9 November – 26 November 2023
Master’s students on the Weißenhof Fine Arts Programme at the State Academy of Fine Arts, Stuttgart
Area of Effect
Nina Aeberhard, Eunyoung Bae, Ezgi Böttger, Natalie Brehmer, Juli Gebhardt, Victoire Gonzalvez, Hyunjeong Ko, Da Shi
From 9 to 26 November 2023, the eight graduates of the Weißenhof Programme (class of 2021) at the State Academy of Fine Arts, Stuttgart (ABK Stuttgart) will be exhibiting their work at Villa Merkel, the City of Esslingen’s art gallery.
The exhibition ‘Area of Effect’ marks the conclusion and highlight of the postgraduate programme ‘Master Students in the Weißenhof Programme of Fine Art’, in which outstanding artists develop and realise a project over the course of three semesters. With this exhibition, the Academy and Villa Merkel are continuing their successful collaboration of recent years.
The artistic approaches of this year’s cohort, comprising predominantly installation-based works, create an exciting interplay with the spaces of Villa Merkel. Eight very different artistic approaches come together in their own unique ways.
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Nina Aeberhard combines photography, text and various materials. Her minimalist works explore material, form and language with sensitivity and precision.
Eunyong Bae’s large-scale installations are inspired by the body’s circulatory system. The artist explores concepts such as balance, change brought about by natural processes, and different states of matter.
Ezgi Böttger’s works focus, amongst other things, on concepts of identity, gender, culture and language. The work presented at Villa Merkel debunks gender stereotypes. Everyday notions of gender roles in relation to language or clothing are turned on their head through simple means.
Natalie Brehmer explores the intersections between art and the pressure to perform, self-optimisation and competition. In doing so, she works with objects from the world of athletics. Among other things, she presents an athletics tartan track inside the building, thereby transforming the exhibition space into a space for experiencing the mindset of performance.
Juli Gebhardt explores the structures of work and leisure and the blurring of boundaries between them in the context of digitalisation. For her presentation in the atrium, the artist is working with office desks from the City of Esslingen’s collection, which she has installed as a central, multifunctional table. During the exhibition, she will record the time spent by all participants and visitors using a time clock with punch cards.
The elements in Victoire Gonzalvez’s installations are inspired by the connection between hygiene and virginity. On various levels, the symbolic and physical ‘purity’ of a virgin, as well as a general societal striving for purity, are explored.
Hyunjeong Ko’s installations are powered by electric motors and, as moving sculptures, develop a subtle poetic dynamism. Assemblages of industrially prefabricated materials take on new and, at times, absurd functions and rhythms.
As the only painter in the master’s programme cohort, Da Shi softens the sharpness of his images and seeks to fuse Asian and European visual languages. Recurring points of light and bright glimmers represent a universal, positive and hopeful visual language.
Following the presentation, a comprehensive catalogue will be published by the State Academy of Fine Arts, Stuttgart.
This year’s exhibition is sponsored by the Landesbank Baden-Württemberg Foundation, SV SparkassenVersicherung, Alfred Ritter GmbH & Co. KG and the Péter Horváth Foundation.
May 13th – July 16th, 2023
Julika Rudelius
...in the days of the bullies
Opening: Friday, May 12th 2023, 7 pm
...in the days of the bullies presents a selection of works from the last 20 years by video artist Julika Rudelius (*1968) and is designed as a thematic retrospective of her artistic work. The focus is on the depiction of the human psyche and the respective self-image in various social situations, as well as on the effects of patriarchal structures on all our social actions. Rudelius began documenting the thought and behaviour patterns of often male youths and adults as early as the beginning of the 2000s. Sometimes seemingly intimate, sometimes almost frighteningly honest, they share their attitudes, opinions as well as sexual fantasies and confirm the viewers in what they already suspected of them - an interaction of external and self-perception that formulates a self-image and at the same time creates a reflection of the viewers in the subject. Through staged intimacy, unfiltered opinions and a presumed truth, familiar prejudices seem to be given a stage. However, this is done in order to demonstrate their social, cultural and political influence and their dangerous effectiveness, and at the same time to undermine them. As much as the protagonists in Rudelius' work become a projection screen for our own views, attitudes and prejudices, they are also only a product of this order.
Julika Rudelius lives and works in Amsterdam as well as Cologne and has already worked in the USA and China. Wherever she lives, she observes and documents her environment. A group of boys on a train in Amsterdam talking about girls or the human affection for weapons - scenes that catch her eye, irritate or disturb her, she reconstructs with subtle manipulation of the setting and the spoken word so that her videos oscillate between documentary and fiction and yet present a familiar, if sometimes cruel, reality. In the development of Rudelius' work in recent years, the view of structures moulded by patriarchal systems becomes more intense, more intimate and at the same time more general. Gestures, facial expressions and language that are affirming and frightening, familiar and yet alienating, at the same time empowering viewers to see their relationship to themselves and the world in the larger context of a system in which the power of despotic figures and so-called bullies, as well as hierarchical structures, become more visible.
...in the days of the bullies is not only an exhibition, but also an open discussion space. Coupled with guided tours, lectures and a thematic selection of works from the Graphic Collection of the City of Esslingen, the visit invites an exchange about one's own conditioning as well as patterns of thought and behavior.
Curated by Johannes Kaufmann
With the kind support of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
