FOREVER21
Virtual Gallery Hopping curated by Jim Avignon and Holger Beier
Forever 21 was originally born out of the need to have a New Year’s party with mutual friends during the ongoing lockdown. Jim Avignon and Holger Beier moved the exhibition and physical party into the virtual space. On Jan 1st 2021, they hosted the first Forever 21 exhibition, where 7 artists showed their current work and DJs played their Sets in each room. Although the virtual format initially made it difficult for some visitors to fly through exhibition spaces with an avatar, most of them quickly lost their fear of contact when they realized that it was even possible to talk to other exhibition guests on the open source platform Mozilla Hubs.
Access to the virtual gallery is very simple, using a smartphone or computer without the need to install any additional apps or programs. Since January 1, all Forever21 exhibition spaces have already been visited by more than 4000 people and continue to be open to the public.
In times of pandemic and ongoing lockdown, projects like Forever 21 are not only a welcome change, they also offer artists and exhibition visitors a new field of experimentation. Exhibition visitors can come to the opening from anywhere in the world and join in. The exhibition space becomes a platform for exchange, networking, communication between artists and their audience.
Needless to say, we all can’t wait to jostle our way through a packed exhibition opening once again! On the next Forever21 exhibition we can at least try it out with our avatars until the internet crashes.
Hope to see you at the show,
Jim & Holger
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FOREVER21 x WISE | 24.04.2021
We are really happy to invite you to our upcoming exhibition, a collaboration between Forever21 and WISE Festival.
The WISE – Future Festival & Think Tank is China’s premier global summit connecting thought leaders from the creative industries, academia and tech community on both sides of the Great Firewall. WISE was founded in 2018 by Philipp Grefer in Beijing to spark cross-sector dialogue and connect innovators to discuss essential questions about how we want and should live in the future.
In this year’s edition, Forever21 and WISE are teaming up to present 3 incredible photographers from Asia, Europe and the US in two virtual spaces created in a BLACKBOX format.
The exhibition is part of the WISE series “The Island(s) of New Realities – Art & The Metaverse”, you can visit the exhibition either in a virtual Shanghai or a virtual Berlin Space. Artists featured are:
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REUBEN WU / CHICAGO
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223 aka. LIN ZHIPENG / CHINA
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SEBASTIAN MAYER / BERLIN
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DJS / SHANGHAI SPACE:
JIM AVIGNON AND HOLGER BEIER PLAYING A PING-PONG DJset
https://hubs.mozilla.com/63akN8Z/wise-forever21-shanghai
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BANDS / BERLIN SPACE:
EMIKA, SHELTER BOY, JOPLYN (recorded 21.04 @ Zionskirche, Berlin)
https://hubs.mozilla.com/HRAPpK4/wise-forever21-berlin/
For more information: https://www.wisenotwise.com/
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Reuben Wu is a multi-disciplinary artist working in photography, motion, and music.
Coming from a background in design, he co-founded the band Ladytron, releasing six internationally-acclaimed albums as well as writing and producing music for Christina Aguilera and remixing others such as Nine Inch Nails and Blondie.
The extensive touring introduced him to photography, which grew from a hobby into the career it is today. Reuben is based in Chicago but work takes him far and wide. The notion of journey and discovery is central to his art, bound with his love for new technology and the opportunities it brings to modern storytelling.
Reuben’s book LUX NOCTIS was published in Oct 2018 and has since been added to the archives of The Guggenheim Museum, The Metropolitan Museum, and the Art Institute of Chicago.
Reuben’s work has been published by National Geographic, Colossal, Wired, The Smithsonian and has been commissioned by clients such as Apple, Audi, GE, and Samsung. He is also a Phase One Ambassador and National Geographic Storytellers Summit speaker.
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Lin Zhipeng, also known as No.223, is a leading figure of new Chinese photography emerging in the last decade, popularizing his work originally via social media and other online platforms. Amidst an otherwise conservative and often closed traditional society and cultural background, Lin’s photographs act as a collective not-so-private diary of a young generation wishing to escape the pressures from a high-stakes society and play within its limits.
Lin Zhipeng offers his point of view on an alternative youth spirit and culture in an often conservatively Chinese cultural context. His spontaneous photographs portray a young generation who indulge in love and life, oscillating between jubilation and deep melancholy, playful sexuality, and often just the simple human need to be loved in an otherwise indifferent and ever-changing society.
Forever 21 was originally born out of the need to have a New Year’s party with mutual friends during the ongoing lockdown. Jim Avignon and Holger Beier moved the physical party and the exhibition into the virtual space and on Jan 1st 2021 they hosted the first Forever 21 exhibition, where 7 artists showed their current work.
In times of pandemic and ongoing lockdown, projects like Forever 21 are not only a welcome change, they also offer artists and exhibition visitors a new field of experimentation. Exhibition visitors can come to the opening from anywhere in the world and join in. The exhibition space becomes a platform for exchange, networking, communication between artists and their audience.
Forever21 has since been creating 10 exhibition spaces with 35 artists presenting their work. 3700 visitors have seen the exhibitions since 01.Jan 21.
http://www.linzhipeng223.com/
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Sebastian Mayer is a visual artist with a camera. He finished his studies in Media Art at the Bauhaus-influenced independent college ‘bildo akademie berlin’ with a focus on Analogue Photography, Digital Production and Media Theory, as well as Gestalt Theory.
His professional career as a photographer with a focus on portrait and architecture includes (among others) publications in the New York Times, Dazed and Confused, Wire Magazine, Pen International, The Observer, and Leica Fotografie International, as well as commissions by clients such as ERCO, Freitag, Espace Louis Vuitton, BMW, and Lotus Cars.
Sebastian Mayer has photographed musicians Ryuichi Sakamoto, Yamataka Eye, Iggy Pop, Peaches, and King Krule and collaborated with artists Carsten Nicolai, Dirk Bell, Daniel Josefsohn, The Otolith Group.
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PAST EXHIBITION:
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WHO’S AFRAID OF FRIENDLY CAPITALISM? 27.03.2021
Virtual Gallery Hopping curated by Fehmi Baumbach & Jim Avignon
For almost 20 years Fehmi Baumbach and Jim Avignon have been organizing the mini festival “Who is afraid of friendly capitalism?” at Gallery Neurotitan in Berlin Mitte.
And since we all can’t go to Neurotitan because of the eternal lockdown, we bring the Neurotitan to you and invite you to the first virtual “Who is afraid of friendly capitalism?”
hubs.mozilla.com/CqDygGm/friendly-capitalism-lounge-at-forever21/
Parallel to this Show, Neurotitan will present a selection of all shows which did not happen in 2020 due to the pandemic in a second room. hubs.mozilla.com/x9HrKLg/neurotitan-by-forever21
DATE: SATURDAY, MAR. 27, 2021 at 5pm CET – VIRTUAL GALLERY HOPPING WITH THE ARTISTS :
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FEHMI BAUMBACH
JIM AVIGNON
TIKA
KERSTIN KARY
DANILLE DE PICCIOTTO
MAKULATUR?
TOBIAS MOLITOR
KATHARINA GROSSMANN-HENSEL
LUPE GODOY
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DJS:
MC OLLI
FRAU KRAUSHAAR & NOVA HUTA
HOLGER BEIER
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Fehmi Baumbach was born as the daughter of two rigid existentialists at the countryside of Lower Saxony, Germany. Between 1992 and 1997 she studied Fine Arts at the HBK Braunschweig Art Academy. In 1996 she moved to Berlin. After smaller solo shows she was co-founder of The Bewegungselite, a bunch of artists to squat buildings in cities such as Prague, Paris and New York. As the group comes apart, Fehmi Baumbach together with famous pop artist Jim Avignon initiates a series of Art Parties in Berlin by the name of The Friendly Capitalism Lounge. Several solo shows are held in the aftermath, as well as illustrations for newspapers and magazines from underground to style.
From 2001 she tours as an artist and dj through music clubs in Europe together with Jim Avignon and her music and literature collaborator Almut Klotz. Short stories for Berlin publishers Verbrecher Verlag. In 2005, her daughter Mascha is born and Fehmi Baumbach flees into the woods to gain her game license without ever bagging a deer.
https://www.fehmibaumbach.com/
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.Jim Avignon is notorious for his unconventional approach to art. He produces his artworks for entertainment purposes. In his paintings he reduces complex issues to their essentials and blends political, social and popcultural themes with fairy tales and cartoons. His work does not fit into any specific genre. Avignon wants to make art accessible to everyone.
Jim Avignon attempts to break the rules of the art market. By his own account, he is producing an average of 4.37 artworks per day – speed is a central to his work process. During the 1992 Documenta in Kassel he painted one artwork every day, only to destroy it afterwards. His painting at the East Side Gallery in Berlin is another well-known work. In 2013 he overpainted it without permission in a highly publicised event, even though it had previously been placed under monument protection (Denkmalsschutz).
Jim Avignon is also a musician and illustrator. He works predominantly in Berlin and has exhibited worldwide (e.g. France, Greece, United States, Guatemala, Singapore, and Russia). He often exhibits in unusual places, such as techno clubs.
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TIKA is the visual universe of Maja Hürst, expanding since 2003.
TIKATHEK is the archive of the visual universe TIKA.
A wordcreation with the german word PinakoTHEK (=pinacoteca).
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Kerstin Kary’s paintings are very often pure expressions of her deep dedication to music.
With her latest picture series she has taken on the task of portraying women in punk. Is she errecting a monument to them? Not at all. Memorials are for all things, places and people that have been. Punk is dead yet alive and kicking. Punk rock is and always will be a synonym for dissolution. Punk girls, besides crossing all mandatory boundaries, went beyond the scope of gender convention.
For this and many other reasons, Kerstin Kary’s punk girls, no matter in what format, are and will always be life-sized.
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Danielle de Picciotto is an American born, interdisciplinary artist, living in Berlin since 1987.
She was the co-founder of the Berlin Love Parade and has performed and exhibited internationally since 1989 together with Crime & The City Solution, Gudrun Gut, The Space Cowboys and her husband Alexander Hacke, founding member of Einstürzende Neubauten.
Danielle has released two books, writes regular essays for culture magazines and is known for her intricate spoken word interwoven into her music. She plays the violin, hurdy gurdy and autoharp but has also always been part of the electronic music scene. Her music combines both worlds in a dreamy, experimental and unique fashion. As the interdisciplinary artist that she is, her art, which she exhibits and installs internationally in museums, galleries and cultural institutions, also accompanies her music as fantastic, interwoven visuals morphing drawings into strange shapes and forms.
https://www.danielledepicciotto.com/
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Makulatur?
Few will still know what the word “Makulatur” actually means. It is “waste paper” or recycled paper. Eva-Marie Deutschewitz’s artistic Facebook page is also called “Makulatur?”. However, the artist shows relatively valuable waste paper that she uses for her works: Ancient medicine books, old advertising brochures and fashion magazines or postcards from decades past. From these treasures she tears or cuts the individual pieces for her works.
Since she likes to work serially, certain groups of themes always recur. Whether she looks at the role of women in the 1950s and 1960s with a critical wink and at the same time incorporates the beginning of consumer society or deals with the inside of the human body and adds some rather black-humoured ingredients: the “ideal world” of the magazines and the lifestyle of the respective epoch shown in them is always questioned by the artist.
https://cutt.ly/gvtL0pA
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Tobias Molitor’s work is about everyday products and fast moving consumer goods, which only perceive a small amount of attention. He is fascinated about the materialism and the reshape of the form, when somebody is using a certain object. His focus lies on traces, which he includes in his works and which are reinterpreted on a visual dimension. Especially the alienation of objects through rescaling or putting them into another context is something which he tries to examine in his creative process. He asks himself questions like: why has this product been invented, which other function does it have, which are the chemical components, how does the product change while using etc. Furthermore he wants to examine the role of the human being in the consumption process, by documenting the traces, marks and spots a person left behind.
For him the objects are souvenirs, relics and pieces of evidence for human consumerism and the experience that those inventions and creations do always outlive ourselves.
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Katharina Grossmann-Hensel works as a painter, author and illustrator in Berlin.
She studied German and English literature at the university of Hamburg and graduated in illustration at the university of applied sciences. Her first book was published in France. Her work has been rewarded with the Award for Excellence at the international children s book fair in Bologna, exhibited at the Prix de Livre de Jeunesse Figur Futur in Paris and selected to represent Germany at the International Biennale in Bratislava. She was granted the Global Illustration Excellence Award in 2016 at the Frankfurter Buchmesse, where her work was also shown in the international white ravens catalogue.
Some of her books were adapted for the theatre, others translated into spanish, corean, catalan, dutch, danish, vietnamese, estonian, polish, africaans, english, taiwanese, french and chinese.
http://katharinagrossmannhensel.com
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Lupe Godoy has a PhD in Fine Arts from the Polytechnic University of Valencia. She lives and works in Berlin since 1995.
Since 1992 she has participated in numerous collective exhibitions in Berlin, at the exhibition hall in the Fine Arts Faculty of Valencia, in the Oruga Azul gallery, as well as within the `Open Doors´ project or at the Safia Gallery in Barcelona. During this time she has combined these collective works with individual exhibitions on a national level. Her work is noteworthy in different art galleries in Valencia, Castellon, Alicante, Teruel and Barcelona.
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PAST EXHIBITION:
FOREVER 21 13.February 2021
Virtual Gallery Hopping curated by Jim Avignon & Holger Beier
hubs.mozilla.com/98qVfNE/forever21
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Hi there!
We are pleased to invite you to a new group exhibition Forever 21!
This edition features 5 artists, all based in Germany. Hamburg – Düsseldorf – Berlin. All artists will present their current works together in one Gallery Space.
DATE: SATURDAY, FEB. 13, 2021 at 7pm CET – VIRTUAL GALLERY HOPPING WITH:
JIM AVIGNON
4000
ROMAN KLONEK
VARIOUS & GOULD
MOKI
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Jim Avignon will show a brand new Portrait-series of Beatpoets, you can also see at Literaturhaus Stuttgart.
4000 has been working for years at a healthy distance from the official art scene and presents his brand new Camping Series.
Roman Klonek presents a wonderful new set of Woodcuts and celebrates the release of his first book “Woodcut Vibes“ – published by Slanted this February.
Various & Gould will show a new series of works, influenced by political poster graphics, Dada and Pop Art.
Moki is a painter and comic artist, her works deal with the challenges of your time especially climate change and in its result escapism.
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The vernissage will be exclusively online on the 360˚platform Mozilla Hubs. Visitors can enter the rooms via smartphone or computer, they can choose a personal avatar and can actually talk to each other via a built-in microphone function.
On February 13 at 7pm CET we will publish the link to the showroom and you are invited to virtually hop between the artist spaces until the internet drops out…!
Hope to see you there,
Jim & Holger
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>>> HOW TO NAVIGATE IN FOREVER 21 <<<
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Jim Avignon is notorious for his unconventional approach to art. He produces his art- works for entertainment purposes. Avignon wants to make art accessible to everyone.
BeatPoet Portraits in this exhibition:
Hettie Jones
Jack Kerouac
Allen Ginsberg
Jack Micheline
Leroi Jones
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Diane Di Prima
Bob Kaufmann
William S. Bourroughs
Michael McClure
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Hamburg based artist 4000 has been working for years at a healthy distance from the official art scene – and above all from its market. 4000 withdraws from the obligatory mediation context, comments on what is happening from the outside, if at all, and thus avoids slipping into the self-referentiality of contemporary art and criticism, and in this way has so far resisted being taken over by the “establishment”.
4000 is a clever artist who knows what he owes to himself and to art. 4000 is pop.
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Roman Klonek, born in Kattowitz/Poland, has a spot for old fashioned cartoons and modern block printing styles.
In the 90s he studied Graphic Arts in Düsseldorf and discovered a passion for woodcut.
For the past 20 years he has created prints with a wide range of whimsical creatures, mostly half animal/half human and preferably in awkward situations. His work can be described as a bizarre balancing act between propaganda, folklore and pop.
His first book “Woodcut vibes” has just been released by Slanted Publishers. https://www.slanted.de/
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The Berlin based artist duo Various & Gould works in close collaboration since 2005. After studying at the Berlin-Weissensee School of Art (KHB), the artists graduated under the tutelage of Prof Alex Jordan (Grapus collective) in 2010.
Various & Gould are known for constantly reinventing themselves. They often deal with socially prominent themes such as work, migration, gender, death, religion or the financial crisis in a playful, intuitive manner. Influenced by (political) poster graphics, Dada and Pop Art, vivid colors combined with typography and encrypted messages are the characteristics of their work.
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Moki, born 1982 in Brilon, is a painter and comic artist. xe lives and works in berlin.
Moki’s works deal with the challenges of your time, especially climate change and in its result escapism.
Technically brilliant and almost photorealistic in her praxis moki takes the viewer to places far away from everyday life.
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PAST EXHIBITIONS:
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FOREVER 21 01.January 2021
Virtual Gallery Hopping curated by Jim Avignon & Holger Beier
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Hi there!
Since we can hardly meet on New Year’s Eve, we have moved the party to a virtual space. We are pleased to invite you to the group exhibition Forever 21!
DATE: JANUARY 1st 2021 at 4pm CET – VIRTUAL GALLERY HOPPING WITH:
44 FLAVOURS
CLEMENS BEHR
DAG
FEHMI BAUMBACH
JULIA BENZ
JIM AVIGNON
RABEA SENFTENBERG
The vernissage will be exclusively online on the 360˚platform Mozilla Hubs. All 7 artists are Berlin based and will present their current works in 7 separate exhibition spaces. Visitors can enter the rooms via smartphone or computer, they can choose a personal avatar and can actually talk to each other via a built-in microphone function.
So on January 1st at 4pm CET we will publish the links to the 7 showrooms and you are invited to virtually hop between them until the internet drops out…!
Let’s hug virtually! Let’s have a good time! Let’s have a party!
Jim & Holger
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>>> HOW TO NAVIGATE IN FOREVER 21 <<<
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https://hubs.mozilla.com/bu8Aipv/44flavours-forever21
The artist duo 44flavours Sebastian Bagge and Julio Rölle have been working together since 2003. Their artistic activities include painting, ceramics, sculptures, prints and objects. The painted object can be a piece of cardboard, stone, wood, a vase from a flea market or any wall standing somewhere in the world. 44flavours’ creative energy flows into their immediate surroundings just as naturally as the classical canvas and reveals their quest to explore the world and its surroundings.
44flavours’ art is unadulterated, direct and intuitive: they use strong colors to create a pop art painting mix of spatial innuendo, Op art, figuration and symbols.
The juxtaposition of styles, perspectives and illusions, leads to a contemplation with erratic discoveries.
Text: Elke Giffeler
https://hubs.mozilla.com/E3vMRJW/clemens-behr-forever21
Clemens Behr graduated in graphic design from the University of Applied Sciences in Dortmund and studied fine arts sculpting at the Berlin University of the Arts. His work can be defined somewhere between design and sculpture and is influenced by the graffiti and skateboard culture.
https://hubs.mozilla.com/eSxLSnA/dag-forever21
1964 born in Eberswalde/East-Germany. 1985–1989 studied painting and graphics
at Art Academy Berlin-Weißensee and art education at Humboldt-University,
Berlin. 1994 exhibited at the first Chromapark show at Berlin. Solo carrier
and Collaboration work. Works shown at numerous international gallery’s and
museum’s exhibitions.
Since my studies I have been working with abstract geometric forms. Influenced by Kasimir Malevich or Wassily Kandinsky they are the starting point of my non-objective paintings and murals. As an artist in post-socialist and reunited Berlin, I have tried since my earliest works to find my own handwriting that can assert itself against the realistic art predominant in Berlin – both in East and West Berlin – and take on a place in the emerging techno scene. The special climate after the fall of communism (1989/90), between political wasteland and a new avant-garde, influenced my art, which I developed further, always oriented to the basic elements triangle, square and circle. My paintings are pulsating constellations that flood canvases as well as exhibition spaces, turning the white surfaces into a playground for geometric turbulence.
https://hubs.mozilla.com/dQrg83P/fehmi-baumbach-forever21
Fehmi Baumbach was born as the daughter of two rigid existentialists at the countryside of Lower Saxony, Germany. Between 1992 and 1997 she studied Fine Arts at the HBK Braunschweig Art Academy. In 1996 she moved to Berlin. After smaller solo shows she was co-founder of The Bewegungselite, a bunch of artists to squat buildings in cities such as Prague, Paris and New York. As the group comes apart, Fehmi Baumbach together with famous pop artist Jim Avignon initiates a series of Art Parties in Berlin by the name of The Friendly Capitalism Lounge. Several solo shows are held in the aftermath, as well as illustrations for newspapers and magazines from underground to style.
From 2001 she tours as an artist and dj through music clubs in Europe together with Jim Avignon and her music and literature collaborator Almut Klotz. Short stories for Berlin publishers Verbrecher Verlag. In 2005, her daughter Mascha is born and Fehmi Baumbach flees into the woods to gain her game license without ever bagging a deer.
https://hubs.mozilla.com/R9hjXmm/julia-benz-forever21
With her distinctive style, Julia Benz embodies the painting of a new generation. She rigorously resists the coolness and rationality in art, which follows a strict formalism and is underpinned by a theoretical context. With an assertive directness she demands a new, expressive freedom of painting.
In her mostly large-format works Julia Benz manages to create exciting and complex worlds full of dynamics. Abstract resolutions of concrete forms and self-confident color combinations play an important role. „For me, colors are emotions. They shock and fascinate me at the same time. And also they constantly challenge me to mediate between the dominance of colors and the sensuality of painting.“ This ambivalence serves her as inspiration in the working process, in which layers are superimposed, surfaces are continued, supplemented or completely dissolved.
Julia Benz studied free painting at the Düsseldorf Academy of Art and at the Berlin University of the Arts and graduated as a master student in painting. She lives and works in Berlin.
https://hubs.mozilla.com/WxsWcm8/jim-avignon-forever21
Jim Avignon is notorious for his unconventional approach to art. He produces his artworks for entertainment purposes. In his paintings he reduces complex issues to their essentials and blends political, social and popcultural themes with fairy tales and cartoons. His work does not fit into any specific genre. Avignon wants to make art accessible to everyone.
Jim Avignon attempts to break the rules of the art market. By his own account, he is producing an average of 4.37 artworks per day – speed is a central to his work process. During the 1992 Documenta in Kassel he painted one artwork every day, only to destroy it afterwards. His painting at the East Side Gallery in Berlin is another well-known work. In 2013 he overpainted it without permission in a highly publicised event, even though it had previously been placed under monument protection (Denkmalsschutz).
Jim Avignon is also a musician and illustrator. He works predominantly in Berlin and has exhibited worldwide (e.g. France, Greece, United States, Guatemala, Singapore, and Russia). He often exhibits in unusual places, such as techno clubs.
https://hubs.mozilla.com/2isGRvg/rabea-senftenberg-forever21
„I was born in the 1860ies in a very old and forgotten part of Berlin, the Republic of Senftenbørg. This lovely place turned into a monarchy quite soon after my sixth birthday. Later I became the boss of this whole Queendom where I still live with three of my magic sloths. You see, it’s an ancient tribe and my name was given to me in order to keep the family tradition alive.“
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