Past Residents
Past Resident2013: Christa von Siemens Foundation, Brigitte Henninger Art
Mojé Assefjah
In her paintings, Mojé Assefjah develops her own distinctive visual language. The broad, arching bands of color exploit the picture space in all directions and the brush strokes entwine themselves delicately yet dynamically across the picture carrier with characteristic chromaticity, becoming denser and overlapping as they lead the viewer’s gaze to deeper levels. By applying multiple thin layers using the almost-forgotten egg tempera technique and India ink, the artist produces color effects which evoke the Italian frescoes of the early Renaissance. The lush hues of the darker loops in the foreground of the picture contrast with the chalky tonality of the background. Although the artist is committed to non-representative painting, her pictures nonetheless convey a feeling of spatiality and conjure up associations with landscapes. Assefjah’s pictorial worlds are characterized by lightness and structural density, with the alternation of transparency and opacity, daytime and darkness creating a mysterious and atmospheric quality.
Mojé Assefjah (born 1970 in Tehran) moved to Munich, Germany where she graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts 1999. She was awarded for Fine Arts of the Federal Ministry for Education and Research, as well as the annual scholarship of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) for a residency in Rome. Recent exhibitions include Down To The River, Galerie Graf & Schelble, Basel; Art Dubai, Gallery Tanit, Beirut, 2013; Galerie Nanna Preußners, Hamburg, 2012; A vista d’ occhio, Galerie Tanit, Munich, 2011; Water for my flower…, Espace Kettaneh Kunigk, Beirut, 2010 and L’ Iran sans frontières, Galerie Almine Rech, Paris, 2009. Assefjah is represented by Gallery Tanit, Munich/Beirut; Gallery Graf & Schelble, Basel and Gallery Nanna Preußners, Hamburg.
Events & Exhibitions
Salon: Mojé Assefjah and Yang Yeung
August 6, 2013
Mojé Assefjah, Beyond the River, 2013, Egg-tempera on canvas, 393/8 × 271/2 in. (100.08 × 69.85 cm). Courtesy of the artist
Mojé Assefjah, Blackbird's Song, 2011, Egg-tempera on canvas, 393/8 × 271/2 in. (100.08 × 69.85 cm). Courtesy of the artist
Mojé Assefjah, 2011. Courtesy of the artist and Gallery Tanit, Munich
Residents from Germany
Past Resident2013: Danish Arts Foundation
Lea Porsager
Lea Porsager’s work is rooted in the disciplines of film, objects, photography and text. Working within an expanded field – a space of mad, non-violent speculation – Porsager references a broad range of occult theories, sciences and pseudo-sciences of the body and mind. Rituals, conceptual (mis)interpretations, speculations and experiments with multi-selves all contribute to the shifting foundation on which strategies are built. Strategies designed for doing as well as undoing the work, a process somehow closely related to the key words themselves: Occult, meaning to hide, and occultation, a technical term in astronomy that is used when one heavenly body obscures another by passing in front of it.
Lea Porsager (born 1981, Frederikssund) studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen and the Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main where she received her MFA in 2010. Her works have been shown in solo and group exhibitions at Neue Gesellschaft für Bildende Kunst, Berlin; Museum voor Moderne Kunst, Arnhem; Kunsthal Århus, Aarhus; KUMU, Tallinn; Aros, Aarhus; Den Frie, Copenhagen; Charlottenborg, Copenhagen; and Röda Sten, Ghotenburg. In 2008, Porsager was awarded the Montana Enter Prize for her work LEAP – The Awakening of the Dark Muses. In 2012, she participated in dOCUMENTA (13) with her work Anatta Experiment. Porsager lives and works in Copenhagen.
Lea Porsager, Mesmerized Machines Now Vibrating Anry Machine of Mystical Knowledge Making No Compromise with the Public Taste, 2010-2013, Metal tables, text, 16mm film, and metal poles, Dimensions variable. Courtesy of the artist
Lea Porsager, LEAP - The Awakening of the Dark Muses, 2008, Photographs, 16mm film, and framed text, Dimensions variable. Courtesy of the artist
Lea Porsager, Celestial Body - Disrupted Nerve Fluid and Crossed Shock Waves, 2011, Film, text, and metal poles, Dimensions variable. Courtesy of the artist
Lea Porsager, Anatta Experiment, 2012, Film, text, ova, index-floor, and poster, Dimensions variable. Courtesy of the artist
Lea Porsager, How to Program and Use T-F, 2013, Photography, text, film, bronze and iron objects, Dimensions variable. Courtesy of the artist
Residents from Denmark
Anastasia Ax
Each of Anastasia Ax’s performances is a new performance; this is essential to her practice. Each meeting between the performer and the audience, every destruction of the material at hand, points towards a situation of indeterminacy and free activity where inner and outer can switch place. The role of ink in these activities is double-edged. It belongs to the world of drawing, the physical acts of filling out the white spaces, but the black ink has an element of poison and bile, melancholy and destruction as well. The raw energies connected with the splashing, the spitting out, the havoc, transform time from linear dimensions into circular moments. New thoughts and new communions take shape through the unpredictable openness of the situation.
Anastasia Ax, born 1979, lives and works in Stockholm. Her recent solo exhibitions include Pan Theon, Joan Miró Foundation, Barcelona, 2012; Bring New Life to Death, in collaboration with Marja- Leena Sillanpää, Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm, 2012; Pan Theon, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, 2012; Step into the current, AM art-space, Shanghai, 2012;Katarsis, in collaboration with Lars Siltberg, Göteborgs Konsthall, Göteborg, 2012; Exile,Way out West, Göteborg, 2011; An Experimental Conference on Art and Science, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, 2011; Reactor, Luleå Konstmuseeum, Luleå, 2011; Trunk, Göteborgs konstmuseum, Göteborg, 2010; The Kid Below, Taidihalli, Helsinki, 2010; L&A in collaboration with Lars Siltberg, Galleri Verkligheten, Umeå, 2010; 2010, Göteborgs Konstmuseum, Göteborg; 2010, The Kid Below, Reykjavik Art Museum, 2010; The Kid Below, Konstakademin, Stockholm, 2010; Exile, Galleri Christina Wilson, Copenhagen, 2010 and New drawings and sculptures, Natalia Goldin gallery, Stockholm, 2009. In 2010, Ax was shortlisted for the Carnegie Art Award 2010. Her works are on display at several museums and arthalls such as; Moderna Museet, Göteborgs Konstmuseum, the Carnegie Art Award collection and Gävle Konstcentrum.
Anastasia Ax, Pan Theon, 2012, Paper, water, ink, and sound equipment. Courtesy of the artist and Moderna Museet, Stockholm
Anastasia Ax, Pan Theon, 2012, Paper, water, ink, and sound equipment. Courtesy of the artist and Moderna Museet, Stockholm
Anastasia Ax, Pan Theon, 2012, Paper, water, ink, and sound equipment. Courtesy of the artist and Moderna Museet, Stockholm
Anastasia Ax, Exile, 2011, Plaster, ink, water, clothes, books, and sound equipment. Courtesy of the artist and Way Out West, Göteborg
Anastasia Ax, Step into the current, 2012, Paper, ink, and sound equipment. Courtesy of the artist and Am art Space, Shanghai
