16/06/15 Doug Ashford
Doug Ashford is a teacher, artist and writer. He is Associate Professor at The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art where he has taught three-dimensional design, sculpture, public art and theory seminars since 1989.
In 1981, Ashford became a member of the artists’ collective Group Material, his principal art practice until 1996. Group Material produced over fifty exhibitions and public projects internationally, using museums and other public spaces as cultural arenas in which audiences were invited to imagine democratic forms. Prominent in this history are the exhibitions: The Castle(documenta 8, Kassel, Germany, 1987), Democracy(The Dia Art Foundation, New York, 1988) and AIDS Timeline(The Berkeley Art Museum 1989, Wadsworth Atheneum, 1990, The Whitney Museum, 1991). Group Material’s work in exhibition production, public cultural display, and the aesthetic mobilization of politics continue to affect the world of visual culture and other disciplines.
Since 1996, Ashford has gone on to make paintings, produce exhibitions and publish articles independently, with his creative labor primarily located in the classroom. His most recent publication is Who Cares(Creative Time, 2006), a book project built from a series of conversations between Ashford and an assembly of other cultural practitioners on public expression, beauty, and ethics. Recent exhibitions of paintings include the Sharjah Biennial 10, (2011) and Abstract Possible, Malmo Konsthall; Museo Tamayo and other locations (2010-12) and dOCUMENTA 13(2012). A collection of essays, Doug Ashford: Writings and Conversation, (Mousse Publishing, 2013), was published on the occasion of his retrospective exhibition at the Grazer Kunstverein.
Doug Ashford, NY Times 9.12.11, 2014
03/06/15 Gavin Turk
Gavin Turk (born 1967) is a British-born, international artist. His installations and sculptures deal with issues of authorship, authenticity and identity. Concerned with the ‘myth’ of the artist and the ‘authorship’ of a work, Turk’s engagement with this modernist, avant-garde debate stretches back to the ready-mades of Marcel Duchamp. Turk uses his signature as a recurrent motif through which to explore the way an artist's mark can embody aesthetic and commercial value.
In 1991, the Royal College of Art refused Turk a degree on the basis that his final show, Cave, consisted of a whitewashed studio space containing only a blue heritage plaque commemorating his presence ‘Gavin Turk worked here 1989-91'. Instantly gaining notoriety through this installation, Turk was spotted by Charles Saatchi and has since been exhibited by many major galleries and museums throughout the world.
Turk's work has been included in many seminal exhibitions including the ground-breaking POP LIFEat Tate Modern as well as the Venice Biennale 2009, the 46th International Istanbul Biennial, Istanbul in 1999; Material Culture, Hayward Gallery, London in 1998 and Sensation: Young British Artistsfrom the Saatchi Collection, Royal Academy of Arts, Saatchi Collection, London in 1995.
19/05/15 Sophie von Hellermann
Born in 1975 in Munich, Sophie von Hellermann lives and works in London. She studied at the Kunstakademie Dusseldorf and the Royal College of Art, London. Her subject matter ranges from Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heightsto Einstein’s revolutionary physics to the life of Nico from The Velvet Underground.
She portrays these subjects with the same token lightness, blurring public fable with romantic vision. In von Hellermann’s works, personal narratives and fantasies are the product of desire and partial perceptions, bleeding into one another within a figuration characterised by ambiguous moments and abstract spaces.
Selected solo exhibitions include: Firstsite, Colchester (2013); Le Consortium, Dijon (with Josh Smith) (2009); Marc Foxx, Los Angeles (2009); Vilma Gold, London (2008); Greene Naftali, New York (2007); Chisenhale Gallery, London (2006); Neuer Aachen Kunstverein, Aachen (2006) and Patrick De Brock Gallery, Knokke, Belgium (2006). Sophie von Hellermann is represented by Vilma Gold, London, Galerie Hussenot, Paris, Greene Naftali, New York, and Marc Foxx, Los Angeles.
Sophie von Hellermann, Katherine, 2015
12/05/15 Rose Wylie
Rose Wylie(born 1934, Kent, UK) lives and works in Kent. Wylie went to Folkestone and Dover School of Art, 1952–1956 and later attained a postgraduate degree in Painting from the Royal Academy Schools London, 1979–1981. Wylie’s imagery references current affairs and the media, as well as a diverse range of sources including ancient wall paintings, art history and film, celebrity culture, even football. She predominantly paints on large un-stretched, un-primed canvases, working on a number of paintings simultaneously. In May 2014, Wylie exhibited new and recent work at Tate Britain and in 2010 she was included in the Women to Watch exhibition at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, which promotes underrepresented and overlooked female artists. Wylie’s work will also be featured in the 2015 Venice Biennale, a group inclusion (with Andy Wahol) in the Azerbaijan pavilion.
Selected solo exhibitions include Rose Wylie, Seoul Museum, Seoul, (2014), a major retrospective at the Jerwood Gallery, Hastings, Big Boys Sit in the Front (2012); Rosemount (2011), Regina Gallery, Moscow; What with What (2010), Thomas Erben Gallery, New York and Film Notes(2010), Union Gallery, London. Wylie is represented in numerous public collections nationally and internationally and is represented by Regina Gallery, London/Moscow, Thomas Erben Gallery, New York and Union Gallery, London.