Past Residents
Past Resident2016: Maraya Art Centre
Raja’a Khalid
Raja’a Khalid’s practice is concerned with contemporary narratives of class, luxury, and consumer and material cultures, especially those that connect her native Arabian Gulf region with the world at large. She is interested in how current day capitalist economies articulate ‘culture’ and seek out motifs of soft power that reflect on the Gulf’s streaming constructions of heritage, authenticity, wealth, masculinity, sport, game, athleticism, adornment, wellness and wilderness. Outcomes are often sculptural abstractions based on these investigations and mediums employed include industrial processes, systems or rhetoric e.g. patents, wholesale supplies or B2B goods, etc.
Raja’a Khalid (born 1984, Saudi Arabia) is a Dubai-based artist and writer. She received her MFA in Fine Art from Cornell University, where she was also the recipient of the Cornell Council for the Arts Grant in 2013. Recent awards and residencies include the NYU Abu Dhabi FIND Research Fellowship, 2014; the Künstlerhaus Büchsenhausen International Fellowship for Art and Theory, 2015, and the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten Guest Residency, 2015. Her work has been shown in New York, Dubai and Vienna.
Events & Exhibitions
Panel discussion: Raja’a Khalid with Giuseppe Moscatello
January 26, 2016
Raja'a Khalid, Oud Aura, 2015, Industrial scent diffuser and synthetic oud essential oil, 12 × 12 × 5 in. (30.48 × 30.48 × 12.7 cm). Courtesy of the artist
Residents from United Arab Emirates
Past Resident2015: KdFS Kulturstiftung des Freistaates Sachsen
Bastian Muhr
The boundary between picture and nonpicture is constantly readjusted in Bastian Muhr’s large-scale systematic drawings, (…). No drawing constitutes a completely regular pattern; otherwise it would be a nonpicture, like wallpaper. Nor do these drawings convey distinct images but move along the boundary between no-longer-picture to not-yet-picture and being a picture after all. This is not only due to their systematic composition but also to their workmanship. Inspecting the hand drawing more closely reveals its essential features, its slight deviations from any standardization. (…) These drawings resemble an organism that regularly grows yet with slight variables, with small organic variations in the system. (Excerpt from text by Dieter Daniels, “The System as Motif“, 2014)
Bastian Muhr (1981 in Braunschweig, Germany) loves to draw. He grew up in Berlin and moved to Leipzig in 2004 to study Painting and Graphic Arts at the Academy of Visual Arts (HGB) where he graduated in 2010. Since then, he has exhibited regularly in Germany and abroad. Recent and upcoming solo exhibitions include: Drawings, Museum Wiesbaden, 2016; and Folge der Linie bis zum Elefanten, Galerie b2 Leipzig, 2014. Muhr’s works are in the collections of Berlin State Museums / Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin; Museum of Fine Arts Leipzig; Dresden State Art Collections/Kunstfonds, Dresden; German Federal Bank, Frankfurt; and Museum Angerlehner, Thalheim bei Wels, Austria.
Events & Exhibitions
2016 ISCP Benefit Auction
September 21–October 5, 2016
Bastian Muhr, Untitled (BM1407), 2014, Multicolored pencil (rainbow pencil) on paper, 40 × 51 in. (101.6 × 129.54 cm). Courtesy of the artist
Residents from Germany
Past Resident2015: Danish Arts Foundation
Astrid Myntekær
Astrid Myntekær constantly tests, challenges and refines materials and technologies in new contexts and compositions. Light and sound merge and hit you in both body and head. Posh and high-tech materials establish sculptural and performative links to more low-key materials from the local DIY shop and low-key industrial producers. In a time when hackers are the new revolutionaries—and there are signs that we could perhaps move completely through the screen—Astrid Myntekær lets topics of biology, emotion and spirit resonate through her work.
Astrid Myntekær (1985, Denmark) graduated from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in 2012. Her recent solo shows include MANA, Black Sesame Space, Beijing and ORGONE at Overgaden – Institute of Contemporary Art, Copenhagen. Astrid Myntekær’s work has been exhibited at Museum of Contemporary Art, Roskilde; Kunsthal Charlottenborg; Kunstforeningen Gl Strand; and Gallery Jacob Bjørn. Astrid Myntekær is representing Denmark at the Jeune Creation Europeenne Biennale, 2015–17.
Astrid Myntekær, MANA, 2015, Algae spirulina powder, mac computer and algae sex. Courtesy of the artist
