Past Residents
Past Resident2014: Foundation for a Civil Society
Staš Kleindienst
Staš Kleindienst’s work addresses issues of origin, representation, and naturalization of authority. Within this context he is shaping a social fiction, drawn through dystopian image of a social reality that stems from the present-day ideological, economic, and political co-ordinates.
Staš Kleindienst (born 1979, Slovenia) lives and works in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Kleindienst has an MA in Fine Art from the Academy of Fine Art and Design in Ljubljana. His exhibitions include U3-7th Triennial of Contemporary Slovenian Art, Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova (MSUM), Ljubljana; Spaceship Yugoslavia- The Suspension of Time, nGbK, Berlin; Not So Distant Memory, Delaware Center for Contemporary Art; and Buy Your Own Art Experience, AC Institute, New York. In 2014 he won the OHO Group Award, the national visual arts award for young visual artists.
Past Resident2014: Rolf Sachs, Katrin Schütz, Eva Felten2010: Rolf Sachs, Katrin Schütz, Eva Felten2000: Rolf Sachs, Katrin Schütz, Eva Felten
Susanne Thiemann
Susanne Thiemann “cocoons” are alive. The artist and basket weaver from Munich turns frayed material into images; she interweaves chairs like intimate beings and weaves rubbery pillows that are so crumpled that they appear to be amorphous beings. Textile techniques have long since achieved independence in art as subtle yet strong forms of expression that play ironically and critically with feminine connotations. In her work, Susanne Thiemann brings the perfection of traditional crafts to the radical freedom of purpose of art. The sculptures of Susanne Thiemann are composed of thin monochrome plastic hoses, colored electric wires and thick strips of shredded car tires. She selects pieces of lost property and remaining stocks of mass-produced, hardly decomposing products; the materials that trigger many connotations because they belong to our everyday life and use.
Susanne Thiemann, born 1955, passed the Master Craftsman Examination of Basketry in 1986. While attending the International Summer Academy of Fine Arts Salzburg, Austria she studied contemporary sculpture with New York-based artists Nancy Davidson and Frida Baranek. Her work has been exhibited internationally.
Residents from Germany
Past Resident2014: Anonymous
Gianfranco Foschino
Operating between photography, documentary film and video art, Gianfranco Foschino’s work is currently focused on video installations, which evoke “tableaux vivants”, emulating a sort of live photograph. Shooting long sequences from fixed viewpoints he produces scenes with minimal movements, presented on flat screens, and framed as light boxes. Distanced from urban life, he portrays bucolic scenes that seem to occur in parallel time dimensions. The political value of Foschino’s work lies in exploring the singular anachronism of these spaces, and trying to recognize anonymous stories and lost lifestyles.
Gianfranco Foschino was born in 1983 in Santiago de Chile. He graduated in Cinema Studies from UNIACC University (Santiago). In 2010, he had his first exhibition Almost Romantic curated by Christopher Eamon at I-20 Gallery, New York. In 2011, his work was featured at the Latin American pavilion of 54th La Biennale di Venezia. In 2014, he participated as guest artist of the Chilean pavilion MONOLITH CONTROVERSIES at the 14th International Architecture Exhibition, awarded with the Silver Lion prize. He currently lives and works in Santiago de Chile.