This year, for the second time, international artists will take part in the SoArt artists-in-residence Millstättersee programme during the summer months. From the beginning of June till the end of September 2012 Tasha Amini (GB), Jeremy Deller (GB), Michael Kalki (D), Silke Otto Knapp (D) and Nick Oberthaler (Ö) will occupy the artists’ quarters–planned and executed by Hans Hollein–on Lake Millstatt and develop new artworks there. www.soart.at
For the two initiators of the SoART artists-in-residence Millstättersee programme, Erwin and Marion Soravia, it began with a vision of “Art for the Lake – Architecture for the Lake and Art”: “For us Lake Millstatt was always a place of quiet, a place to recharge and decelerate.
For over eighty years there has been an architectural vacuum around the lake. With Hans Hollein‛s artists’ residences and the construction of Villa S.– designed by Coop Himmelb(l)au in 2006― this vacuum was breached and important landmarks set into the countryside making it possible for the surroundings to be seen with other eyes and encouraging the people of Carinthia to engage with contemporary architecture. We are very happy that we were able to win over Hans Hollein for the architectural implementation of our project”.
SoART artists-in-residence Millstättersee
Since 2011 artists invited by SoART artists-in-residence Millstättersee can allow their creativity free rein in an atmosphere of deceleration, far from the loud and hectic big-city life. The five international artists–Tasha Amini (GB), Jeremy Deller (GB), Michael Kalki (D), Silke Otto Knapp (D) and Nick Oberthaler (Ö)–who will take up residence in Hans Hollein’s artists quarters this year were chosen by Edek Bartz, curator for music and visual art, author and lecturer at the Vienna University of Applied Arts. The artist residences are situated on the south bank of Lake Millstatt. The restaurant, also built by the star architect, is right next to them, and together with a landing stage with three boats at anchor, completes the facilities on offer to the artists.
“The idea of SoArt artists-in-residence Millstättersee is to offer young artists the opportunity to develop and implement new works surrounded by contemporary architecture and a breathtaking natural landscape. This unique environment, which also inspires us and helps us to recharge our own batteries, is intended to give the artists support so that their creativity can thrive. With the SoArt artists-in-residence Millstättersee programme we want to link the artists to international networks in order to further mutual exchanges and dialogues. We are happy to have succeeded in again bringing interesting artists to Lake Millstatt for 2012 and wait with great anticipation to see what from their residency will be integrated into their work,” said Erwin and Marion Soravia talking about their commitment to the SoArt artists-inresidence Millstättersee programme.
Architectural Landmark for Lake Millstatt The architectural design of the artists’ residences and restaurant is by architect, theorist, urban planner, designer and Pritzker prize-winner Hans Hollein. One of Austria’s most internationally respected architect conceived the three studios as a collection of geometric bodies: a cube, a cube that is slightly tilted to the front and a pentagon with a pyramidical roof. Viewed from the water or the opposite side of the lake they form an impressive silhouette that contrasts with the topography of the background. At night these elementary structures with their translucent facades become impressive illuminated presences on the water.
Participating artists
SoArt artists-in-residence Millstättersee 2012
Tasha Amini
British artist Tasha Amini lives and works in London. Her pictures, such as the series Excellent Women, are portraits of women who have touched her personally and whom she greatly values. They have achieved fame because of the exceptional nature of their life’s work and their personal and private histories. Amongst those in the portraits are the US folk singer, civil rights activist and pacifist, Joan Baez; the French photographer, painter and Pablo Picasso muse, Dora Maar (1907–1997); the American writer, essayist, journalist and film director, Susan Sonntag (1933–2004) and the Canadian musician, painter and singer/songwriter, Joni Mitchell, but also, for example, her own mother.
Jeremy Deller
Jeremy Deller is British and works as artist, curator and producer on a wide spectrum of projects that also include performances, films and publications. Deller’s works which are manifestations of events, processes and “social interventions”, are concerned with social and cultural relationships. In 2004 Jeremy Deller received the most important British award in the field of contemporary art, the Turner Prize, for his multimedia installation “Memory Bucket” (2003). Probably his best known work is the “The Battle of Orgreave” from 2001. It begins a series of works that take up high-profile socio-political questions concerned with political issues that should never have been forgotten.
Silke Otto-Knapp
Silke Otto-Knapp is a German artist who resides and works in London. She is presenting her original approach to the medium of painting. In the works she has created in recent years, the artist has been attempting to overcome the limitations of the “culture” of painting―in the sense of an expanded notion of culture―by integrating the abstract language of modern dance, the spatial design of artificially laid-out gardens or stage-like interiors and decoration. Silke Otto-Knapp belongs to the generation of artists for whom intense discursive engagement with their own, and an expanded, art production is something that can almost be taken for granted.
Nick Oberthaler
Austrian artist Nick Oberthaler lives and works in Brussels. Oberthaler uses fascinating techniques in his drawings. Even though his preferred means of expression is drawing, he also works with colour and Indian ink, combining them with appliquéd cardboard. He has a clear preference for the fragile quality of the paper in comparison to canvas. Its sensitive surface makes it possible to create “unobtrusive” works. Rough handling always leads to damage, to injury. Once brought to paper every stroke, every line, every mark, is irrevocable and irreversible. In addition to drawing Nick Oberthaler also works with gouache, photography, installation, intervention and posters.
Michael Kalki
A native of Ravensburg, Germany, artist Michael Kalki lives and works in Vienna. His painting, which has developed from surreal/figurative via a quasi-abstract pointillist phase to an apparent abstraction, has always been stimulated by the psychology of memory. He is particularly interested in the processes of recording, reordering and re-accessing memory, and the potential for producing something new.
FIRST CHOICE
Group show with the artists Markus Bacher (A), Yared Nigussu (CAN), Issa Sallinander (GB) and Pier Stockholm (F) and musicians Sophie Hassfurther (A), Ken Hayakawa (A), Johanna Mayr-Keber alias JOJA (A) and Philipp Pankraz (A) A group exhibition with the title FIRST CHOICE and featuring the artists Markus Bacher, Yared Nigussu, Issa Sallinander and Pier Stockholm take place from 20 July till 03 August 2012. All four took up the invitation of the SoArt artists-in-residence Millstättersee 2011and drew inspiration for their paintings from their surroundings.
The core concern of Pier Stockholm’s meticulously exact drawings on tracing paper is modern architecture and its place in society. Yared Nigussu focuses on portrait painting and the areas of time, movement and urbanity. Using a bold, broad brush, Issa Salliander models animals which serve as figures of identification and imaginary portraits and landscapes in which authority, race, oppression and discrimination are central issues. In his occasionally monumental canvases, Markus Bacher combines abstraction and figuration in a way that produces an exciting whole that contains stories of exuberant emotions. Austrian born artist Markus Bacher lives and works in Cologne. The focus of his gestural painting is testing the borders of both figurative and abstract painting, going as far as creating pure colour spaces.
Ethiopian artist Yared Nigussu presently lives and works in Vancouver and uses images of Addis Ababa, his native city, in his paintings. In her paintings Swedish artist Issa Salliander–who lives and works in London–explores the drama and humour in the battle between good and bad, life and death. Pier Stockholm, who originally comes from Peru and lives and works in Paris, takes architecture as the subject matter for his projects.
In addition, during FIRST CHOICE, the results of the work of musicians Sophie Hassfurther, Ken Hayakawa, Johanna Mayr-Keber alias JOJA and Philipp Pankratz, who also participated in SoArt artists-in-residence Millstättersee 2011, can be heard.
Two full-blooded musicians, saxophonist Sophie Hassfurther and trained pianist Ken Hayakawa―nowadays a representative of experimental electro-sound―spent a few weeks
in the artists’ residences. Inspired by the immediate surroundings and Markus Bacher’s and Issa Salliander’s powerful paintings, Hayakawa developed a number of pieces that also have much to do with the unique natural landscape around Lake Millstatt. Johanna Mayr-Keber, alias JOJA, moderated a music programme on Superfly, the Viennese radio station primarily dedicated to soul and black music, while Philipp Pankraz, in addition to his own electronic music, covered a further facet of the music industry with his work as a DJ.The artists’ and musicians’ residencies were documented on film. A special short using that material will give those interested in art an atmospheric insight into their work and daily routines while on Lake Millstatt. An approximately ninety-page publication (in German/English) has been prepared for the exhibition. It contains texts by Hartwig Knack, Erwin Soravia, Marion Soravia and Pier Stockholm and around fifty colour illustrations. This publication showcases the SoArt artists-in-residence Millstättersee programme, Hans Hollein’s architecture and provides insight into the work of the artists and musicians who participated in SoArt artists-in-residence Millstättersee 2011. The SoArt opening exhibition with Deborah Sengl, which also took place in 2011, is also part of the publication.
Published by SoART Gmbh.
FIRST CHOICE
Group show with the artists Markus Bacher (A), Yared Nigussu (CAN), Issa Sallinander
(GB) and Pier Stockholm (F) and musicians Sophie Hassfurther (A), Ken Hayakawa
(A), Johanna Mayr-Keber alias JOJA (A) and Philipp Pankraz (A)
OPEN DAY with programme Friday, 20 July 2012, 2 p.m. – 6 p.m.
TIME 20July till 3 August 2012
LOCATION SoART Lake Millstatt artists-in-residence
Grossegg 15b, A-9800 Spittal an der Drau, Austria
OPENING HOURS Daily 10 a.m. – 6 p.m.
ADMISSION FREE
