Artists in Residence
2024: Clemens Krauss
1 October – 31 December 2024
In his artistic works, Clemens Krauss alludes to the recurring approach between the viewer and the viewed that comes from psychoanalysis: The viewers also become actors and take on both the role of the acting objects and the role of the treated subjects. In this sense, there is no work without viewers, and accordingly no work without interaction between object, visitor, and author. Krauss questions social processes and processes of existing social orders. Krauss virulently and aesthetically problematizes the role that viewers play in this.
An essential component of the work of Clemens Krauss, who is also a trained psychoanalyst, is the recourse to his own or other people's biographies. With a view to complex political, social, and cultural processes, they allow more generally valid statements to be made about our present - both in relation to the individual and to collectives.
The motif of repetition runs through Clemens Krauss' entire oeuvre. For example, in the work Protagonists, sculptures are layered in pure oil paint on pedestals. Here, the motif of repetition in the process emerges not only as an analytical concept in the sense of a neurotic compulsion but also as an artistic interest. Thus the theme of layering is repeated in the way the massive oil paint sculptures are made, which can only be realized through the patient application of many layers, and could analytically "dissolve" again by removing layers of deep psychological overlays. Thus, experiences and insights in the works of Clemens Krauss ultimately manifest themselves in layers that need to be viewed again and again.
Clemens Krauss, born in 1984 in Graz, Austria, studied in Vienna, Berlin, and London and became known for his paintings with extremely impasto applications of paint. Numerous work stays have taken him to Japan, Brazil, Australia, Israel, and China, among other places. His works have been shown in important international museums, institutions, and collections. Most recently, he was the only Austrian participant at the International Havana Biennial 2019 with his work Transference.
In 2020, he caused a sensation with his online performance project Isolation Consultation during the global coronavirus lockdown. In 2024, he was the first artist to be dedicated a solo exhibition in the entire new building of the Kunsthalle Rostock.
2023: Erica Shires
- lives in Brooklyn, New York
- photographer and filmmaker
- Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography/Art History from Pratt Institute, Master of Fine Arts in Digital Interdisciplinary Art from The City College of New York
- has exhibited in the US and internationally; her experimental films have screened at the Aesthetica Short Film Festival in York, UK, ScreenDance Festival in Stockholm, and have been projected in New York City and elsewhere
- received prestigious awards like the European Heritage Award, Special Mention Research, Thingstätten | The Relevance of the Past for the Present, Germany, in 2021; the Connor Merit Scholarship, City College (CUNY) in 2020 and the 2014 Grand Prize and Curator’s Choice for Video, Maine Media, Rockport, ME in 2014
11 September – 16 December 2023
Erica Shires is an interdisciplinary artist working across 3D animation, video, and sound — blending research and fieldwork with scientific collaborations to address environmental issues through the lens of emerging technology. After more than 20 years as a professional photographer and filmmaker, computer-generated imagery has become a fundamental component of her work. She merges the physical environment with digital worlds by combining worldbuilding through game engines, photogrammetry, motion capture, and AI. At ZiF, Shires is especially interested in the work of the cooperation group "Volcanoes, Climate and History," where she will translate research into new mediums.
- transmutation of static data into dynamic, multidimensional visuals
- transformation of distant concepts (ecological change) into more proximal consciousness
- translation of knowledge into wonder and imagination
Shires has exhibited in the US and internationally. Her experimental films have screened at the Aesthetica Short Film Festival in York, UK, ScreenDance Festival in Stockholm, and have been projected in New York City and elsewhere.
2022: Moritz Wehrmann
- lives in Weimar and teaches at Bauhaus University
- worked with the neurophysiologist Alain Berthoz in Paris
- interdisciplinary Cluster of Excellence Bild-Wissen-Gestaltung at HU Berlin
- Exhibition history: Centre Phi (Montréal), Ars Electronica (Tokyo), numerous national institutions such as the Gropius Bau Berlin, the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation and the Deutsche Hygiene-Museum Dresden.
1 July – 30 October 2022
Wehrmann not only touches on scientific research in his work, but tries to inform its questions through the means of art. He regards his art as research of a different kind. For where art and science meet, both sides can gain new insights and perspectives. The diversity of his artistic interests is also reflected in his works. Thematic foci are the questions of identity, mediality and the environment. During his time at ZiF, he will explore art and its ecological footprints, focusing on optical metaphors of understanding. An exhibition in 2023 will document the results of his time at ZiF and invite visitors to experience more of – and with – his work.
2021: Friederike Feldmann
1 March – 31 May 2021
Friederike Feldmann approaches painting from a reflective outside perspective – always from new angles – and translates the results of her analytic gaze into an independent formal language. She focuses especially on the core aspects of painting such as gesture, texture and representation and authorship.
2019: Tilo Schulz
Schulz’ works were shown in key exhibitions such as Manifesta2 in Luxembourg, After the Wall at Moderna Museet in Stockholm, German Open at Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, deutschemalereizweitausenddrei at the Kunstverein Frankfurt, Repeat Performance at Artist Space in New York and 50 Jahre documenta (50 Years of documenta) at the Fridericianum in Kassel. In recent years Schulz was to be seen in comprehensive international solo exhibitions; amongst others at the Kassák Museum in Budapest, Haus der Kunst in München, Kunstverein Hannover, The Model in Sligo, Secession in Vienna, Museum of Contemporary Art Leipzig and the Magazin4 in Bregenz.
During the 56th Venice Biennale Schulz realized an extensive installation at the Espace Louis Vuitton Venezia with restored paintings by Francesco Hayez from the Palazzo Ducale.
Alongside his exhibition activity as an artist since 1996 Tilo Schulz has curated shows including six memos for the next … at the Magazin4 in Bregenz; The Second Gaze at the Städtische Galerie Nordhorn; squatting at the Temporäre Kunsthalle 2010 in Berlin; e.w.e. – exhibition without exhibition between 1997 and 2001.
Tilo Schulz is presented by Jochen Hempel Gallery (Leipzig) and acb Gallery (Budapest).
2017: Sandra Böschenstein
April – June 2017
The immediacy of drawing is the precondition for the simultaneous traversal and observation of the transitions between perception and thought. These transitions are what I'm after. I work with pictures as primary tools of recognition and knowledge. The aim thereby is not a static sense, but readiness for a twist in the sense. I seek alternatives to the static concept of sense and, in examining the boundaries of what can be examined, stand where the reduction of complexity inherent in every examination loses its footing in the current. Here I can watch the behavior of meaning in delicate and exposed zones. This is a draftsmanlike dealing with situations close beside the relaxing state of causality and the work with the constructing and decaying energies of meanings. I assume the affirmative quality that figurative pictures primarily radiate. And I seek neither functional condensations of information nor nonsense connections, but rather an urgent access to a question that, due to its consistence and size, cannot be directly and once and for all discovered; one can, however, probe its contours.
2015/16: Karina Smigla-Bobinski
- lives and works in Munich and Berlin
- Karina Smigla-Bobinski is an Open-Media artist and works with analogue and digital media on the field of propioceptive art
- her themes move between science, intuition, expression and cognition
- Her works contain the method of their making, they are direct art, which foregrounds the material, movement through time and impact on results
October 2015 – December 2015
Science and art are systems of knowledge about the essential properties, causal relationships and regularities of nature, society and thought, which are condensed into statements, theories and hypotheses, but demonstrated with different focus and form. Actually, both disciplines ask the same questions, they just have different perspectives. Both sides are curious and creative. From this point of view, I see artists as researchers and scientists as creative minds.
We are all trying to understand what is happening outside the black box of the body. Sometimes we set our gaze outward and position ourselves in relation to others. Other times we set our gaze inward and examine our perceptions and consciousness. Based on this, I make art to enter into a dialogue with others about it, where the flow of information happens not only in one direction (artist > work > viewer), but, thanks to the interactive nature of my works, influences each other (artist <> work <> viewer) and even allows something new to emerge from it. Therefore, my artworks are materialized stations / results of my thoughts and inventories of my interactions.
In July I already visited Dr. Eberhard Ortland from the research group "The Ethics of Copying" and Dr. Jonas Rees from the research group "Genetic and Social Causes of Life Chances" and I am really excited how unproblematic, exciting, informative our conversation went – I can't wait to finally get started!
2013: Nicole Schuck, Beat Brogle
Nicole Schuck
- Born in Herford
- Lives and works in Berlin
- Freelance visual artist since 2004
Beat Brogle
- Lives and works in Berlin and Basel
- His work is shown in galeries/art spaces, media, art festivals and televison channels
- He lectured at various art schools New Media, for example at the KH-Weissensee Berlin, the Zurich University of the Arts, the Filmuniversität Babelsberg Konrad Wolf and the Berlin University of the Arts
- Professorship for moving image at the Bremen University of the Arts since 2013
May – July 2013
Nicole Schuck
In her works, focussing on the medium of drawings and on narrating performances, Nicole Schuck brings art and science, fiction and reality, documentation and narration in contact. She maps places, landscapes, countries – directly integrating the wild animals living there. She does fieldwork that is intended to be narrative, it is not to document or illustrate: she makes drawings, interviews local residents and cooperates with researchers. Fictional aspects are intertwined with actual experiences. Reality is reflected in a realistic reproduction of structures and anatomies: fiction is reflected in the choice of the fragment and the consolidation of animal and topographic elements. At the same time, questions regarding the conservation of nature, species and climate are considered when developing the relevant natural environments; her artistic work, however, is never moralizing. The cycles – graphically narrating – rather lead the observer to an individual organism of nature-, human- and animal worlds.
Beat Brogle
In Brogle's work he deals with morphological processes and associations at the edge of perception.The work is formulated through different media, such as drawings, spatial installation, film/video, interactive installations and web projects.
2011: Anna Konik
1 March – 21 May
Anna Konik (Berlin, Warsaw) is the first Artist in Residence at ZiF. In her work, Anna Konik combines documentary elements and performance, installation and sculptures. She is interested in people exposed to extreme situations. She developed a video installation dealing with alienation, hypersensitivity, loneliness and the feeling of being misunderstood.