Past Residents
Past Resident2016: Edward Steichen Award Luxembourg
Max Pinckers
Not believing in the possibility of sheer objectivity or neutrality, Max Pinckers advocates for a manifest subjective approach in his documentary making practice. His approach is made visible through the explicit use of theatrical lighting, stage directions, and/or extras. Pinckers combines extensive research and diligent technical preparation with improvisation to obtain lively, unexpected, critical, and poetic documentary images.
Max Pinckers (born 1988, Belgium) has lived in Indonesia, India, Australia and Singapore. He became acquainted with photography at the age of twelve. In 2006, Pinckers returned to Belgium to study documentary photography at The Royal Academy of Fine Arts (KASK), Ghent, where he is currently a doctoral researcher. Since 2011, he has directed several documentary photo-series; each series is a carefully laid out books with interwoven photographs, documents and texts. His work addresses topics including: the position of the photographer in documentary narratives in Lotus, 2011; the influence of fiction on reality in The Fourth Wall, 2012; and the creation of a visual narrative in Will They Sing Like Raindrops or Leave Me Thirsty, 2014. In 2015, Pinckers became a nominee of Magnum Photos.
Events & Exhibitions
Fall Open Studios 2016
November 4–November 5, 2016
Max Pinckers, A Sudden Gust of Wind (after Jeff Wall and Hokusai), 2015, Inkjet print, 311/2 × 381/2 in. (80.01 × 97.79 cm).
Max Pinckers, The Horse to be Sacrificed must be a Stallion, 2014, Inkjet print, 43 × 525/16 in. (109.22 × 132.84 cm).
Max Pinckers, Milk, 2014, Inkjet print, 161/8 × 1911/16 in. (40.89 × 50.04 cm).
Max Pinckers, An Action Broken in Two is Stretched in Time, 2012, Inkjet print, 421/2 × 513/16 in. (107.95 × 130.05 cm).
Max Pinckers, Tina, 2011, Inkjet print, 353/8 × 435/16 in. (89.92 × 109.98 cm).
Residents from Belgium
Tuomas A. Laitinen
Tuomas A. Laitinen is an artist whose work fuses moving image, 3D animation, light, sound, installations and spatial interventions. His artworks are loaded with references ranging from ancient tragedies to philosophy to speculative fiction to experimental music to architectural history to contemporary media culture. More recently, Laitinen has conducted in-depth research on the global circulation of raw materials, namely copper, to address the micro and macro processes and concerns that inform contemporary reality. Laitinen’s art exposes the connections and negotiates between private and public, and poetic and political.
Tuomas A. Laitinen graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts, Helsinki in 2008. Laitinen has participated in exhibitions and festivals throughout the world including the Bucharest Biennale; Platform Garanti Contemporary Art Center, Istanbul; SADE LA Gallery, Los Angeles; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Shanghai; Moving Image New York 2016; Mildura Palimpsest Biennale, Australia, 2015; and the 5th Cairo Video Festival, 2013. His recent major solo exhibition Fundamental Matter was held at EMMA – Espoo Museum of Modern Art, Finland in 2014-2015. In 2013, Laitinen was awarded the first Fine Arts Academy of Finland’s award for emerging Finnish artists.
Events & Exhibitions
Fall Open Studios 2016
November 4–November 5, 2016
Tuomas A. Laitinen, Conductor, 2014, Video, 4 channels, 29 min.
Tuomas A. Laitinen, Azure Dunes (for J.G. Ballard), 2015, Video, 5 min.
Tuomas A. Laitinen, The Powder of Sympathy, 2015, Video, 8:36 min.
Tuomas A. Laitinen, Sensory Adaptation Devices, 2015, Multiple, Dimensions variable. Courtesy of SADE LA Gallery.
Tuomas A. Laitinen, A Room for You, 2015, Light installation, Dimension variable.
Past Resident2016: Kunststiftung des Landes Sachsen-Anhalt
Ilko Koestler
Ilko Koestler is concerned with landscapes and their coding. He is particularly interested in energyscapes which results from the new politics of energy production. Through cross-country train travel, Koestler regularly observes the changing green pastures of Germany. On the road, he observes predefined trails and the resulting fixed visual fields. Koestler works with woodcuts, etchings, and lithography to reconstruct and recapture light, speed, and machinery.
Ilko Koestler (born 1978, Halle Saale, Germany) studied landscape architecture in Berlin. His thesis Stonescape explores our understanding of what landscape is and could be by looking at the exploitation of limestone in Franconian Jura in Bavaria. In 2016, he finished his post graduate studies in print graphics with Thomas Rug at the Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design Halle.
Ilko Koestler, Night Drive - Kozure Ôkami, 2013, Woodcut, 3011/16 × 235/8 in. (77.98 × 59.94 cm).
Ilko Koestler, West East Passage D-Land II, 2016, Etching, 275/8 × 1913/16 in. (70.1 × 50.29 cm).
Ilko Koestler, Black Track - Cargo I, 2016, Lithography, 153/4 × 113/8 in. (40 × 28.96 cm).
