ELECTED
Winners Gerrit Rietveld Academie Awards 2014
FINE ARTS
DESIGN
THESIS
The Jury Category Fine Arts: Ellen de Bruine, Dees Linders Category Design: Maarten Baas, Tessa van der Waals Category Thesis: Maria Barnas, Janneke Wesseling chairman Jeroen Boomgaard
Participants SELECTED Yuri An The Gerrit Rietveld Academie and Castrum Peregrini present SELECTED: an exhibition that shows exceptionally talented alumni of the Gerrit Rietveld Academie, who graduated in July 2014. These graduates are winners and nominees of the GRA Awards, an annual prize with which the academy wants to draw attention to young artists and support as well as a chance to show their work in the heart of Amsterdam, at Castrum Peregrini. The nominees and winners of the GRA Awards have been chosen by an independent jury
of art professionals. The participants of SELECTED graduated at the academy only a few months ago and this group exhibition is an important step for them in the further development as artists.
building has been a place for encounters between writers, artists, philosophers, academics and critics. The central theme of the interdisciplinary program is “freedom, friendship and culture”: values
Stefan Auberg
The “intellectual playground” Castrum Peregrini started out as a hiding place during the Second World War. Under the guidance of the artist Gisèle d’Ailly van Waterschoot van der Gracht and poet Wolfgang Frommel, young people could preserve their mental freedom by engaging with art and literature in an intensive way. From then on, the
to our society both then and now.
Lyubov Matyunina
You are invited to meet the artists, enjoy the exhibition and discover stories of both historical and present – day value.
Sebastian Ly Serena
Jacob Darfelt Martin Kähler
Lieselot Versteeg Charlott Weise
Abstract
Jury report
There is the world, which appears to be solid, yet completely isolated, and there is the precondition of responding to the voices of the external world. This world where I stand, begins with the ignition of my language. Naming visible things, imagining the invisible world beyond the meaning of names. Travelling between mother tongue and foreign language.
Yuri An has written the only thesis in which, according to the jury, the writing becomes an autonomous work of art. She takes language as a subject matter and as a means. In the thesis language transforms into a medium, and results in a poem. The thesis is not an easy read, and the jury encourages Yuri to take the reader into account. Still, the jury was impressed that she followed her own intuitive path.
Finding, writing, speaking my words This is the voice of the poem, calling the name from afar to a faraway place. Like the meaning of my name, towards the place of invisible transparency.
Yuri An
South Korea, 1983 Department: VAV – Audiovisual Nominee Thesis
Invisible Transparency
About the work
Jury report
The interiors of our homes are as much
Stefan has taken the hollow notion of customizing and truly made it his own. He explicitly
we wear. Every object is part of a inhabiting the space, showing and underlining their characters to a degree where one can read the interior like a description of the inhabitant without them being present. Every object we buy and place in our living space is part of our identity. But in a world where almost every couch comes in various shades of beige, is simply choosing one of them enough?
his work to others. This might appear as a weak spot, but Stefan’s concepts are so well thought out that his work achieves meaning beyond maximum effect. The jury was blown away by the multitude of highbquality projects: all of them well executed, attractive, layered, and with a proper story.
we simply trained to adapt ourselves to the objects and not the other way around? What are the limits of creative selfbexpression within a designed and predetermined product? Preliminary Objects is an interior collection that asks the consumer to actively think about the impact they can have on the design by highlighting the choices that are to be made and and shape of the products. Artist statement “I am drawn to the mundane, the question of how we live and what the parameters of the objects used in daily
Stefan Auberg
Preliminary Objects:
Austria, 1984
the rug – the lamps – the tube
Department: designLAB Nominee Design
Materials:
the focus on aesthetics and forme it is their the space they are placed in.
the rug – polyester, dye the lamps – rvs steel, acrylic tubes, sls, magnetic ball joints, brass, spray paint the tube – synthetic woven tube, foam pellets, sls connectors
I am interested in the compartmentalization of design as a commodity, a building – block for identity, in its potential usefulness. I also look at the relation between user object – behaviour and how societal
Objects communicate a story to each viewer. The content of this story is what is interesting to me, because this can vastly differ from one person to the next.”
Abstract
Jury report
Jacob’s thesis is set up to discuss an array of alternative publishing strategies available to writers who wish to assume control of the editorial and material aspects of authorship. With the introduction of two historical examples of wellbknown writers/ publishers (Virginia Woolf and Ulises
His thesis is a tough read, but this is because he wants to communicate his subject in a serious manner. He has chosen a beautiful and urgent subject: publishing strategies available to writers. He gives good examples and his plea shows his personal drive as a graphic designer. The jury encourages Jacob to continue this research.
of a handful contemporary writers who have collapsed conventional publishing structures to interesting effect, calling attention to the ways in which this has the very process of writing.
Jacob Darfelt Denmark, 1984
Department: Graphic Design Nominee Thesis
On Alternative Publishing Strategies: Writers Making Books
Jury report You enter a catastrophe, an amazingly detailed architectural crash. The work has a momentum to it, similar to the deceptive ease of quick brushstrokes in painting. It takes like this. Martin creates a beautiful, perfectly designed reality that can be viewed in different ways. The work is poetic, cinematic and balanced. The way he plays with the exhibition space is fascinating.
Martin Kähler Germany, 1987
Department: VAV – Audiovisual Winner Fine Arts
How many movements does it take to dial a phone number? Materials: mixed media
About the work What you’ll see now is a sensitive and intelligent sculptor stepping into the scene, bringing an elegantly composed experience. You taste Martin Kählers honest attempts to fail successfully when walking through the spacial poetry he offers the viewer. Through his eyes your sense of sight expand, and details that before today were just dead objects now tell you a vivid story about when material and this particular room fell in love with each other. Generating a promise about something new, androgynous and – real.
His point of view is refreshing, blowing off some dust from the early Arte Povera and rubbing it together with notions of eastern religions, making a very individual statement of how to operate within the artistic process. “what does it mean to you?” “I dont know” “how much does it do to you?” “everything.” G. Reve By Nicolina Eklund
Jury report “Who can be happy and free”
One question is asked in this shows young people in Russia in their quest for happiness. The shown in such a way that it can be questioned. This has become an energetic piece, in which absurdism and reality freely current times. Artist statement “In my artistic practice I have always been fascinated by the absurd. I like to be a witness of absurd situations or feel existential experiences. In my work I often choose absurdist ways to talk about serious topics, such as politics or social problems. Ideologically, I’m very much interested in the concept of reality and, for example, how many realities exist within a possibility of a nonbexisting reality. The absurdity of this reality put before the viewer or beholder is a big part of my process.
Lyubov Matyunina
Who can be happy and free?
About the work
Department: VAV – Audiovisual Nominee Fine Arts
Media: road movie – experimental documentary Duration: 15 min 32 sec. Trailer: vimeo.com/98798309
the 19th century by Nikolay Nekrasov. Nekrasov had started writing “Who is happy and free in Russia” straight after the abolition of serfdom in 1863, and worked on it for 14 years. The poem tells the story of seven free men and their travels on a long journey across Russia, trying to answer the question: who is happy and free? In the 21st century those seven free men have come back to the same road in search of happiness, but this time in the context of contemporary Russia.
Russia, 1985
Supported by the Berlagefonds
Impulsive art has always been a great joy of mine, partly because it consists of a process with experiments. For instance, mixing video and animation, creating dolls and making them move. It is a way of working with emotions and feelings. My purpose is to make art that can change: change people, make them think in a way they hadn’t done before about absurdism and reality, religion, the system, love and the universe. It may perhaps sound too ‘pathetic’, but it is the main idea that moves me and my art. And not to forget: humour! It is a really important part of my life and work.”
Abstract
Jury report
“Sebastian Ly Serena’s essay is the result of solid research. He has managed to make a focused and technical analysis of ASCII drawing. The historical and artistic examples illustrate the way ASCII operates in relation to writing, weaving, as well as concrete and visual poetry. His essay
Sebastian Ly Serena chose the original topic of ASCII drawing: computer drawings made up of punctuation marks. Sebastian has written a history on digital imagery from the beginning of the computer era as well as an archeology of the recent developments in the digital world. It is a report on a highly original subject, but the jury sometimes missed Sebastian’s own interpretation.
that ASCII is and relates it to new media. Serena makes a profound case for how such ‘image – writing processes’ are
By Kasper Andreasen
Sebastian Ly Serena Denmark, 1989
Department: Graphic Design Nominee Thesis
Writing Images Under Technological Constraints
Abstract
Jury report Lieselot Versteeg’s thesis is
like other types of making, based on tracing rules and tools that provide us us to a desired end point? Are the edges of domains (like writing, making or for example the thesis or the thing closed, enforced and controlled like the boundaries the European Union are? How to deal with thought and material in a nonbterritorialized way? How to play us, regardless of their what and where but with interest for their how and why?
Lieselot Versteeg The Netherlands, 1990
Department: TxT – Textile Winner Thesis
Here be dragons
reminded the jury of an 18th century merchant – shipping journal. Like Yuri, she takes language as a material to create, but Lieselot takes a more theoretical approach. She explores what it means to concretely make things. She challenges the reader to embark on a journey, which leads to many different vistas, and then takes the reader back to the original starting point again and again. In the process she delivers a toolbox of methods for writing texts and making art.
Jury report The size of the canvases was followed by the virtuosity of the beautiful and powerful brushstrokes. The jury was impressed with the process as well. Charlott develops an image during paintinge nothing about it seems premeditated. She constructs her paintings in a transparent manner: no actions have been obscured. Charlott Weise is a genuine painter.
Charlott Weise
PAINTINGS
Germany, 1991
Materials: oil on canvas Department: Fine Arts Nominee Fine Arts
About the work The paintings have been rendered visible during a nonbpremeditated process. the image remains dichotomouse it is encrypted by a vocabulary of forms and allusions and can’t be rebnarrated. Artist statement In her painterly practice Charlott Weise formulates images that originate in the
pure form or a fragment of some kind. The encryption of a situation and the
ambivalence of intimate and strange notions leave the painting with a dubious quality, though without casting a doubt on its state of affairs. The painting eventually sustains itself as a multib referential universe.
SELECTED is a collaborative project of the Gerrit Rietveld Academie and Castrum Peregrini and initiated by Public Rietveld. Text introduction written by Iris Loos. Text Jury report edited by Iris Loos and Anne van Duuren. Other text, unless otherwise stated, written by the artists. All photography in courtesy of Gerrit Rietveld Academie and the artists. Graphic Design: Andrada Smaranda Nora Steenbergen Anna Zubkova Tutor Graphic Design department: Rebecca Stephany Printed at: Gerrit Rietveld Academie Thanks to: Kees Maas Xavier FernĂĄndez Fuentes Bart de Baets Sam de Groot Bieneke Bennekers Gerrit Rietveld Academie
Š Public Rietveld 2014