DISCOTECA FLAMING STAR
Founded in 1988 by Cristina Gómez Barrio (born in 1973 in Alhambra, Spain) and Wolfgang Mayer (born in 1967 in Wertach, Germany), Discoteca Flaming Star is an interdisciplinary and collaborative art group who use songs and other forms of oral expression, understanding them as a personal response to historical events and social and political facts. Recent performances by Discoteca Flaming Star include: CA2M Hate Verses in Mostoles, Madrid and Sticky Stage 4 at Kunstmuseum Stuttgart in 2015; The Rehearsal at the The Kitchen, New York, in 2014; and Intoleranz / Normalität, What, How and for Whom at Gazer Kunstverein in Zagreb in 2013. Since 2011, Barrio and Mayer teach in the department of Fine Arts / Intermedia Arts of the Stuttgart State Academy of Art and Design in Germany.
HARUN FAROCKI
Harun Farocki (1944-2014) was born in German-annexed Czechoslovakia. From 1966 to 1968 he attended the Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie Berlin (DFFB). In addition to teaching posts in Berlin, Düsseldorf, Hamburg, Manila, Munich and Stuttgart, he was a visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley. Farocki made close to 120 films, including feature films, essay films and documentaries. He worked in collaboration with other filmmakers as a scriptwriter, actor and producer. In 1976 he staged Heiner Müller’s plays The Battle and Tractor together with Hanns Zischler in Basel, Switzerland.
He wrote for numerous publications, and from 1974 to 1984 he was editor and author of the magazine Filmkritik (München). His work has shown in many national and international exhibitions and installations in galleries and museums.
MARIE CLAIRE FORTÉ
Marie Claire likes to think that we can always broaden our perceptual field; include more, understand more, enjoy more… Choreographer and dancer, she leads projects and has recently been working with Sophie Bélair Clément, Alanna Kraaijeveld, PME-ART, Louise Bédard, Martin Bélanger and Projet bk, amongst others. She danced four seasons for the late Groupe Lab de danse (Ottawa) where she trained with Peter Boneham. Alongside and through her artistic practice, she translates, writes and teaches dance. Marie Claire has been supported and inspired by people and institutions, namely kg Guttman, Lynda Gaudreau, the Leonard & Bina Ellen Gallery, Michèle Thériault, Catherine Lalonde, Ame Henderson, Public Recordings, Katya Montaignac, Et Marianne et Simon, Catherine Lavoie-Marcus , Toronto Dance Theater, Noémie Solomon, Jody Hegel, Adam Kinner, Tangente, Circuit-Est, Studio 303, the Casino Luxembourg, Artexte, WP Zimmer and the RQD. She will be performer in residence at the Agora de la danse from 2017 to 2019.
HANAKO GEIERHOS
Hanako Geierhos (born in Hamburg, Germany) lives and works in Berlin. She explores art as an instrument of communication and a platform for articulation of sensory experience, different forms of social interaction and individual/collective perception of space. Recent exhibitions include: Intro, POW (Post:Otherness:Wedding), curated by Bonaventure S.B. Ndikung, Galerie Wedding, Raum für zeitgenössische Kunst, Berlin (2015), Atopic Narratives (with Florian Schmidt), Vesselroom Project, Berlin (2015) Garten a.V., frontviews gallery, Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin (2015), Transitory Rituals, JIWAR, Barcelona (2014), The Program, Gallery 400, University of Chicago (2013).
RICHARD IBGHY & MARILOU LEMMENS
Richard Ibghy & Marilou Lemmens have developed a collaborative practice that combines a concise approach to the form and construction of the art object with a desire to make ideas visible. Spanning across multiple media, including video, performance and installation, their work explores the material, affective and sensory dimensions of experience that cannot be fully translated into signs or systems. For several years, they have examined the rationale upon which economic actions are described and represented, and how the logic of economy has come to infiltrate the most intimate aspects of life.
Recent solo exhibitions have been held at the International Studio & Curatorial Program (New York, 2016), Leonard and Bina Ellen Gallery (Montreal, 2016), VOX - Centre de l’image contemporaine (Montreal, 2014), Trinity Square Video (Toronto, 2014), Monte Vista Projects (Los Angeles, 2012) and G Gallery (Toronto, 2012), among others. They have participated in a number of group exhibitions including the 14th Istanbul Biennial SALTWATER: A Theory of Thought Forms (Istanbul, 2015), La Biennale de Montréal, L’avenir (looking forward) (Montreal, 2014), 27th Images Festival (Toronto, 2014), Manif d’art 7: Quebec City Biennial (Quebec City, 2014), La Filature, Scène Nationale (Mulhouse, France, 2013-14), Henie Onstad Kunstsenter (Høvikodden, Norway, 2013), Centre for Contemporary Arts (Glasgow, 2012), and the 10th Sharjah Biennial (Sharjah, UAE, 2011).
They live and work in Montreal and Durham-Sud, Quebec.
JUTTA KOETHER
Jutta Koether (born 1958) is a German artist, musician and critic based in New York and Berlin since the early 1990s. She is currently a professor at the University of Fine Arts in Hamburg.
Jutta Koether’s abstract paintings, with their translucent interconnected web patterns, fragments of texts and songs, are like a portrait of the artist in our times. She is a painter, but not only that. Interweaving soft, sinuous brushwork and delicate colouring with bold cartoon-style figuration and graffiti-making is just part of a bigger whole – an interdisciplinary artistic practice overlapping performance, music, writing and other activities, and reflecting her strong, feminist, punk/pop-influenced engagement with contemporary theory and culture.
ALANNA KRAAIJEVELD
Dancer, teacher and improviser, Alanna Kraaijeveld is interested in playfulness, endurance, timing and rigour. In fall 2016, she is working with Louise Bédard Danse, Dave St-Pierre, Justine A. Chambers and Marie Claire Forté. Her quixotic movement style, humour and adaptability have supported her in diverse projects, namely those of Susanna Hood, Yves Charuest, Et Marianne et Simon, Mélanie Demers, Sylvain Émard Danse, RQD, Dancemakers, Stella Adler Studio of Acting, Studio 303, Circuit-Est, Concordia University, L’école de danse contemporaine de Montréal. Alanna was a member of the now defunct Le Groupe Dance Lab under the direction of Peter Boneham. Her study of movement and teaching is ongoing. She trains with Linda Kapetanea and Jozef Frucek, co-developers of Fighting Monkey movement research and runs a training group where she explores less traditional training forms.
KRÜGER & PARDELLER
Doris Krüger was born in Vienna, Austria; Walter Pardeller was born in Bolzano, Italy.
They have collaborated since 2005, living and working in Vienna.
The Austrian/Italian artist-duo aligns itself with a socially activated, political understanding of aesthetics. Working predominantly with sculpture and installation, a concept of production emerges—in the words of Krüger & Pardeller, “concrete openness.” Crucially, this openness does not only stand for a transgression of the traditional concept of work, but also brings the concrete rules and conditions of a participative practice into play, a work form invested with continuation and completion.
Their exhibitions include Display of the Centuries, ACF, New York (2015), HOMO FABER, A Spatial Audioplay in Three Parts, 21-Haus, Vienna (2014), The Magic of Diversity, MAK - Museum of Applied Arts|Contemporary Art (2012), THE COLLECTION IN ACTION. Media Works from Vito Acconci to Simon Starling, Museion, Bolzano (2011), Distancing/Attracting Occupations, Museum für konkrete Kunst, Ingolstadt (2010), 2009 Tension, Austrian Frederick Kiesler Foundation, Vienna (2009).
Krüger & Pardeller also published AESTHETIC BASIC CHRONICLE, VOL.1, Sternberg Press, Berlin (2014) and UNDISCIPLINED, The Phenomenon of Space in Art, Architecture and Design, Springer, New York (2008).
ACHIM LENGERER
Achim Lengerer is an artist living in Berlin and London. Lengerer works with questions concerning language, which are addressed in performances, installations and publications. In the last years Lengerer founded different collaborative projects such as freitagsküche (with Michael Riedel) and voiceoverhead, with Israeli artist colleague Dani Gal. Since 2009 Lengerer runs the travelling showroom and instant publishing house Scriptings, which functions as a discursive platform parallel and additional to Lengerer’s solo-projects. Artists, writers, graphic-designers, performers as well as publishers are invited – all of which are working with the formats of “script” and “text” within their processes of production. Lengerer is currently working on his PhD project at Goldsmiths University of London, UK, researching the relationship between voice, notation and live performance.
RASHID MASHARAWI
Rashid Masharawi is a director, born in Gaza in 1962 to a family of refugees from Jaffa. He grew up in the Shati refugee camp.
Masharawi lives and works in Ramallah, where he founded the Cinema Production and Distribution Center in 1996 with the aim of promoting local film productions. He also sponsors a mobile cinema, which allows him to screen films in Palestinian refugee camps. Other projects include the annual Kids Film Festival and major workshops on film production and directing. Rashid Masharawi regularly organizes readings and discussion forums at the Al-Matal cultural centre. With his documentaries and feature films, he has also made a name for himself as a film artist. He has received several film awards.
He has directed several features including Curfew (1993); Haifa (1995); Waiting (2005) and Laila’s Birthday (2008), which both screened at the Festival; and the documentary Live From Palestine (2002). His latest feature is Palestine Stereo (2013) and Letter from Al Yarmouk (2014).
KLAUS SCHERÜBEL
Born in Austria in 1968, Klaus Scherübel now lives in Vienna.
Among the exhibitions in which he has taken part are the photographic triennial (1996), at the Neue Galerie Graz, in Austria, The Appartment (1995-1997) in collaboration with Marylène Negro, in France, The Century of Artistic Freedom (1998), at the Wiener Secession, in Austria, The best he could do at the moment (1998), at Galerie Erna Hécey, in Luxembourg, and more recently Mallarmé, Das Buch (2001), presented in a number of locales in Europe. His conceptual interventions, using various means and strategies (such as the use of a pseudonym) always redefine the status of the artwork, integrating it into a process in which the artist himself is indissociable.