir es halten mit der Kultur, inwiefern ist sie eine treibende Kraft der Stadtentwicklung?

Gemeinsam mit unseren Gästen, dem Verleger und Investor Holger Friedrich, Barbara Anna Bernsmeier vom Zentrum für Kunst und Urbanistik und Thomas Zimmermann vom Club Steelbruch “Verein für subkulturelle und künstlerische Begegnung Steelbruch -20°” und mit Ihnen möchten wir diese Frage diskutieren. Wir freuen uns auf Ihren Besuch!

Bitte beachten Sie:
Für die Teilnahme an der Veranstaltung gilt die 3G-Regel (geimpft, genesen, getestet).

Um vorherige Anmeldung am Tresen des Museum Utopie und Alltag unter der Telefonnummer 03364 – 417355 oder unter der E-Mailadresse
museum@utopieundalltag.de wird gebeten.

Lokaler Medienpartner ist das Oder-Spree Fernsehen OSF.

I am happy to be one of the recipients of the Berlin senate research grant 2021

RESONANZRÄUME

Technische Universität Berlin
Institut für Architektur Entwerfen und Baukonstruktion
Prof. Jan Kampshoff

Resonanzräume #3
Im dritten Teil unserer Reihe „Resonanzräume“ treffen wir die Architektin und Theoretikerin Adria Daraban und den Künstler Bernd Trasberger.

Freitag, 14.05.21, 18.00 Uhr
Zoom 919 5560 7886
Pw 455366

Fragment Diskurse Online Lecture BTU, Cottbus

I am invited as a guest writer to contribute to FUCKING GOOD ART 's side by side blog in which they pose the question: "how do we want to live today?" I will report one week long from my situation as an artist in Berlin with regards to the housing and real estate situation in the city.
Furthermore I hijacked their instagram account @fga_editors

My film is being screened at ONETAKE FILM FESTIVAL in Zagreb (CRO), taking place Oct 23-24 2020 as an online festival.

the Diagonale festival is cancelled due to CoVid-19

The publication of the show Sorry the File You Have Requested does not Exist - Liebe Grüße aus Graz von Superstudio is now part of the open bookshelf of dpr Barcelona

opening: August 07, 2020

Berlinische Galerie

Paper-based works from 1945 to the present
A fascination with the modern city experienced by artists from all over the world has always been a vibrant, finger-on-pulse theme in the art produced in Berlin since 1945.

PAPERWORK, Zitrone Manegg, Zurich, CH

FRAGMENTS OF MODERNITY, online lecture at BTU, Cottbus

SORRY THE FILE YOU REQUESTED DOES NOT EXIST. LIEBE GRUESSE AUS GRAZ VON SUPERSTUDIO

September 21–November 8, 2019

Artist talk: September 20, 5pm, with the participating artists and architects
Exhibition opening: September 21, 1:30pm

House of Architecture Graz
Mariahilferstraße 2
8020 Graz
Austria
Hours: Tuesday–Sunday 10am–6pm

T +43 316 323500
office@hda-graz.at

hda-graz.at

"The scope of the works is to create, through a limited utopia of the future, responsible guidelines to act in the present." (Superstudio, 1969)

Exhibition
With Sorry, the file you have requested does not exist. the HDA – House of Architecture presents documents that have never before been on public display and seminal works by Superstudio from the archives of Graz institutions Neue Galerie and steirischer herbst in combination with contemporary digital positions by young artists and architects from all over Europe.

The radical conceptual approach of Superstudio, a group of architects and artists founded in Florence in 1966, made 20th-century architecture history with the socio-critical design proposal The Continuous Monument: An Architectural Model for Total Urbanization (1969). The first and only constructed version of this design was realized in 1969 in Graz as part of the three-country biennial trigon 69: architektur und freiheit [architecture and freedom].
50 years after Superstudio responded to the zeitgeist of the 1960s with a criticism of the notions of progress that defined that era, artists and architects of a younger generation now examine the social conditions that accompanied the production and reception of Superstudio’s ideas. Influenced by digital image production, they have developed an immersive environment for the exhibition Sorry, the file you have requested does not exist., which investigates the role of architects as space designers and explores the future potential of architectural tools. The presented positions address the increasing virtualization of the present, questioning not just reality but also the agents that refer to it.

Participating artists and architects: (ab)Normal, Hironaka & Suib, Robin Klengel / Leonhard Müllner, Lion & Unicorn, Vojtěch Rada, Stéphanie Roland, Bernd Trasberger and Superstudio

Curated by: Ludwig Engel and BB Mak
Scenography: Traumnovelle
Exhibition design: Julia Volkmar
Program coordination: Markus Bogensberger, Zerina Džubur

Venue: HDA – House of Architecture, Mariahilferstraße 2, 8020 Graz, Austria

The exhibition is realized in the context of steirischer herbst '19 and the Future Architecture Platform, in cooperation with Neue Galerie Graz / Universalmuseum Joanneum. Supported by steirischer herbst, Istituto Italiano di Cultura, Eternit Österreich GmbH.

In the course of the seminar Architektur vs. Fragment at the Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften, Munich, I gave a tour for students around the Alexanderplatz area in Berlin.

Artist Talk and Video Screening at HDA

April 24 2019 at 08:00pm

Bernd Trasberger beschäftigt sich in seinen Installationen, Collagen und recherchebasierten Projekten mit dem Moment des Wandels von urbanem Raum. Die Utopien der Nachkriegsmoderne bilden dabei einen wichtigen Referenzpunkt im Werk des Künstlers. Durch Aneignung und Wiederverwertung von architektonischen Fragmenten und deren Translokation stellt Trasberger die Frage, welchen Wert und welchen Platz wir diesem verschwindenden Habitat und dem Erbe der Moderne heutzutage einräumen. Ebenso befragt er Archive zur gleichen Thematik, bringt die zu Tage geförderten Archivalien in neuen Zusammenhang und entlockt ihnen überraschende Geschichten.

Trasberger arbeitet momentan im Rahmen des Styria-Artist-in-Residence (St.A.i.R.) Stipendiums des Landes Steiermark in Graz und recherchiert in den Archiven der Neuen Galerie und des steirischen herbst die Genese von Superstudios Continuous Monument, dessen erste Version die radikale Architektengruppe 1969 auf der Dreiländerbiennale trigon präsentierte. Trasbergers daraus resultierende Arbeit wird im Rahmen des steirischen herbst 2019 in der Ausstellung "Liebe Grüße aus Graz von Superstudio. Architektur als politisches Instrument" im HDA (kuratiert von Barbara-Brigitte Mak und Ludwig Engel) zu sehen sein.

Am 24. April 2019 um 20 Uhr präsentiert Trasberger im 2.OG des Palais Thinnfeld neben Filmen von Superstudio eigene Arbeiten und erläutert seine Herangehensweise in Bezug auf die radikalen Architekturutopien der späten 1960er Jahre.

Dietrich Ecker grant

I received the Dietrich Ecker grant for researching the genesis of Superstudio's Continuous Monument in Graz

The movie Die Einzelteile der Liebe / The Components of Love for which I built several decors as art director will have its world premiere at the Berlinale film festival in Berlin, section: perspective german cinema, 2019.

Die Einzelteile der Liebe / The Components of Love
feature film, 2018, 97 min.

Written and directed by Miriam Bliese
Cinematographer Markus Koop
Production Design: Beatrice Schultz
Produced by Clemens Köstlin, dffb berlin

We are presenting the concept of our exhibition Liebe Grüße aus Graz von Superstudio at the Future Architecture Platform at the Museum of Architecture and Design (MAO) in Ljubljana, Slovenia
Feb 13 - 15, 2019

Styria artist in residence

I am invited to do a 3 month residency in Graz as an artist in residence of Styria.
My host is the Haus der Architektur, Graz
I am using the residency to research about Superstudio's contribution to the 1969 trigon exhibition in Graz.
The result will be shown in the exhibition Liebe Grüße von Superstudio aus Graz in September 2019 at Haus der Architektur, Graz
The other residents are:
Lina Albrikiene
Sara Caneva
Emma Berentsen

Pollock-Krasner Foundation grant 2019

I received a 2019 grant of the Pollock-Krasner Foundation , New York.

I gave a tour To Whom Belongs the City? around the Alexanderplatz area in Berlin for students of the Gerrit Rietveld Academie. We walked from the Stadtschloss, a neo-liberal vision of the pre-bourgeois past to the Haus der Satistik which shows an alternative for participating in the decisions about the future of our cities. In-between these polarities we visited several locations where the layering of past and future and its permanent relocation and debate about it are visible.

I'll present a wall work at Econore Noise Fest at Kunstverein Mönchengladbach on October 11, 2018
(photos 1,2: Lars Wolter / 3: Pawel Klatt)

Chapter 9 begins with with a physical renovation process. Bernd Trasberger will lay an important foundation for this. His artistic intervention will respectfully take up the history of the guard pavilion and the department store "Centrum", and by this will establish a future-oriented base for the entire CNTRM project.

The work designed by Trasberger will pave the way for visitors to enter the interior of the gatehouse for the first time, creating a new view of the surroundings.

The gatekeeper pavilion near Berlin Ostbahnhof was opened again with Chapter 12 after more than 20 years and the process of renewal has started. The planned renovation will conclude with Chapter 1 in October 2018 and then present an impression of what the gatehouse looked like 40 years ago.
At the same time, CNTRM is designing a second story line with invited artists, which consists of ten exhibitions as the main act (Chapters 11 - 2). These artistic interventions refer to the respective state of renovation of the pavilion.

All participating artists and CNTRM are looking forward to your interest.

CNTRM is a project by Christof Zwiener

Opening: Thursday June 14, 7 - 10 PM

Exhibition until June 30

Unterstützt mit Mitteln des Bezirkskulturfonds und Mitteln der Projektförderung des Bezirks Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg und Herzlichen Dank an fmp1

CNTRM temporary project space

Straße der Pariser Kommune
Franz-Mehring-Platz
10243 Berlin-Friedrichshain
www.cntrm.de | info@cntrm.de

I was in the final round of the art competition for the Humboldtforum.
Unfortunately my proposal didn't win, but I am happy to share my concept with you anyhow!

the current state of our Yamasaki research partly funded by the Margarete-Schütte-Lihotzky grant of the Federal Chancellery of the Republic of Austria is presented in Vienna (AT)

PDF OBJECTS @ EXGIRLFRIEND BERLIN

Artists

Andrew Norman Wilson (LA)
Bernd Trasberger (Berlin)
Carrick Bell (Berlin)
Ela Spalding (Berlin/Panama)
Fiona Valentine Thomann (Berlin)
Kandis Williams (Berlin/LA)
kate-hers RHEE (Berlin)
Kimberlee Cordova (Mexico City)
Marek Wolfryd (Mexico City)
Natalie Obert (Berlin)
Roberto Uribe Castro (Berlin)


opening reception:
November 17, 2017
Exgirlfriend
Holsteinische StraBe 18
Berlin, Germany


PDF-OBJECTS runs through December 9th, 2017; organized by Jason Lazarus and Sean Ward

My site-specific work "Contagrip", 2002 is part of

VON DA AN (FROM THEN ON)
Temporary re-opening of the Städtisches Museum in Mönchengladbach
SPACES, WORKS, VISUALIZATIONS FROM THE ANTI-MUSEUM 1967 – 1978
Exhibition project at Museum Abteiberg and the historical Städtisches Museum, Bismarckstraße 97
September 13, 2017 to February 18, 2018

Please support and/or share this link for crowdfunding of REFUSE magazine

I am staying one month at Kerstin Niemann's Filter Detroit artist residency in Hamtramck, continuing collecting material for our book project No Story - A Life in Architecture about Minoru Yamasaki, that I am co-authoring with BB Mak. The project is partly funded by the Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky award of the Federal C hancellery of Austria.

HERTIE GOES CLOUD

„The cloud services companies of all sizes…The cloud is for everyone. The cloud is a democracy.“
Marc Benioff, 2010

Dear friends and acquaintances,

In 2009 I managed to salvage a part of the facade of the Hertie department store in Berlin-Neukölln with the help of a grant from Stiftung Kunstfonds. I turned these 80 ceramic elements together with brass plates into a monumental wall piece called Hertie.
Last year the work was on display in the exhibition Radikal Modern at the Berlinische Galerie. With the recovery of the facade I took the responsibility for this historic artifact, although I am not interested in possessing the material. I want to transfer it into a cultural context. Because of storage problems it was not possible to integrate Hertie into the collection of the Berlinische Galerie. I have stored Hertie now for several years, but have to clear my storage by the end of this month.
Therefore I need your help with storing the work.
If there's no central storage space for the work anymore, the idea of cloud computing can help!
First the facade hung at Karl-Marx-Straße for more than 40 years.
Then it was transferred into the art world.
Now the facade is disintegrating again and becomes domesticated.
I am giving away the 80 ceramic – and 32 brass elements to people, that want to take responsibility for them and hang them above their sofa or place them next to their bed.
Every new owner gets a certificate.
If the work is ever going to be exhibited again, the respective institution can recollect the pieces from different consignors.

Please react quickly, if you're interested. The work will be transported to a storage space at Naumannpark on Wednesday, June 22. There it will be temporarily stored. It would be perfect if you could pick up a piece on location on Wednesday. Otherwise we'll find a different solution.
You can also forward this email to other interested persons.

I am looking forward to meet you for dinner and support you with the hanging of your Hertie elements.

All my best,

Bernd

Bernd Trasberger
+491785757195
mail (at) berndtrasberger.de

I am giving a lecture at the Burmantofts conference in Leeds organized by the Tiles and Architectural Ceramics Society (TACS)

Since April I am conducting a research about the former Burmantofts Teracotta works in Leeds. The research is commissioned by East Street Arts and should lead to a proposal for a public art piece about Burmantofts. Apart from various examples of architectural faience in Leeds, there is no evidence of the history of its important site of production close by. The factory was closed in the 1950ies, the whole area was demolished and an neighborhood with tower blocks with vast open grass fields inbetween was built on the site. This would be an interesting location for a public sculpture commemorating Burmantofts' history. The slight hills on the location seem to give a hint to the former mining activity and the history of Burmantofts, that is hidden away, buried underground. During the earthworks for the towerblocks a lot of ceramic shards were found. One idea is to create a series of sculptures that would „emerge“ from the underground (although looking like submerging ruins at the same time) Each sculpture would be crafted in a different technique associated with Burmantofts ceramics. (salt-glazed, brick stone, architectural faience and decorated pottery.) I think to place sculptures on the vast empty lawns would activate this area and create a new focal point on the now empty and unused site.
Another aspect of the hidden history of the Leeds Fireclay Company struck me during my research: At the Leeds Discovery Center various clay molds are stored. (Just small ones, since the larger examples of architectural ceramics were destroyed along with the factory.) Particularly interesting to me was a set of animals, ranging from domestic ones (dove, squirrel etc.) to more exotic ones (lion, monkey etc.) I think these animals could become the protagonists in telling the story of the hidden Burmantofts history.
The molds are very fragile and would disintegrate when being opened, therefore the animal forms can just be adumbrated when glancing into the holes of the molds. (Due to copyright issues, I cannot show these photographs here.) I was wondering whether there might be any technology, that could 3D scan into the forms to reveal the hidden animals inside. After talking to several specialists, this proves to quite difficult. (apart from expensive and complicated procedures like CT scanning etc.) I would very much like to test out the limitations of contemporary digital molding in comparison with the classical way of casting. At the moment I am discussing copyright issues with the Discovery Center about the digitization of the forms, but am very confident that we'll find a way of either scanning the molds or opening them up in collaboration with a specialized conservator. Once I have succeeded in generating the digital files, I can see how they look and if or how they are going to be intergrated into my proposal for a public sculpture. Technically these 3D files can be modified, scaled and altered and finally being printed or milled in any material from wood, metal to ceramics. This way, the historic forms could be reproduced with contemporary techniques.

Nachmieter für Lager/Produktionsfläche gesucht!

ab Mitte Juni 2016
51qm Raum
trocken, hell, Deckenhöhe über 5m
Berlin-Tegel (Nähe Autobahn 111)
Laderampe, großer Lastenaufzug (340 x 160 x 220 cm)
24 Std. Wachschutz
Monatsmiete: 234,- € netto

Abstand für Trockenbauwände, Regale etc.: 100,- €
bei Interesse:
Schwerlastregal (Platz für 9 Europaletten) 250,- €


Bei Interesse:

Bernd Trasberger
0178-5757195
mail@berndtrasberger.de

The website of REFUSE magazine is online!
http://refusemagazine.fr

working on REFUSE magazine together with Olfa Ben Ali

For our project about Minoru Yamasaki No Story - A Life in Architecture on which I am collaborating now with Barbara-Brigitte Mak as co-author we were awarded the Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky project grant by the Federal Chancellery of Austria. This enables us to plan our next travel to Detroit this fall on which we will continue surveying the Yamasaki collection at the Michigan State Archive. Furthermore we will record our collection of voices for the book, for which we will meet several companions of Yama.

The BerlinBritzenale 2016 dedicates itself to contemporary art in the semi-public space.

14 artists embark on this quest in a 400m2 large garden plot in the garden colony "Morgentau" in Berlin-Britz.

Fences are elementary objects for allotments, as they describe the visible and sometimes insuperable separation between the private own, the neighbors and the public space. This demarcation and security is of great importance for the functioning of an allotment, which also explains the high density of flags and rims inside the garden colonies.

The BerlinBritzenale wants to highlight, among other things, these territorial claims artistically and to open the garden for visitors. The well-known stereotypes of allotments, the behavior of the tenant farmers and the specialty about gardening and harvesting is examined under the magnifying glass.

The BerlinBritzenale is made possible through the commitment of the participating artists and curated by Christof Zwiener.

In the exhibition „Culture Cannibalism“ at Ateliers89 the results of my workshop were presented. I brought a portfolio with images of contemporary sculptures, mostly taken from various art ranking websites. These images served as starting point for the participants to reproduce those Western masterpieces. In the course of this adaptation the works were cannibalized and gained a specific carribbean attitude. Discussions about the transfer of artistic ideals and post-colonial cultural policies were fostered during the making.

There will be lectures at the black box at Ateliers89, Dominicanessenstraat 34, Oranjestad, Aruba

lecturers will be:

ALVA MOOSES and TROELS, NEW YORK
BERND TRASBERGER, BERLIN
ADI MARTIS, ARUBA

I am staying one month at Ateliers89 in Oranjestad, Aruba. I will give a workshop called Super-Masterpiece as a follow up of my 2014 workshop. I took a selection of contemporary sculptures from different art ranking websites. These sculptures serve as a starting point for the participants of the workshop. The sculptures are being reproduced, imitated, but cannibalized and transformed to a Carribbean version. I am curious how the results will be.

#HITLERvonHEUTE

Almost exactly one year ago, during a stay in Detroit, I was watching the renovation of Woodward Avenue, the central one of the 5 principal Avenues of Detroit, that stretch out like fingers of a hand, apparently still marking Native American trails. Woodward Avenue was also the location of the first paved roadway in the US.
Last year the ramshackle pavement of Woodward Avenue was broken open and underneath old rail tracks appeared. The car industry shut down the Detroit street car system in 1956, replaced it by buses (as in many other North American cities). The people working in the automotive industry were motivated to buy a car of their own. This ultimately led to a new mobility and urban sprawl, that finally caused the decline of downtown Detroit. The Detroit street cars, sold to Mexico City, continued running there until most of them were unfortunately destroyed in the 1985 earthquake. Already before I had noticed long straight, parallel cracks in the middle of Woodward Avenue as a result of the subjacent tracks. I met a few friends at the roadside and we talked about the city of Detroit, that has started to rebuild the rail tracks along Woodward Avenue. We chatted about Mexico City, the decline of the so called North American rust belt, earthquakes and White Flight and had some beers.
History was inevitably making its way to the surface.

On Friday, December 18 at 6:00pm, I would like to invite you to meet at the cemetery wall on Naumannstraße (opposite nr. 32) have a Glühwein and chat about the Rote Insel, graffiti, Hitler, the new Ramesh Album and Russia.

encounter between Karl Marx and a putto on the facade of a "Schnäppchenmarkt"-discounter on Karl-Marx-Strasse, Berlin

Beautifully weathered chip-wood panels fencing the BND (German national intelligence agency) construction site on Chausseestraße, Berlin.

A billboard on the outer wall of my studio building was recently removed, revealing political slogans from Berlin's Cold War times in the early 1980ies.
"Down with Breshnev, the Hitler of today"
Protagonists changed, but there's still some awkward actuality in the graffiti...

Sunday, September 27, 2015 at 4pm

I will have a public talk with architecture theorist Kenny Cupers in the exhibition Radically Modern at Berlinische Galerie.
We will stroll around 1960's Berlin and visit iconic buildings and invisible ones, Hiroshima and Istanbul, the Fernsehturm and Upper West. We will talk about the future of the past, tabula rasa and critical reconstruction, Western global capitalism and riots of the 1980's, Karl Marx and Biedermeier, skateboarding and Mies van der Rohe.

My work Hertie is still on display in the exhibition.

Berlinische Galerie, Berlin
Alte Jakobstraße 124 – 128
10969 Berlin

Since a while I am taking pictures of different locations in Berlin to document the change, that these unspectacular places undergo. One building, that I regularly photograph is a building on the corner of Mehringdamm / Gneisenaustraße with a sculpture on its facade. Now someone hung a bicycle (!) into it and added "AUS SCHEISE (sic) WIRD GOLD GEMACHT"

Doppelgängeradmiral, 1985 by Ludmila Seefried-Matejkova
my favorite sculpture in Berlin's public space.

I gave a tour along some artist-run project spaces in Berlin for East Street Arts from Leeds.

the dialogic city:
Neue Nationalgalerie meets Haus der Kulturen der Welt

the dialogic city. Helmut (?) Kohlhaas

Martin and Till are pleased to invite you to the book launch of

TILL CREMER, BERLIN ARTISTS

Thursday, September 17
6-8pm

KWADRAT
Manteuffelstr. 92
10997 Berlin

BERLIN ARTISTS is a project by Till Cremer produced over a five-year period, during which time he photographed 500 contemporary artists in Berlin. The portraits show the artists in their working environment or a place consistent with their work and visually explore the individual artistic personality. The artist book presents 300 selected portraits.

I will give another workshop at Ateliers89 in Aruba in February 2016.
The workshop will build upon my 2014 workshop and will be titled Super-Masterpiece

Bernd Trasberger "Mehr Berlin" in Tagesspiegel, Berlin, July 25, 2015

The gigantic Kraft durch Freude (Strength through Joy) Third Reich architecture in Prora (on the German island Rügen) is finally turned into luxury condominiums. Built 1936 – 1939 by the Nazis as a holiday resort by the sea the 4,5 km long complex was never used as such due to WWII and GDR post war military use.
Thanks to various investors the coloss of Prora now finally can be enjoyed by wealthy homeowners and not just by Arian mass tourism. Even if all historical traces of GDR history might disappear and the site might not be entirely accessible anymore for the public, the completed structure should be seen as a monument for Third Reich Gigantism.

I gave a short lecture about Yamasaki at the Gasthaus of the RWTH Aachen.

some architecture is just so ridiculous, it makes you laugh wholeheartedly.

fake Schinkel meets fake fake Schinkel meets Centre Pompidou

The Funkhaus am Raderberggürtel in Cologne, built by Planungsgruppe Stieldorf is going to be demolished soon. With its 138 m it will be the tallest building ever to be blown up. Till now the J.L. Hudson building (134 m) in Detroit was the tallest building that was brought down with explosives.

In the entrance there is a large mosaic signed Z Prolozzi
Maybe I'll come up with an idea for a re-use or recycling of that piece.
Till now I couldn't find out any information about that artist.

Oel-Früh Residenz 2015 – im Rahmen von 60 JAHRE KUNST IN HAMBURG
Teil V-IX


Preview: Freitag, den 12. Juni, 19 – 22 Uhr

Eröffnung: Samstag, den 13. Juni, ab 19 Uhr
Dauer: 14.06. – 11.07.2015

Affenfaust Galerie
Paul-Roosen-Straße 43
22767 Hamburg

Öffnungszeiten:
Donnerstag – Freitag: 17 – 21 Uhr
Samstag – Sonntag: 14 – 18 Uhr

Die Galerien Feinkunst Krüger, Helium Cowboy, Mikiko Sato, Oel-Früh, Kramer Fine Art, sowie die Affenfaust Galerie stehen seit (zusammen) 60 Jahren exemplarisch für die Vielfältigkeit der Hamburger Kunst.
Auf Initiative der Affenfaust Galerie werden vom 13.06. bis zum 11.07.2015 Künstlerinnen und Künstler aus dem Programm dieser sechs Hamburger Galerien zu einer übergreifenden Gruppenausstellung zusammen kommen.

Neben der Vernissage am 13. Juni wird die Residenz der Galerie Oel-Früh jeden Donnerstag eine neue Ausstellung in einem Raum im Raum eröffnen.

Der Raum im Raum, der für diese Ausstellungsreihe als Display dient, ist eine Referenz an das Haus Seepferdchen in der vorpommerschen Boddenlandschaft, genauer Dierhagen-Ost. Hier gastierten letzten Sommer acht Künstler. Jeweils zu zweit, im ‚Dialog’. Die dort begonnene Reihe Positionen im Salon des Hauses Seepferdchen wird als Teil von 60 Jahre Kunst in Hamburg fortgeführt.

In der Datscha werden Künstler im Wechsel präsentiert. Der Skulpturengarten, der den Raum umgibt, bildet hingegen permanentes Begleitbild. Eingeladen sind Konzept-Künstler/innen, die ohnehin bewusst mit Kontexten umgehen. Der programmatische ‚Dialog’ mit einem temporären Partner verstärkt diese Auseinandersetzung. Das gemeinsame Distanzieren auf ein Gesamtbild prägt immer auch das Ergebnis – und Blicke auf einzelne Werke. Als hätten sich Positionen noch einmal gefestigt. Mit dem Ausstellungskonzept folgt Galerie Oel-Früh der Betonung auf Umgebung, Prozess und (räumlicher) Intuition. Um das einordnen zu können: Die Aufnahme des Grundrisses der Datscha an einem anderen Ort, ist nicht der Versuch einer ‚Übertragung’. Vielmehr entstand die Idee dem Grundriss der zu bespielenden Räume und verfügbarem Altmaterial des Discounters folgend.

Das Programm:

Teil V - Gesche Karnick / Anna Nero
Eröffnung: Sa, 13.Juni 2015, ab 19 Uhr

Teil VI - Birgit Brandis / Susanne Hopmann
Eröffnung: Do, 18. Juni 2015, ab 19 Uhr

Teil VII - Stella Geppert / Thea Timm / Bernd Trasberger
Eröffnung: Do, 25. Juni 2015, ab 19 Uhr

Teil VIII - Sebastian Kubersky / JE Oldendorf
Eröffnung: Do, 02. Juli 2015, ab 19 Uhr

Teil IX - Rekerb Sauer
Eröffnung: Mi, 08. Juli 2015, ab 19 Uhr

Garten – dauerhaft vom 13.06. bis 11.07.2015
FH Breker, Jay Gard, Annika Hippler, Marcel Mieth, Alexander Raymond, A Sauer, Marcel Tasler, Katharina Trudzinski, Hannes Uhlenhaut, Malte Urbschat, Hans-Chistian Saylors

Wir freuen uns auf Euch!
Team Oel-Früh

Galerie Oel-Früh
info@oelfrueh.org

Galerie Oel-Früh

Frank Breker I Anna-Carla Brokof I Christopher Müller I Antje Sauer

Büro: Wendenstraße 45B, 20097 Hamburg

Ausstellungsraum: Klosterwall 23, 20095 Hamburg

Öffnungszeiten: Mo–Fr 12:00–23:00h, Sa 17:00–23:00h



phone: +49 163 3125421
mail: sauer@oelfrueh.org
web: www.oelfrueh.org

GDR highway restaurant

see the interview published on bpigs.com today!

review of Vanitas Extended at Nieuwsblad

starting the installation of Hertie at the Berlinische Galerie for the show Radically Modern

29.05.–26.10.2015

RADICALLY MODERN
PLANNING AND CONSTRUCTION IN 1960S BERLIN

Berlinische Galerie Museum of Modern Art

Architecture and urban design from the sixties still set their stamp on the Berlin townscape. Many key planning decisions were made in the sixties and some striking buildings were constructed during that period. The Berlinische Galerie will present the first ever comprehensive overview of this architectural heritage in both East and West Berlin. Historical documents, some familiar and others of more recent origin, illustrate political, social and technical visions for developing a city that had suffered severe destruction in previous decades and was then divided by the Wall. Alongside themes such as the objectives, common denominators and distinguishing factors that define a selection of these developments, such as Stalinallee, Alexanderplatz, Breitscheidplatz and the Märkisches Viertel, the exhibition explores features of these architectural designs that reveal international networking between those involved or else illustrate how knowledge of international trends was reflected in concrete designs. About 300 works by some 30 architects, planning partnerships, photographers and artists will be on display.

Architects (selected): Werner Düttmann, Fehling + Gogel, Walter Gropius, Georg Heinrichs, Josef Kaiser, Roland Korn, Ludwig Leo, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Klaus Müller-Rehm, Ulrich Müther, Hans Scharoun, Manfred Zumpe

Artists (selected): Beate Gütschow, Karsten Konrad, Hendrik Krawen, Bernd Trasberger, Stephen Willats

Exhibition architect: David Saik, Berlin

Catalogue with the kind support of Wüstenrot Stiftung.

With the kind support of Kulturstiftung des Bundes

check out some reviews of the show Vanitas Extended
Paris Expo
Flanders Today
Vanitas Extended website

starting building up my work Sykes-Picot at the exhibition Vanitas Extended in Ypres, B

Mönchengladbach

Cologne

Ronse

Ypres, B

I took another walk through town, looking for ideas and locations for my participation in the exhibition Vanitas Extended in April.
WW1 still is omnipresent in this town, which was one of the cruelest battlefields of the Great War.
I am planning to make another column, a monument for the oil as the fuel of Modernity.
WW1 was the first war in which the access to the oilfields of the Middle East played an important role as Western European and Russian leaders watched the decline of the Ottoman Empire.

The portfolio Work which can be downloaded as a pdf is updated. Text and CV will follow soon!

reviews (in Polish) of our show Mystery and Melancholy of a Street

Tereny Kultury in Polskie Radio Trójka

SZUM magazine

A version of my work Fade To Grey, originally from 2012, is presented at the architectural department of Lawrenche Technological University in Southfield, MI, a suburb of Detroit.
The work will become an exchange project between architectural academies in collaboration with Charlie O'Geene of Lawrence Tech.

Simultaneously with the building-up of our exhibition, the demolition of the DOKP building has begun. Surprisingly, in contrast to what was communicated before the demolition workers told us now, they have order not to destroy the sculpture. Did our action finally contribute to the rescue of the sculpture, or will it also be demolished alongside with the building in the end?
Whatever happens: The frottage and the salvaged fragments will be part of the exhibition in Centrum Kultury Katowice.

covering the crack surfaces of the DOKP sculpture fragments with gold leaf and gold powder lacquer

working with my own Yama archive...

release of Wie wollen wir leben? - 50 Jahre Halle-Neustadt the catalogue of the exhibition außer-planmäßig

I have left Detroit. Though being quite occupied with my research, I got to know the city a bit during my last four weeks. There are so many clichés about „the D“, but the city has been the setting for a lot of extraordinary events, novelties and contradictions between boomtown and shrinking city. Detroit, in the 19th century final destination of the underground railroad for escaped slaves, became a highly segregated city in the 1960ies, resulting in massive riots. Today Detroit has still one of the highest murder rates in the US. Urban developments like the first US freeway, the largest shopping mall and a huge suburbanization were spearheaded in Detroit. It's the birthplace of Motown, Techno and the assembly line and of course the story of Motor City can not be told without the automobile. Whereas a lot of other post-industrialized cities in the American midwest have undergone a similar decline, the story of Detroit is surely is the most symbolic. After the Great Depression in the 1930ies the city's decline was temporarily averted as it became the arsenal of democracy, switching overnight from automotive production to weaponry. Though after WWII an incredible blast of consumerism tried to fuel the American dream the downfall of the city was irreversible. Race riots and suburbanization disected the city, money was drained to the suburbs and after the oil crisis of the early 1970's the automotive plants started to shut down. Today Detroit's population has shrunk to less than half of its size of the 1950's leaving large areas of the inner city destroyed, vacant or boarded up. But there is much more than ruin porn and Detroit's media image bewteen Only Lovers Left Alive and Brick Mansions. There are so many incredible cultural initiatives from urban farming to neighborhood workshops, that all try to establish very carefully, being very concerned about their neighborhoods and a grass roots approach. In vast contrast to this stands an institution like the Red Bull House of Art, which I found shocking. If I had to direct a movie in which one scene would be called „the grand contemporary art opening“, I would choose such a warehouse location, cast these type of people and hang such art, that is easily recognizable as such, but doesn't require any further thought. Whereas I see a lot of potential in the emerging local Detroit art scene, where welded metal sculptures and street art still seem to prevail, Red Bull House of Art seems to position itself at the other end of the range: A contentless imitation of the contemporary art lifestyle, throwing thousands of dollars worth of booze at suburban hipster kids, whereas homeless people roam in the vicinity. I hope, that the art scene in Detroit can resist these kinds of commercial temptation, just as the inner city dwellers should resist the temptation of the suburbs. Culture is a great hope for the city. Hopefully the process of gentrification and renewal will be continued in a sensible way. There are already enough Ibizas and Miamis in the art world and Berlin's Tacheles ruin porn has made way for countless hostels to accommodate the global party hipsters.

My Yamasaki research proofed to be extremely prolific. I have done an thoroughly survey of the Yamasaki collections at Walter P. Reuther library and the Michigan State Archive. Due to my all-over-artistic-survey of the archives I was a bit overwhelmed by their scope in the beginning, but then I developed a sense of the archives on a greater level and I get more insight into the person Yamasaki.
Also a lot of new questions arose. I made hundreds of photographs and found some very interesting yet unpublished drawings, letters, manuscripts and photos. Although having developed some new ideas for installations, I am now strongly inclined towards making a publication as a „dialogue with Yamasaki“. I would not show any photographs of buildings - only drawings, models, construction sites, interiors and images of sites of former Yama buildings. like the current Pruitt-Igoe forest, the 9/11 Memorial and the construction site on the lot of the destroyed Yamasaki and Associates office. Yamasaki would „speak" through letters and quotations of lectures (all facsimile). It’s gonna be an artistic book with a lot of associative connections between the archival material. I would have to come back and examine the archives more and make proper reproductions. Even in 4 weeks I seem to just having scratched the surface. Last week I was able to have dinner with Prof. Dale Gyure, who currently writes a book on Yamasaki and two architects that have worked in Yamasaki's office: Keith Allen Brown and Henry J. Guthard. It was extremely interesting to hear anecdotes and receive a lot of new information.

The car industry shut down the Detroit street car system in 1956, replaced it by buses (as in many other North American cities). The people working in the automotive industry were motivated to buy a car of their own. This ultimately lead to a new mobility and urban sprawl, that finally caused the decline of downtown Detroit. The Detroit street cars, sold to Mexico City, continued running there until most of them were unfortunately destroyed in the 1985 earthquake.
Now the city of Detroit has started to rebuild the rail tracks along Woodward Avenue.
In the course of construction work, the old railtracks, that were covered with asphalt are being excavated and removed. On a large stretch Woodward Avenue showed pretty straight cracks. Apparently these result from the subjacent tracks, as if history is inevitably making its way to the surface.

I visited Northland Center shopping mall in an inner-ring suburb of Detroit.
Built in 1954 by Victor Gruen the mall was the first of its kind and it was praised as the future of shopping in post-war America. The residents, mostly having well-paid jobs in the automotive industry could afford to buy a car themselves. This enabled them to commute between the city and the suburban dwellings, where they now also found possibilities for shopping. Followed by many other shopping centers in the following years this suburbanization finally lead to the decline of inner city Detroit. Today with even bigger malls in the outer suburbs Northland Center made a quite deserted impression.

I was able to survey the Yamasaki collection at the Michigan State Archive in Lansing for one week. It was extremely interesting and I looked through various binders with transparencies, photographs and slides, boxes with miscellaneous project files, drawings, books etc.
The staff at the archives was extremely helpful and supportive.
State archivist Mark Harvey and his staff were the ones to save the files out of the Yamasaki & Associates office in 2010 after they were alerted of the imminent destruction of the office records by county workers preparing the indebted firm’s equipment for auction to recoup overdue taxes.
Though I have examined various archival goods, I have the feeling of just having scratched the surface. I will definitely need more time (and funding!) to be able to return and complete my research thoroughly. My ideas at the moment are strongly heading towards a publication in which I would combine files of the Yamasaki collection with current photography and texts.

My installation fingerprint is almost dissolved as the original guard-house approaches the Wendemuseum.

On my way to the Michigan State Archive in Lansing, MI, I went to see the site of the office of Minoru Yamasaki and Associates.
The large office building designed by Yamasaki himself and built 1967 was situated on a property, covered with many large mature trees. The building was demolished earlier this year. Now there is a construction site for a new children's hospital and another important Yamasaki building ceased to exist in the material world.

The banners at the 9/11 Memorial in New York City have been exchanged.
The new ones show don't show the design of the Memorial anymore, but the new skyline of New York with One World Trade Center in the middle.

Today I went into the Michigan Theatre, built by Cornelius W. and George L. Rapp in 1926 on the site of the birthplace of the Ford automobile. In 1977 it was converted into a parking garage.
It seems to be one of the very symbolic stories of Detroit.

I attended a highly interesting "downtown-skyscraper-tour" given by Michael Farrell arthousetours.com
In Detoits waterfront skyline you can find skyscrapers of all eras from Beaux-arts-style to Deconstructivist.
(in the middle the former Michigan Consolidated Gas Company building - now Woodward One, by Yamasaki)
In the foreground the Hart plaza with the Isamu Noguchi fountain: a well-known skateboarding site.

Minoru Yamaski's McGregor Memorial Conference Center at Wayne State University

I started surveying the Yamasaki files at the Walter P. Reuther Library at Wayne State University starting with office communication of the 1950s, slowly working my way through the large amount of papers.
Even by reading official letters at a certain point the character of the person Yamasaki shines through and I found some interesting statements about Pruitt-Igoe and great notes on his vision about a humanistic architecture in general.

Detroit ruin porn

Back home I started to prepare for my Detroit residency which is soon to come.
Read the synopsis of my Yamasaki project below:


Minoru Yamasaki's invisible buildings

Publication/exhibition about Minoru Yamasaki, bringing elements of his archives into a contemporary art context. focusing on the imaginary aspects of his work.

„The challenge of our times philosophically, politically, is tremendous; and the challenge of architecture is an integral part of the total challenge. Whether we, the architects of this time, are able to meet it remains to be seen.“

Minoru Yamasaki, A Humanist Architecture for America & Its Relation to the Traditional Architecture of Japan“, Zodiac 8, 1961

As a tragic coincidence the American architect Minoru Yamaski (1912 - 1986) built two significant pieces of Modern Architecture that have become best known through the iconic images of their destruction - Pruitt-Igoe (1955-1976) and the World Trade Center (1973-2001).
Both mediatized destructions mark paradigm shifts. Struggling over representation in our digital age, we have affirmed images as part of reality. Although these buildings don't exist anymore, they are still highly present to us because they are globally being consulted about their collision with history. The sites of these vanished Yamasaki buildings remain commemorating voids: Pruitt-Igoe has become a forest between the housing project's streets. The 9/11 Memorial leaves the Twin Towers' foundations open as reflective pools. Both sites, represent crucial points and yet completely different aspects of American history, and seem to relate to Yamasaki's ideals of humanist landscape design. The Pruitt-Igoe site is an informal monument for the so-called death of modernism, but also for its connected social and economic change of post-industrialized cities.
Yamasaki though is relatively unknown. There is no academic publication or biography and the majority of his abatement still has to be made accessible. All of Yamasaki's watercolors are lost. I am in contact with the relevant archives, his associates and family to elaborate my research.
I want to stress the topicality of Minoru Yamasaki's work and shed a light on his biography. Yamasaki was raised in poor conditions, suffered restrictions during WW2, becoming famous in the 1960s, his fame culminating in the commission for the WTC. But in the post-modernist discourse of the 1970s Yamasaki's New Formalism was buried in oblivion.
Do the destructions of his buildings symbolize the tragedy of his career or does his work and his ideals still resonate into our present times, making Yamasaki a central figure in the history of Modernism?
After first concentrating on formal characteristics of Yamasaki’s architecture, my focus shifted to more biographical features. Some aspects of my research are more inclined to be shown in an exhibition, whereas others would lend themselves better for a publication. I know, that profound examination of the archives and meeting people in person will reveal information that can become the project's center of gravitation. I would focus on Yamasaki’s personal sketches, watercolors, photographs, notes and letters.
Through the examination of Yamaski's personal and professional abatement in the Reuther library at Wayne State University in Detroit and the Michigan State Archive in Lansing I wan't to discover records, that portray Yamaski's lifework and diversify and replenish his architectural heritage - still physically existing or not.
My project investigates the imaginary qualities of Yamasaki's work by incorporating his “invisible buildings“, unbuilt designs and his imaginary watercolors (Yamasaki mentions them extensively in his autobiography “A life in architecture”) into a series of contemporary art installations. My aspiration is to create an artistic biography of Yamasaki, revealing his personal approach to architecture and the rupture lines in his biography. Hence my work would correspond with the only hitherto existing book about his life: His self-published autobiography.

One artwork will be a combination of original Yamasaki landscape watercolors with film footage of the Pruitt-Igoe forest. Another installation deals with the vanished shadows of the WTC.
I would love to create a book that appears to be a formal revenant of Yamasaki's autobiography but replenishing the story of his architecture with unpublished documents and anecdotes.

I am confident, that the meetings and my survey of the archives will be necessary for the further conception of my project.

Workshop Masterpiece at Ateliers89, Oranjestad, Aruba
02.09. – 05.10.2014

Masterpiece

I enjoyed very much having the opportunity of giving a workshop at Ateliers89, since I always think, that it is very much enriching to teach or exhibit in a different cultural context.
I actually had the chance to do both during my month-long stay on the island.
I took the assumed cultural differences bewteen Aruba and thel Western-European artworld, that I usually belong to, as starting point for my workshop.
I brought a folder with photographs of contemporary Western-European sculptural work, out of which the participants had to choose one to reproduce.
Hereby the point of departure are the given photographs. The scale, materials, colors and the technical construction of the works have to be interpreted solely from the images. Some photographs only show a detail of the sculpture, their backsides are not visible, installations might include sound or smell and some internet-images are in low resolution. All this information and deficiency can be taken into account while starting to reproduce the artwork. Hereby a lot of interpretation and translation takes place and might spark off own trajectories in re-creating the „masterpiece“, although the appertaining title of the work and the name of the artist are not being provided.
My idea was, that this approach could be suitable for the heterogenous group of participants that I was expecting. (ranging from young scholars preparing for art school to adults that want to indulge into an artistic practice next to their regular jobs.) The assignment could be approached from a strictly practical site by just re-making the artworks, but there is also opportunity to engage in a discourse about contemporary sculpture, appropriation art and the value of the original piece in comparison to its reproduction.
This starting point though, proved to be more difficult, than imagined. It seemed, that most of the participants had a strong urge to create something of their own, something „nice“. The examples I brought, were mostly trashy, seemingly carelessly asembled installations like works by Isa Genzken, Manfred Pernice, Aaron Curry, Thea Djordjaze and others. I wanted to spark off a post-colonial discussion about an import of a typically Western, ironic attitude in visual arts. I wanted to challenge my position, coming over from Berlin – a contemporary, cultural hotspot – to an academy on a small Carribbean island, funded by the Dutch government.
The participants quickly chose an artpiece, that appealed to them intuitively and immediately imagined, what could be altered to make it „nicer“. One student told me, she didn't like most of the pieces, because they were so abstract and colorless. An interesting point of view, that in the end lead to some surprising results, like a Vedova sculpture with a fragmented female portrait instead of abstract paint strokes on it, a teenager-diary version of a Franz Ackermann installation and a remake of a pyramid shaped sculpture by Joanne Tatham and Tom O'Sullivan displaying dragons and Mexican luchadores' wrestling masks. Interestingly the urge of self-expression can sometimes be in the way of an elaborate contemplation on visual arts. I also remember this vividly from my own studies in art school, when the most difficult class for me was the painting class, although painting was the reason, why I had started art school. But since I was painting a lot and felt quite secure in that medium it seemed impossible for me to break the constraints of my practice and achieve something new.
For an advanced examination on sculpture it can be quite challenging to restrain ones own urge for creation and limit yourself to the pure copying of an existing piece. By doing so it becomes apparent how many decisions still have to be made if the starting point for imitation is just a photograph. One has to read the 2-dimensional image and translate it into a 3-dimensional object.
So, after having to make the students stick more to the original photograph in the beginning, we had to go on a quest for material, which is the basic requirement for working sculpturally.
At this point it has to be mentioned, that without the immense energy and commitment of Elvis Lopez almost none of the sculptures would have come to life. Elvis drove around the island in the van to look for and pick up material, to buy new supplies when needed and to help and motivate the students next to accomplishing all the organisational tasks. He proved to be more than schizophrenic, being the driver, director, technician and secretary all in one big person. After a rather sagging start the students got into the working mode for their projects as soon as all the tools and materials were gathered. For a sculpture-workshop, this is of course more difficult, than working in media like painting, drawing or photography, since a lot more materials, space and tools are being required. Every student found its way into the production of a sculpture, that was more or less losely based on the initial photograph. In some cases the technical challenges of finding a suitable construction for a particular idea took some time, energy and efforts. I believe, that every technical decision also influences the aesthetic outcome of a piece and vice versa. So I think it is important to guide the students in looking at their piece and carefully considering every decision being made, however small and marginal it might seem even if that made me being called „Pietje Precies“.
Quite a number of students joined the workshop, although unfortunately some of them dropped in quite late or had to leave the workshop before its final, due to some job-related obligations.
I was very pleased and surprised with the outcome of the individual works. They had become something far more interesting, than just a reproduction of a „masterpiece“, but the works managed to merge a Western debate about contemporary sculpture with the Carribbean Way of Life.
The last task of the workshop was to assemble a show together. For most of the participants it was the first time ever to exhibit. It was a challenge for everyone to stop working on their individual pieces and shift their focus to a collaborative presentation in which the works together start to have a dialogue. As I also have experienced while coordinating the final exams at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam, for the participants it is a new way of looking at their sculptures, when they accept another work in their vicinity and learn to look at the presentation as a whole. This surely also includes moving the walls, hanging the name tags and sweeping the floor in the end, if not Elvis had already done so himself.
The opening of the exhibition was a beautiful feast, with a lot of interested fancy dressed visitors, families, exciting talks, drinks, food and dance. A truly Carribbean evening illuminated by lampions that Elvis had made me hang up high in the trees.

The Monument For The Lago Colony

I was also able to produce a work of my own. The Monument for the Lago Colony This work was inspired by the history of the island. One day Elvis toghether with local artist Glenda Heijliger took me on a tour through San Nicolas, where a large abandoned oil refinery dominates the town. Now defunct, the refinery once has brought wealth to the island. Downtown, in what is now a rather dodgy redlight district you can find a vast amount of early modernist buildings, now painted and renovated in hilarious ways. One building has several stucco escutcheons from a local hardware store on his facade.
Another architectural element that you can find all over the island are fake plaster columns. (mostly of doric or ionic order)
These columns represent the colonial history as well as the local need for decoration and beauty. In the case of the modernist buildings at San Nicolas this is a rather absurd combination.
All this observation inspired my own version of a classical monument for the history of the Lago refinery and its now also abandoned appertaining colony.
With the help of Elvis and local craftsmen I created a column of oil drums with a concrete base and capital poured by a local sculptor, specialized in creating these domestic decorations. Unfortunately there was just little money to be able to create such a site-specific piece. With a lot of help of the locals I was able to erect the column and donate it to Ateliers89 as a permanent piece for the courtyard.

I hope that I'll have the chance to come back one day and research more into the history of the Lago Colony. It would be fantastic to erect a column (if not a whole temple) on the cliffs at the very site of the former colony, overlooking the sea towards Venezuela.

I had a very fruitful and inspiring stay, thanks to Elvis Lopez and other local cultural producers, that I had the chance to meet, like especially Osaira Muyale and Renwick Heronimo and their interesting project Studio O and striving for the establishment of a local Museum for Contemporary Art, joining artistic forces of the Carribbean region and connecting the contemporary culture with the very fascinating local cultures of carnival in which a lot of the passion and creativity of the Arubian people is eminent.

On my last day on Aruba I visited the site of the former Lago Colony, now called Seroe Colorado, still partially surrounded by a brick wall.
Most of the former colony buildings are demolished. Empty streets run through wasteland with cacti and shrubs. A lot of the remaining houses are empty. Just the villas of the former higher officials, overlooking Rodgers beach and the refinery are mostly renovated.

The Monument for the Lago Colony, 2014
oil drums, concrete
92 x 92 x 325 cm

after some difficulties during transport we erected my Monument for the Lago Colony which will stay as a permanent piece at ateliers89

I will give a lecture in the black box at ateliers89 on Wednesday, Oct. 01 at 6:30 pm

invitation (in Papiamento)

Invitación Personal Charla Bernd Trasberger,

Bernd Trasberger ta e artista y maestro den residencia actualmente na Ateliers '89 Academia di Bellas Artes Aruba.

Cu lo duna un charla Diaranzon awor ariba su trabou cu ta masha interesante mes.
Bernd ta traha den espacionan publico y tin un bista conpletamente diferente ariba con y kiko di trabounan publico.
Pero principalmente su bista ariba obranan di arte actual y di su mes ta uno único.
Bin e lezing fantastico aki Diaranzon y experencia un arista masha apart den su genero y comparti bo obra cu esun di dje.
Tambe Bernd ta un persona hopi amabel y diferente cu ta origina di Berlin Alemania pero tambe di Belgica.

Charla special Renwick Heronimo.

Bini y engrandese no arte Diaranzon atradi pa 5.30pm te cu 7pm. Black Box Atelierts '89 . INFO Elvis 5654613

Saludos Cordial

Elvis López

ADN Pförtnerhaus presents #10
IN COLLABORATION WITH THE WENDE MUSEUM, LOS ANGELES

BERND TRASBERGER : FINGERPRINT

Opening: Sunday September 28 from 4 PM - 6 PM
at the Armory, 10808 CULVER BLVD, CULVER CITY

We drove around the island to find a capital and a base for my oil drum column. When you start looking for such, you see, that almost every house on the island seems to be decorated with cement columns. After not finding columns with the right measurements, we went looking for a local craftsman, that could cast the required elements. Finally we found someone and I am really curious wether the final result will look like my description.

invite for the exhibition of my workshop on Aruba

digital sketch for a sculpture, that I am planning to make here on Aruba: Monument for the Lago Colony

some more modernist buildings in Oranjestad

Last night I went to San Nicolas together with two Aruban artists, Glenda Heyliger and Elvis Lopez. The town is dominated by a large immured oil refinery, now defunct. The site was established as a transshipment facility by the Lago Oil and Transport Co. Ltd and in 1928 a refinery was built by Standard Oil. It was at time the largest refinery in the world. Up on a hill, where now illegal immigrants and drug trafficking enters the island by night, the Lago colonoy for the higher employees of the company was situated. Apart from dwellings most of its facilities are demolished now.
Downtown, in what is now a rather dodgy redlight district you can find a vast amount of early modernist buildings, now painted and renovated in hilarious ways. One building has several stucco escutcheons from a local hardware store on his facade.

I am staying at ateliers89 in Oranjestad, Aruba for one month. I have a studio residency here and will give a workshop called Masterpiece for local art students. (See my introductory paper below). Ateliers89 is situated in a beautiful old colonial hospital from the 1920 in the middle of Oranjestad.

Together with Nathalie Vanheule I visited the Belgian city of Ieper, where she will organize an exhibition called Vanitas Extended in April 2015. 100 years ago Ieper was at the frontline of WW1, furthermore it was the site of the first attack with lethal gas by the German army. Nathalie invited me to participate in the exhibition and I briefly visited some locations throughout the city.
I saw these fragmented gravestones casted in concrete on the backside of the cathedral, one of them half hidden behind a gate. I have to return and have a closer look at the locations and the city to develop an idea for the show.

some tests inverting the scans of the DOKP frottage

I went to Katowice to make a frottage of the sculpture next to the DOKP building, before it most likely will be demolished in September. The frottage will be part of a duo-exhibition (together with Małgorzata, Szandała – who helped with the frottage) in Centrum Kultury Katowice in January 2015.
The show will be about Melancholia (linked to Saturn in mythology), the longing for vanished, missing objects and the polyhedron (philosopher's stone) depicted in Durer's engraving Melencolia.
I rubbed off a large circular part of the sculpture with A4 format papers. Doing so, I noticed all the different textures of the chisel on every limestone block. Most likely I am the only person, that almost touched every square millimeter of the sculpture, apart from the person who sculpted it in the 1960ies. While we were working the homeless guy, that lives behind the sculpture turned up and went to sleep, taking no notice of us, just as we didn't take notice of the passers-by, that didn't take notice of us. All in all we were able to work very undisturbedly. Spontaneously I decided to scan and invert the frottage afterwards, so it resembles the view of planet Saturn in front of a black background. Therefore I had to make the frottage in complementary colors. After hesitating shortly, I used several pastels out of a box from 1930, which belonged to my grandfather, since I didn't bring the right colors for an „inverted“ frottage.

Dear friends and colleagues,

due to some travels I will sublet my studio in September, October and November.

about 40 qm studiospace in studio-building in Naumannpark Berlin-Schöneberg/Kreuzberg (near Victoriapark, S-Bahn: Südkreuz or Julius-Leber-Brücke)
shared kitchen next door.
wifi
various tools and e-drum-kit
sleeping-sofa
ground-floor, quiet, nice studio neighbors.

200,- € / month

you can forward this offer to reliable and friendly persons!


All best,

Bernd

I made a frottage of the ADN-Pförtnerhaus.

I managed to reassemble the salvaged fragments from the sculpture outside of the DOKP building in Katowice.

I am invited to do a short-term project based residency at fortress studios in Detroit from Oct. 22 - Nov. 22, 2014

I purchased three Saudi Arabian banknotes all depicting buildings conceived by Yamasaki.
One riyal, 2007, showing the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency building.
Five riyal (rare note), 1968, showing the Dharan Air Terminal.
One riyal, 1976 also showing the Dharan Air Terminal.

new collage

Die von Menschen beherrschten Kräfte von Natur und Technik a large ceramic mural by Josep Renau can still be seen on the facade of an administrative building in Halle-Neustadt. Its counterpart Marsch der Jugend in die Zukunft (youth' march into the future) was demolished in 1998. Pieces of its ceramic rubble are installed in the new building along with some newspaper clippings.

I purchased various press photographs from a Seattle newspaper archive showing Minoru Yamasaki.
The original b/w prints have notes and the corresponding press clippings on the back. Some of them are manually retouched, others were never published, like this beautiful Yamasaki portrait with the note "no story" on the back. This seems to be almost symbolic for Yamasaki's biography.
After Yamasaki being quite famous in the 1960ies (he was on the cover of Time magazine and the World Trade Center was commissioned etc.) his fame vanished in the 1970ies when Postmodernism was on the rise.
Yamasaki has built the worlds' best-known building (The World Trade Center through the iconic images of its destruction during the 9/11 attacks). He has also built another building - the Pruitt-Igoe housing project - known for the images of its destruction, that was said to mark "the day that Modern architecture died" (Charles Jencks). Although he has conceived these very important buildings which destructions mark a shift of paradigm in both cases, his person is not well known at all. The only notable book on him that has been published until now is "A Life in Architecture", which is his self-published autobiography from 1979.
Yamasakis' life, from a childhood under very poor conditions, repression during WW2 due to his Japanese ancestry to architectural stardom, seems to be a very typical American story. His involvement in both - Pruitt-Igoe and the World Trade Center - make him a very central, but tragical figure in the history of Modernism.

Together with Lorenzo Bruni I visited Piero Frassinelli in the archivio Superstudio in Firenze.
We had a long conversation about the status of Superstudios' legacy in current times of crisis, Il Monumento Continuo as a pop-hit and the anthropological view on the essence of housing.
The interview will be transcribed and translated soon!

AUßER/PLANMÄßIG, Burg Galerie, Halle

Underneath the facade of the Escados Steakhouse at Karl-Liebknecht Strasse, Berlin a Socialist mural by GDR artist Willi Neubert is hidden. The mural is called Presse (press) and decorated the facade of the Haus des Berliner Verlags (Berlin publishing house). Currently there is a debate, whether the remaining socialist buildings surrounding Alexanderplatz should be put under historic preservation protection.

I called the owner of the Escados Steakhouse today.

notes taken from memory:

Owner: Hello
BT: Yes, hello! I would like to talk to Mr.-----.
O: That's me!
BT: My name is Bernd Trasberger, I am an artist living in Berlin and I am researching for an art-project of mine. You are the owner of the Escados Steakhouse, right?
O: Yes!
BT: I am interested in the work of the artist Willi Neubert, whose frieze Presse seems to be hidden underneath the facade of your restaurant. Is that actually true? Did you ever see the frieze, when it was covered in the mid 1990ies?
O: Well, let's say I have a vague memory of it. What do you want?
BT: I would actually like to reveal a little part of the frieze and make it visible again temporarily, now that it's the 25th anniversary of the fall of the wall.
O: You can forget about that!
BT: Well, I was afraid already you wouldn't be happy about the idea of altering the advertisement on your facade.
O: No, every intervention on the facade we strictly refuse!
BT: So, you don't have any interest in publishing the fact, that Willi Neubert's frieze is underneath your advertisement?
O: No, we rather have the opposite interest and don't want to undertake anything that could remind of that frieze!
BT: But it is not a secret, that Neubert's work is hidden underneath and I thought, that a mindful handling of it, could be a very positive publicity for you.
O: No! I am not interested at all!
BT: Last question: How is your future planning? Is there a chance, that Presse will be revealed again one day?
O: -
BT: Is the building actually considered a monument?
O: I don't know...
BT: Are you the owner, or is it still owned by the Berliner Liegenschafsfonds?
O: Listen, I don't know, why I should answer you these questions.
BT: Oh, you don't have to! I just ask out of an artistic interest in that subject matter.
O: Well, you won't get any answers from me!
BT: That's a pity. I hoped you would be a bit more willing to cooperate.
O: No – Have a nice day! (hangs up)

I am preparing a work for the show ausser/planmaessig in Halle/Saale.

Ettore Sottsass meets Don Xuan market Berlin

I will be a guest teacher at the Art Academy ateliers89 in Oranjestad, Aruba in September 2014.

My website was temporarily offline due to some server problems.
Now it's back again in an updated version.
Design by kurz gestaltung
programming by Anthon Astrom
The content of the pdfs will be updated soon!

Bangkok

asian contemporary grid-facade

Habitat 67, Moshe Safdie, 1967, Expo 67, Montreal, Canada
Marina Bay Sands, Moshe Safdie, 2010, Singapore

Singapore

DOKP building in the center of Katowice, built 1974 by Jerzy Gottfierd.
The building is going to be torn down after a plan for renovation (Helmut Jahn, Rondo Towers ) is abandoned. The public sculpture (author unknown to me yet) along the Southern façade of the building serves as a shelter for homeless people. One piece of a limestone block was broken off. I took the smaller pieces before they are lost even though the back of the sculpture smelled like a public restroom. I am happy to return the pieces, in case the sculpture is going to be renovated, but most likely it will also be demolished soon.

We visited the Superjednostka (Superunit) in the center of Katowice. Built in 1972 by Mieczysław Król it resembles an an extreme version of Le Corbusiers unité d'habitation and Superstudios Continuous Monument becoming real. The Superjednostka is one of the largest housing complexes in Poland and accomodates about 2000 tenants in more than 700 apartments.
The entrances are secured, because drug-addicts used to enter the complex frequently in former times. After discussing with the security we were brought to the administration office in which an unfriendly lady answered our request to be allowed to look around the building with „This is not a museum!“ However after a short discussion, the security guy came back and gave us a very nice tour through the building which is almost like a village on ist own. The hallways and staircases are quite narrow, there are no communal spaces and almost every door is exchanged by the tenants with a new individual one, displaying various designs in rustic oak. Behind one door, we were told, secret pleasures could be bought.
Unfortunately we couldn’t enter the roof, but the view from the 15th floor shows the panorama of Katowice’s inner city with ist socialist arterial street and the former coal mines in the back.

lecture at the Art Academy Katowice, Poland

Bernd Trasberger
„Utopie modernizmu”
March 12, 2014 at 1pm
ul Koszarowa 19
ASP Katowice

concrete slab buildings refurbished euro-remont style. soft versions of Tbilisis kamikaze-loggias.

Polish kiosks

Wrocław, Cemetery of Polish soldiers

Wrocław, Centennial Hall, 1913, Max Berg

See my updated presentation about my work, on which I will base my lecture at the art academy in Katowice.

On a trip to Bologna I visited the studio of Giorgio Morandi in which he worked ascetically throughout his entire life, painting still lifes. The rest of the apartment which he shared with his sisters is turned into a museum, just his corner room is left untouched in the original state, separated from the rest by a glass structure.

heterotopia

I made a skype-video work in which shots of a classical American roadtrip are shown on a phone with broken display.

Today I hung the frottage of the grave stone of Mies van der Rohe. It consists of 32 A 4-sized papers in glass frames. I am planning to make a larger wall work, consisting of different frottages of modernist architects and other elements. I made the frottage at the Graceland cemetery in Chicago November last year.

I am giving a lecture at the art academy in Katowice, PL on March 12, 2014

There is work of mine being shown at Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary in Vienna

I made more paper works like the ones I show in Chicago. I used drawn maps of the same unbuilt Amsterdam city planning. I wove 2 different versions of the same map into each other isometrically. One map shows the original 19th century houses, the other map shows the shape of the modernist housing projects. The result resembles a piece of fabric or a carpet. The hanging is still provisional.

I moved into a new BBK studio at Naumannstrasse in Schöneberg.

I am giving a presentation of my work together with Heide Nord at Künstlerdorf Schöppingen, Haus der Literaten at 8pm

9/11 Memorial

Shortly after having visited the Pruitt-Igoe site I visited the 9/11 memorial in New York City.
Although the difference between these two sites of destroyed Yamasaki buildings could almost not be bigger
- a neglected urban wasteland in St. Louis and a highly secured site of one of the most important national monuments in New York - I see a lot of similarities.
Both sites represent the turn of an era. - The history of the industrialized city and its decline, the „end of modern architecture“ and the turn towards post-modernity at Pruitt-Igoe and the shift of paradigm after the traumatic 9/11 attacks with its so called war on terrorism and a restructuring of international relations.
Both sites are empty lots of former Yamasaki buildings. In Pruitt-Igoe, the buildings were removed, but the course of the streets is still visible as an imprint in the urban forest. Similarily the foundations of the two towers of the World Trade Center, are left open as two black square reflective pools.
Just as the row of oak trees, that survived amidst the rubble and dust of the explosion of the C15 building in Pruitt-Igoe and that are now still growing between bushes and birch trees, there is also a so called survivor tree at the 9/11 memorial.

The Suburban Presents:

Dana DeGiulio
+
Bernd Trasberger
+
Book Signing
Living and Sustaining a Creative Life:
Essays by 40 Working Artists


Sunday, November, 17th, 2 - 4 pm
exhibitions on view through January 10th, 2014

THE SUBURBAN
125 N. HARVEY AV.
OAK PARK, IL 60302
708-305-2657
www.thesuburban.org


Dana DeGiulio (born 1978, Chicago Heights, IL, lives and works in Chicago) is an artist and writer who teaches at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and is co-founder and co-operator of Julius Caesar, Chicago: juliuscaesarchicago.org

Bernd Trasberger (born 1974, Mönchengladbach, lives and works in Berlin) deals with the transformation of urban space in his sculptural works, installations and collages. The utopias of post-war modernism form an important reference point in the artist’s work. By appropriating and recycling architectural fragments and relocating them, Trasberger examines the value we place on this disappearing habitat and the legacy of modernism and the place it occupies today.

Supported by the Berlin Senate Cultural Affairs Department


Living and Sustaining a Creative Life:
Essays by 40 Working Artists
Edited by Sharon Louden

Published by Intellect Books
Distributed by University of Chicago Press

Conversation and book signing of "Living and Sustaining a Creative Life: Essays by 40 Working Artists." Meet the editor and contributors Melissa Potter and Laurie Hogin.

I went on a trip to Detroit.
After an elaborate tour through the city experiencing the mind-blowing extent of decay and vacancy, I visited some of Yamasaki's buildings in the city.
It was great to experience the refined use of materials for example in the former Consolidated Gas Company office building (now One Woodward Avenue). Furthermore I visited the Federal Reserve Bank annex building, McGregor Memorial Conference Center, College for Creative Studies and the Prentis Building and DeRoy Auditorium Complex.

Pruitt-Igoe

As a tragic coincience, Yamasaki did not only design the World Trade Center, but also the Pruitt-Igoe housing complex in ST. Louis.
Pruitt–Igoe was a large urban housing project first occupied in 1954 in the U.S. city of St. Louis, Missouri. Living conditions in Pruitt–Igoe began to decline soon after its completion in 1956. By the late 1960s, the complex had become internationally infamous for its poverty, crime, and segregation. Its 33 buildings were demolished in the mid-1970s, and the project has become an icon of urban renewal and public-policy planning failure. Nowadays the failure of Pruitt-Igoe is regarded much more complex, than just to blame the architecture. The decline of many American Cities, caused by a cobination of a lack of inner-city jobs in the post-industral era, the massive flight of the middleclass to the suburbs and the bad maintenance standards of social housing projects due to a shortage of budget lead to the downfall of Pruitt-Igoe. A lot of these circumastances are described in Chad Freidrich‘s 2011 documentary The Pruitt-Igoe myth
Yamasaki distanced himself from Pruitt-Igoe. In his autobiographie „A life in architecture“, he doesn‘t mention the project with a single word.
In 1972 the city officials of St. Louis gained permission to demolish the Pruitt-Igoe housing complex.
To mark an ending of the unsuccesful project and to regain control of this inner-city neighborhood.
The first two buildings were destroyed with explosives. This event was broughtcasted live on
television and is now mostly known, because the images are also shown in the movie Kooyanisquatsi, 1982 by Godfrey Reggio with music by Philipp Glass.
The Pruitt–Igoe housing project was one of the first demolitions of modernist architecture; postmodern architectural historian Charles Jencks referred to the event to proclaim the end of modern architecture. “Modern Architecture died in St. Louis, Missouri on July 15, 1972 at 3.32 pm.“

Since 2 years I am researching about the two buildings most known through the images of their destruction – the Pruitt-Igoe housing project, St. Louis, MO (1956 – 1976) and The World Trade Center, New York, NY (1976 – 2001), both designed by Minoru Yamasaki.
The Pruitt-Igoe site turned into an abandoned urban wilderness and the site of WTC into the 9/11 memorial. I will travel to the US in November for a show in Chicago and take the opportunity to visit both empty sites after each other. I am really fascinated to research the parallel existences of these 2 monuments of American history.

Yamasaki‘s arches

I visited the 1962 world‘s fair grounds in Seattle 2 years ago. Looking down from the Space Needle I was struck by a particular architectural detail of the Federal Science Pavillion - the structural ribs on the outside of the wall panels, resembling gothic arches. These arches strongly reminded me of photographs of Ground Zero after the 9-11 attacks on the World Trade Center, in which remains of the tridents, that had formed the arches ringing the bases of the twin towers, stick out of the debris. I was familiar with the fact, that, Minoru Yamasaki, was the architect of the World Trade Center in New York, so I started to research more about his work. The arches, that have become such an emblematic image for the 9/11 attacks are a prominent feature in most of Yamaski‘s buildings. Because of the images of the 9/11 attacks the arches of his his buildings resonate the tragic events.

lecture and talk at Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule, Aachen

Thursday, Oct 31, 2013, 6pm, Lehrstuhl für Bildnerische Gestaltung, R 216

Schinkelstraße 1
D-52056 Aachen
T ++49 241 80 95095
F ++49 241 - 80 92207

tbecker@big.arch.rwth-aachen.de
www.bildnerischegestaltung.de

The Berlinische Galerie collects art produced in Berlin since 1870. The focus in our current presentation lies on painting, graphic art, sculpture, photography and architecture from the end of the Second World War to the present day. By contrast to the previous, largely chronologically arranged exhibition concept Art in Berlin 1880 to 1980 the current exhibition approaches outstanding artistic tendencies after 1945. Key works in the collection will be gathered thematically in four stylistic blocks: “Expressive”, “Constructive”, “Realistic” and “Conceptual”.

The second half of the 20th century can no longer be presented as a sequence of styles; it is characterised instead by a simultaneity of numerous artistic approaches. Representational and abstract art exist in parallel, documentary and socially critical strategies stand alongside works that no longer reveal any visible reference to external reality. This presentation of the collection shows central works in an interdisciplinary fashion, interwoven to create exciting reciprocal dialogues. Due to the large number of international artists working in Berlin, the result is a comprehensive survey of art developments in the last decades pointing far beyond the city’s boundaries.

Artists (selected): Diether Appelt, Frank Badur, Horst Bartnig, Angela Bulloch, Rainer Fetting, Tacita Dean, Peter Eisenman und Richard Serra, Johannes Geccelli, Nicholas Grimshaw, Ulrike Grossarth, Johannes Grützke, Beate Gütschow, Werner Heldt, Edward Kienholz und Nancy Reddin Kienholz, Via Lewandowsky, Walter Libuda, Jeanne Mammen, Marwan, J. Mayer H., Hans W. Mende, Harald Metzkes, Eduardo Paolozzi, Manfred Schiedhelm, Cornelia Schleime, Eugen Schönebeck, Bernard Schultze, Walter Stöhrer, Katja Strunz, Fred Thieler, Bernd Trasberger, Wolf Vostell, Lois Weinberger, Markus Wirthmann

I moved out of my studio in Naunynstraße 68.
Gentrification continues to modify Kreuzberg and turns my studio into luxury lofts. (pay attention to the motorbike in the living room!)

I am invited to stay at the residency Stiftung Künstlerdorf Schöppingen in December 2013.

photobook with portraits of Berlin artists by Till Cremer

I am organizing the graduation show of the audiovisual department of the Gerrit Rietveld Academy, Amsterdam

GRADUATION SHOW 2013

3 JULY – 7 JULY 2013

OPENING JULY 3TH 4PM- 9PM

BY JAN ROTHUIZEN AT THE PATIO

OPENING HOURS:

THURSDAY TILL SATURDAY 11AM-8PM

SUNDAY 11AM-4PM

ANNOUNCEMENT GRA AWARDS WINNERS: SATURDAY JULY 6TH 4PM AT THE PATIO

On the street of my studio there were a few marks of burnt containers to be seen.
The containers were burnt as barricades in the riots on May 1st 2002, when Naunynstraße was one of the centers of the protests.
Now the neighborhood is changing and is gradually being gentrified. I saw some spray paint marks encircling the burn marks, foreshadowing a restoration of the pavement to come.
I made a frottage of the burn marks.
A few weeks later, the marks are removed and Naunynstraße is covered in shiny, new asphalt.

installation view of my work at the exhibition DEFINING SPACE at Die Bastei, Cologne.

JUNGE MEISTER
I will be in conversation with art students about making an artist book at the Berlin office of Kerber Verlag on May 07.

see review on trendbeheer about the show DUTCH TREAT at Dadapost, Berlin

NEUZEIT book launch at Bar Babette on Monday, April 22 at 8pm.
Severeal publications will be presented.

booklaunch Neuzeit

Thursday April 11 at 7 pm

food and drinks will be served

W139
Warmoesstraat 139
1012 JB Amsterdam NL

+31 20 6229434

Zeitgenossenpflicht urbaner Städter
Anne Katrin Feßler's (German) review in the Austrian newspaper Der Standard about the show Städtebauliche Prosa at Kerstin Engholm gallery.

LAUNCH OF PUBLICATION ABOUT COPENHAGEN ART FESTIVAL 2012

Mark your calendar Thursday 11 April and come to the launch event for the publication of Copenhagen Art Festival 2012


Copenhagen Art Festival took place in 2012 with an extensive program of exhibitions at the city's five major art centers and in urban spaces, performances, film programmes, talks and much more.

Now we invite you to the launch of the festival's publication that in texts and images looks back on the program in 2012 and discusses the festival format. The publication contains an introduction to the festival concept, format and theme by the festival manager Lene Crone Jensen as well as texts by art historian and advisory board member Lars Bang Larsen, who reflects on Copenhagen Art Festival 2012 and the larger social and cultural context, and art historian Malene Vest Hansen, who describes the festival genre as exhibition and event.

The event takes place

On: Thursday 11th April at. 5-8pm
At: Kunsthal Charlottenborg
5:30pm: Introduction by Lene Crone Jensen, Festival Manager and Stine Bosse, Chairman of the Board
DJ: Karsten Loud

We look forward to seeing you!
Best wishes,
Stine Bosse, Chairman of the board
Lene Crone Jensen, Festival manager

see the blog on the exhibition DEFINING SPACE

check out gallery walk at Schleifmühlgasse by theartview with images of "Städtebauliche Prosa" at Kerstin Engholm gallery.

STÄDTEBAULICHE PROSA
HENDRIK KRAWEN - DOMINIK LOUDA - BILLIE MESKENS - BERND TRASBERGER

Opening: 14/03/2013, 6 pm
Exhibition: 15/03/2013 - 05/05/2013

kerstin engholm galerie
Schleifmühlgasse 3
1040 Wien
office@kerstinengholm.com

I am staying at Künstlerhaus Lukas in Ahrenshoop for the month of February.

This series of collages is for sale to raise some extra money for financing my catalogue "Neuzeit", which will be published in early 2013.
112 pages, hardcover, with texts by Jule Reuter and Ludwig Engel, Kerber publishing house
The catalogue is supported by the Berliner Senate

THE FUTURE OF THE PAST, 2012
series of 20 paper-collages, each 17 x 25 cm
each 250,- €

Please support the production of the catalogue!
The collages will be shown in the book and the people supporting the production with a purchase will be named. (If you want!)


German press release


Die Serie von Collagen besteht aus einem großen gerasterten Papier, auf dem, wie auf einer Matrix oder einem Koordinatensystem, Aufkleber und verschieden Ausschnitte aus Zeitungen, Magazinen und Büchern angeordnet sind. Auch wenn die Komposition auf den ersten Blick beiläufig wirkt, zeigt sie sich bei näherer Betrachtung doch genau durchkomponiert und setzt die verschiedenen Elemente in spezifische Beziehungen zueinander.
Die einzelnen Blätter enthalten meist nur am Rand Teile der Bildausschnitte. Auch die Textelemente werden fragmentiert, sodass sich ein Gesamtbild erst ergibt, wenn man alle Collagen zusammenlegt.
Die Motive der jeweiligen Ausschnitte stellen einzelne Aspekte von Trasbergers Arbeit dar und zeigen Dinge die den Künstler in seinem Werk besonders interessieren. Die unterschiedlichen Bildmotive stammen aus ganz verschiedenen Zeiten vom Anfang des 20 Jahrhunderts bis heute. So sieht man an den vier Eckblättern einen Rahmen aus einem Buch aus den 1920er Jahren, der die Komposition fasst und die Elemente aus einem scheinbar endlosen Koordinatensystem isoliert.

Schließlich repräsentiert die Serie der Collagen auch Trasbergers Buchvorhaben. Wenn man eine Collage kauft, übernimmt man ein Teil der Gesamtarbeit und finanziert somit einen kleinen Teil von Trasbergers Katalog, der im Frühjahr 2013 erscheint und in dem die Edition abgebildet sein wird.
Der Katalog (112 S., Hardcover) umfasst Trasbergers Werke seit 2000. Er erscheint im Kerber Verlag und enthält Textbeiträge von Jule Reuter und Ludwig Engel.

On our last day in Azerbaijan, we went to a village at the very end of the Absheron peninsula. Shortly before the fall of the Soviet Union the building of a concrete-slab holiday village was started, but never completed. The orientally decorated concrete-slab structures were completed by new inhabitants. One old men lived in a barrel-house, which was used for Soviet arctic expeditions before.

Next to the historic Baku railway station from 1926 a modernist version was built in the Soviet Union.
Today the old building houses a fast food restaurant.

There is incredible building activity in Baku. A lot of old quarters are being torn down, replaced by a fast growing amount of oriental-style luxury condos.
Banners are surrounding the construction sites, depicting either the picturesque historic past or the bright future buildings to come. Unless the shiny imagery on them, the banners are in quite poor conditions...

The biennale is an extremely mediatized event. The international art crowd is carried throughout the city from opening to opening in neon-lit vans with oriental interior. At every venue there is a speech and a large crowd of journalists.
Another day we were taken on a sightseeing tour, visiting the ancestors of an islamic faith healer, some artists studios and a former soviet bronze foundry in which they showed us a large sculpture, that will be placed in the village of Annenfeld in Azerbaijan. A village, that was founded by German settlers before the Russian revolution.

I am participating in Aluminium, the 5th Internation Biennale of Contemporary Art in Baku, Azerbaijan.
opening on Dec 11, 2012.

check out photographs of the opening of EXPANDING THE GRID

I am participating in the groupshow ILOVIT, organized by Jeppe Hein at the Copenhagen Art Festival.

participating artists: après-nous, Kenneth Balfelt, Massimo Bartolini, Kaspar Bonnén, Rune Bosse, Søren Engsted, Thilo Frank, Max Frey GI/IGA - Geographicall Iindeterminated/Interscandinavian Group of Architects, Dan Graham, Jeppe Hein, Marianne and Christian Jørgensen, Jacob Dahl Jürgensen, Claus Larsen, Florian Neufeldt, Rodrigo Maltez Novaes, Mie Olise, Poul Pedersen, Kristian Sverdrup, Pilvi Takala, Talku, Tika, Alexander Tovborg, Mino Trafeli, Bernd Trasberger, Ulrik Weck, David Zink Yi

The show is situated at Hojbro Plads and opens on August 24.

My soundwork "Wir bauen eine neue Stadt" is broughtcasted on Amsterdam FM in Inspector Casino's Detective Show on August 25 between 15:00 and 16:00 pm.

You can inscribe for a studiovisit (Maarten Janssen, Michael Markwick, Bernd Trasberger) organized by arthistorian Jurriaan Benschop on Aug 16.

Read the article by Irene de Craen about the show I Say We in Frieze magazine.

group show, I SAY WE, De Service Garage, Amsterdam, NL

opening: Saturday, June 09

exhibition: June 13 - July 07

participating artists: Bernd Trasberger, Anna Hoetjes, Christof Zwiener, John Körmeling,Cedric van Turtelboom, Arik Visser, Helmut Dick

curated by Arik Visser

DE SERVICE GARAGE, Cruquiusweg 79, 1019AT Amsterdam, NL

I am organizing the final exam exhibition of the audiovisual department of the Gerrit Rietveld Academy, Amsterdam.

In today´s Austrian newspaper "Der Standard" is a (german) review of the show "riptide" at Kerstin Engholm gallery, Vienna.

at the parkhaus
Invited by Michael Kutschbach

Exhibition Opening on Friday, June 1, 2012 - 8 pm onwards

Achim Kobe
Joe Neave
Wolfgang Flad
Katja Kollowa
Bernd Trasberger
Kirsty Kross
Gabriele Worgitzki
Astrid Köppe
Reiner Maria Matysik
Say Nono, Funny Fun & Laura Weider
Tom Früchtl & Thomas Jocher

Performance by Tom Früchtl & Thomas Jocher (from Aftermars) at 21:30



Hope to see you there!
------------------
parkhaus projects
Strassburger Strasse 6-8
10405 Berlin-Mitte
www.parkhausprojectsberlin.de

group show RIPTIDE, Kerstin Engholm gallery, Vienna, AT

opening: Thursday, May 10

exhibition: May 11 - June 16

participating artists: James Ferris, Sebastian Freytag, Hedwig Houben, James Prevett, Bernd Trasberger, David Ben White

curated by Alex Lawler

Kerstin Engholm Galerie, Schleifmühlgasse 3, A-1040 Wien

solo show NEUZEIT, Galerie Lena Brüning, Berlin

opening: Wednesday, April 25

exhibition: April 26 - June 02

Galerie Lena Brüning, Almstadtstraße 50, 10119 Berlin

solo show FADE TO GREY, Ozean, Berlin

exhibition March 15 - April 04

Ozean, Schleiermacherstrasse 31, 10961 Berlin

As a guest lecturer I am organizing a workshop called The Presence of the Past at the art academy Burg Giebichenstein in Halle/Saale.
I am giving a lecture on April 05 at 3:30pm.

my profile on Artwiki

Il Monumento Continuo Revisited II snowed in

I found someone who went to Lakeville Cemetery, Lakeville, Oakland County, Michigan, USA to make a frottage of the tombstone of Minoru Yamasaki and his wife.

HELP NEEDED!

I am looking for someone who happens to be in Michigan (close to: Lakeville Cemetery, Lakeville, Oakland County, Michigan, USA) in the near future.

I need someone doing me a favor for the production of an artpiece, namely making a „frottage“ (graphite rubbing) of a particular tombstone on that graveyard.
Sounds spooky, but is quite easy - more details follow, if I get in touch with someone!

Thanks for any responses! Please feel free to forward this message!

Bernd

I started working on the frottage that I made of a frieze on the former Bundesrechnungshof in Frankfurt/Main.
I am scanning all the 540 A4 papers and reversing the color.

We are having a party in our studios on Naunynstrasse 68

See you there!

new collages

I started to work with the lamps and the metal grid, that I saved from the demolished auditorium of the Paulsen-Gymnasium in Berlin-Steglitz.

new photos of my installation "To Realize the Need for Monuments", Paradise Lost Paradise, Kortrijk, B, 2011 by Peter Willems.

check out and download the updated pdfs (work, text and cv) on my start-page.

I am giving a lecture + tutorials at Bergen National Academy of the Arts, NO

lecture: Oct 25, 2011

You can sign up for studiovisits organized by the dutch art magazine Kunstbeeld.

Oct 15, 2011

studiovisits kunstbeeld

check out this short TV broughtcast in Belgian TV about the show Paradise Lost Paradise, Kortrijk, B

Focus-WTV

final exam show at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy, Amsterdam, NL

I am organizing the exhibition of the audiovisual department

Gerrit Rietveld Academy

you can inscribe for studio visits with the dutch art magazine Kunstbeeld

Kunstbeeld studio visits

check out new design for Bernd Trasberger by Wouter van der Sluijs
Wouter van der Sluijs

New studiospace!

I rented the groundfloor + courtyard of a nice space in
Naunynstrasse 68, 10997 Berlin.

I share it with:

Michael Kutschbach

Vincent Rebers

Buero Berlin

The Cluster website is relaunched as an archive website with interviews and essays by:
Stefanie Böttcher, Barbara Buchmaier, Hans-Jürgen Hafner, Ines Lindner, Sönke Kniphals, Susanne Köhler, Jule Reuter, Eva Scharrer and others

Cluster