Past Residents
Past Resident2017: Federal Ministry for Arts, Culture, Civil Service and Sport of Austria
Sylvia Eckermann and Gerald Nestler
Sylvia Eckermann and Gerald Nestler’s collaborative work is defined by a discursive engagement with form and media. Their work culminates in artistic reflections on our entanglement as individuals in contemporary socioeconomic circumstances. They combine theory and post-disciplinary conversation with digital and physical environments, installations, videos, performances, objects, texts and sound, to explore the derivative condition of contemporary social relations and its financial/economic models, narratives, and processes.
Sylvia Eckermann and Gerald Nestler have been collaborating since the mid-2000s. The have had exhibitions and projects at MAK – Austrian Museum of Applied Arts / Contemporary Art, 2016; International Symposium on Electronic Art, Hong Kong, 2016; University Museum and Art Gallery, Hong Kong, 2015; Kunstraum Niederoesterreich, Vienna, 2015; Kunstraum Innsbruck, Austria, 2013; Kunstraum BERNSTEINER, Vienna, 2012; Austrian Pavilion, EXPO 2010, Shanghai;
4zero Space, Hangzhou, 2010; MKL/Kunsthaus Graz, 2009; Babu Gallery, Shenzhen, 2009; Anni Gallery, Beijing, 2009; Museum Stein, Krems, 2008; Museum Arbeitswelt Steyr, Austria, 2007; Center for Architecture, Innsbruck, 2006; Medi@terra Festival, Athens, 2006; The University of Applied Arts Vienna, 2005; Beijing Cubic Art Center, 2005. They are currently working on the project The Future of Demonstration. Art in the Post-Digital Era, planned for 2017-2018 in Vienna with Maximilian Thoman.
Events & Exhibitions
Fall Open Studios 2016
November 4–November 5, 2016
Sylvia Eckermann and Gerald Nestler, Crystal Math, 2012, 1 channel video installation, 200,000 inches of nylon thread, computer, projector, and 5.1 sound system, 120 × 80 in. (304.8 × 203.2 cm). Sound by Peter Szely and voice by Simon Streather
Sylvia Eckermann and Gerald Nestler, Plastic Trade-off, 2006-2015, 1500 LEDs mounted inside acrylic glass discs, construction and data/power lines, and steel wire, 145 × 155 × 150 in. (368.3 × 393.7 × 381 cm)
Sylvia Eckermann and Gerald Nestler, Breathe My Air - A Paradoxical Conversation Piece, 2008-2011, 3 channel video, 118:14 min
Sylvia Eckermann and Gerald Nestler, The Trend is Your Friend!, 2009, 270° Projection, projectors, cameras, RoboHeads, HeadTrackers, computer, Deskotheque Display System, and Auditory Virtual Environment (AVE), 400 × 400 × 120 in. (1016 × 1016 × 304.8 cm). Sound architecture by Peter Szely
Residents from Austria
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, 381/2 × 311/2 in. (97.79 × 80.01 cm)
Max Pinckers, The Horse to be Sacrificed must be a Stallion, 2014, Inkjet print, 525/16 × 43 in. (132.84 × 109.22 cm)
Max Pinckers, Milk, 2014, Inkjet print, 1911/16 × 161/8 in. (50.04 × 40.89 cm)
Max Pinckers, An Action Broken in Two is Stretched in Time, 2012, Inkjet print, 513/16 × 421/2 in. (130.05 × 107.95 cm)
Max Pinckers, Tina, 2011, Inkjet print, 435/16 × 353/8 in. (109.98 × 89.92 cm)
Residents from Belgium
Berenice Güttler
Berenice Güttler‘s artworks are studies of identity developed through her activity with textile material. Her drawings function as documentation for this identity. As Seth Siegelaub said, “There is an intimate relationship between textile and society.” This marks it as a medium of particular fascination and endurance. Her work deals with the breadth of influence that textiles have had on art and daily life. Her artworks tell us, unagitatedly, about the emblematic topics of weaving, patterns, and structures in our contemporary world. She treats the agile state of contingency between craft and art easily elegant; dealing with the political history, gender politics and social factors, that are inherent in the material fabric that is both self-referential and universal.
Berenice Güttler (born 1984, Germany) lives and works in Berlin and Hannover. She completed a residency in Galata, Istanbul sponsored by the The Braunschweig University of Art in 2010, contributed to several exhibitions in Europe and is now honored with an artist-in-residency in New York, by the Niedersächsische Sparkassenstiftung, Saxony.
Berenice Güttler, Untitled, 2014, Batiste cotton, 773/4 × 823/4 in. (197.48 × 210.18 cm). Courtesy of the artist
