Arte
Biotopo - Waldkunst
John K. Grande in: Arte.Es Magazine 4/2014,
p.41-45
Before
and after photography
Bay Area arts picks, April 21st 2011.
In: San Francisco Chronicle
Major
Glass Print show in San Francisco at Jenkins Johnson Gallery
23. 04. 2011. In: nonfigurativehoto
blog.
I, Robot - Käthe Wenzel
Joe
Nolan in: Nashville Scene, 19.-25. 11. 2009
Networked
Music Review 11/2009
Helen
Thorigton: Live Stage, John Roach and Käthe Wenzel
Press
Release 11/2009
John
Roach and Käthe Wenzel: Robo-Improvisation Arena
Fashion
Show & Closing Night Party
upcoming.yahoo.com/event/453604/
Mixing Heresy and High Fashion: Levi Okunov Dresses Women Up as Torahs
Jay
Michaelson, 31. März, 2008
The Jewish Museum: Off the Wall
Andrew
Ingall, 27. März 2008
Berliner Kunstsalon / Opening Reception
Christian Asbach in: vernissage.tv, 06. 10.
2006.
Käthe Wenzel: Fliegende Bauten.
In: berlin art info, September 2006.
Scaturro, Michael:
Nothing but Net.
In: The Berlin Paper, 31. August 2006.
Käthe Wenzel - Expositie mei Lokaal4.
In: Breed Uit April 2003. (Amersfoort - NL).
____________________________________________________________________________________________
Joe
Nolan in: Nashville Scene, 19.-25. 11. 2009, S.43
I,
Robot - Käthe Wenzel
At a
recent show in a gallery in Brooklyn, audience members excitedly took
the controls of robots armed with paintbrushes. The mechanical Matisses
rendered an awkward musical score that improvising musicians then
did their best to follow. If this all seems a little confusing, perhaps
artist Kaethe Wenzel will have a clearer explanation of her shwo when
she speaks at gallery Ftonight. looking bakc at two decades since
the fall of the wall in Berlin, Wenzel(a Berliner) will speak to the
issues facing German artists and audiences since reunification. A
performance of some kind will follow. There is a good chance that
Nashville Scene contributor Dave Maddox will have his saxophone
in tow for Wenzel' s piece, and we have been assured that yes, there
also will be robots.
____________________________________________________________________________________________
Press
Release:
John
Roach and Käthe Wenzel: Robo-Improvisation Arena
Exhibition Dates:
November 6 through November 15, 2009
Have you
ever controlled a robot or conducted an orchestra? Artists
John Roach and Käthe Wenzel say, You can do both in one
go! Their Robo-Improvisation Arena at Space on Dobbin
turns the gallery into a collective art coliseum. The
audience activates five remote-controlled robots, or artbots,
designed by Berlin artist Käthe Wenzel. Bearing charged brushes
and such heraldic names as Pablo, Hellraiser Off Canvas,
Fightin Gal Frida, and Andy Popsicle,
the artbots move around the 8 foot-square arena. As they pass magnetic
fields in the installation, designed by sound artist John Roach, they
trigger colored lights and signal musicians to improvise. But the
musicians also must follow the artbots painted marks like an
evolving graphic score.
The installation is a collectively operated system of color, sound,
and movement. The result can be a duet between an artbot and a soloist,
or an interactive symphony.
I am interested in setting up open experiments that the audience
completes, says John Roach. The results of this piece
depend on your presence and your choices. Youre invited to embrace
uncertainty, expectation and curiosity. You never know whos
in control. For Käthe Wenzel, Robo-Improvisation
Arena reflects the dynamics of urban life, which we all produce
and participate in daily. It is also emblematic of the collective
production of culture, crossing temporal, geographic, and personal
boundaries. This points away from the mechanisms of the art market,
including the role of the heroic artist as the generator
of art history.
The installation functions with live musicians performing on Friday
Nov. 6th,, 6.30-9.30 PM (musicians: Irene Fong, John McQueeney, Paul
Corio) & Friday Nov. 13th, 6.30-9.30 PM (musicians: Glendon Jones,
Benjamin Bacon, Charles Goldman). At other times, visitors operate
artbots accompanied by recorded music.
____________________________________________________________________________________________
Helen
Thorigton in: Networked Music Review
Live Stage, John Roach and Käthe Wenzel
"Have you
ever controlled a robot or conducted an orchestra? Artists
John Roach and Käthe Wenzel say, You can do both in one
go! Their Robo-Improvisation Arena at Space on Dobbin
turns the gallery into a collective art coliseum. The
audience activates five remote-controlled robots, or artbots,
designed by Berlin artist Käthe Wenzel. Bearing charged brushes
and such heraldic names as Pablo, Hellraiser Off Canvas,
Fightin Gal Frida, and Andy Popsicle,
the artbots move around the 8 foot-square arena. As they pass magnetic
fields in the installation, designed by sound artist John Roach, they
trigger colored lights and signal musicians to improvise. But the
musicians also must follow the artbots painted marks like an
evolving graphic score.
The installation
is a collectively operated system of color, sound, and movement. The
result can be a duet between an artbot and a soloist, or an interactive
symphony.
I am interested
in setting up open experiments that the audience completes,
says John Roach. The results of this piece depend on your presence
and your choices. Youre invited to embrace uncertainty, expectation
and curiosity. You never know whos in control. For Käthe
Wenzel, Robo-Improvisation Arena reflects the dynamics
of urban life, which we all produce and participate in daily. It is
also emblematic of the collective production of culture, crossing
temporal, geographic, and personal boundaries. This points away from
the mechanisms of the art market, including the role of the heroic
artist as the generator of art history.
The installation
functions with live musicians performing on Friday Nov. 6th,, 6.30-9.30
PM (musicians: Irene Fong, John McQueeney, Paul Corio) & Friday
Nov. 13th, 6.30-9.30 PM (musicians: Glendon Jones, Benjamin Bacon,
Charles Goldman). At other times, visitors operate artbots accompanied
by recorded music.
____________________________________________________________________________________________
In: upcoming.yahoo.com/event/453604/
Fashion Show & Closing
Night Party
Fashion designer Levi Okunov is one of
the fashion industry's rising stars. His Fall 2008 line, which features
pieces inspired by The Jewish Museum's renowned Torah Art and Hanukkah
lamp collections, incorporates materials such as velvet and parchment
to suggest textures and forms associated with traditional Judaica.
The lining of several pieces feature stenciled and painted texts by
the 13th century Persian poet Rumi translated into English, Arabic,
and Yiddish. These passages represent the artist's wish for religious
tolerance and cultural co-existence.His collaborators on the project
include hair stylist, Almog, fabric desinger Sharon Ascher, crown
designer Käthe Wenzel, makeup artist Linda Mason, and painter Rita
Ackermann.
zurück
zum Seitenanfang ____________________________________________________________________________________________
31.
März 2008
Jay Michaelson: Mixing
Heresy and High Fashion:
Levi Okunov Dresses Women Up as Torahs
Last night's hottie-filled
fashion show debuting Hasidic Levi Okunov's spring collection was,
despite the shvitzing of a hundred Heebs packed into an auditorium,
very cool. Kudos to Andy Ingall and the JuMu staff for turning what
is often a highly un-cool space into a place where it seemed like
something new and sexy was actually happening in real time. Kudos
to Melissa Shiff for trancing us out to digital mandalas made of Hebrew
letters and sacred objects. And kudos to whoever bought the free vodka.
But mostly, kudos to Levi Okunov himself, interviewed elsewhere on
this site, and ably profiled by Jennifer Bleyer on Nextbook, who fused
his Hasidic background and his audo-didactic fashion sensibility to
create work that could've been novelty, could've been irony, but actually
was art. Would that the vanity projects of some absurdly-funded Jewish
narcissists were as careful to avoid the easy temptations of kitsch.
What's the difference? Whereas aint-it-cool cultural kitsch is just
a snide in-joke, Levi Okunov is actually trying to say something,
to make something new.
To back up a little -- the Sabbatean heresy, which lasted from about
1665 to around 1820 (though there are still hidden Sabbateans today,
some of whom are on Facebook) -- was, in large part, a secret mystical
movement which laid the groundwork for Hasidism and preserved the
antinomian ecstasy of Jewish messianism for over a century and a half.
As the name implies, their central object of devotion was Sabbetai
Sevi, who in 1666 counted 1/3 of all European Jews as his followers
-- but who lost most of them when he converted to Islam rather than
die at the hands of the Turkish sultan.
But devotion to Sabbetai was not the only point of the movement, especially
after Sevi's death. Many Sabbateans believed that the redemption had
come, and our job was to experience it now, by deliberately transgressing
the laws of the old regime -- especially regarding sex. One of their
notorious rituals involved having a young girl dress as the Torah,
her breasts exposed, while (male) devotees danced around her kissing
her breasts. This was, in a sense, a recorporealization. The Torah
is itself a stand in for the Shechinah, the feminine aspect of God
(a/k/a the Goddess): She wears a beautiful velour dress and a crown,
and then at a special time, we take the dress off, open her parchment
legs, and with our phallic pointer open her to reveal the secrets
that lie between them.
Many of Okunov's designs are quite similar, placing the garments of
the Torah upon a (half-undressed) beautiful woman. I know that Okunov
isn't deliberately referencing the Sabbatean ritual (he told me so
last night), but I'm struck by the similarity of inspiration. In a
sense, both Okunov and the Sabbateans are simply responding to the
feminine iconography of the Torah H/herself. But I think there is
something more interesting going on in both cases, which is the re-universalizing
of the particular, the transcription of the mythic into a realm that
is deeper than myth and which underlies the Torah, the Sabbateans,
contemporary fashion, and all the other iterations of eros which spiritual
and aesthetic souls have devised.
Sabbateans, after all, are not just finding excuses to have sex; like
all heretics, they are believers. Like Okunov, they are moved by beauty
and eroticism, see them as gifts from God no less holy than the Torah
itself. Okunov's post-Hasidic theology finds God everywhere (he told
me that too), not just within the bounds of orthodoxy, and indeed,
quite often in exactly those places which traditional law is so afraid
of. In the hands of a lesser artist, dressing a woman up in the Torah's
clothes would be an act of puerile rebellion. Oh boy, what a thrill,
a woman in a Torah crown. But in the hands of a mystic, it is to take
seriously the power of sexuality that makes religion worth doing in
the first place -- and worth stealing back from the pious. (Not coincidentally,
Sabbateanism extended its defiance of gender roles well beyond sexuality;
women were in positions of leadership and power in the movement, and
were as learned as men, even in the 18th century. Mysticism and liberation
don't always go together, but here they did.) In an essay called "Renewal
is not Heresy," Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, like Okunov a renegade
ex-Chabadnik, tried to explain why his form of de-orthodoxed Hasidism
was not Sabbateanism. To many of us, he never quite succeeded. Who
knows, maybe a kind of neo-Sabbateanism -- here as a stand-in for
celebrating the erotic, visceral essence of true religion outside
the bounds of traditional law -- is the Jewish renewal that many of
us have been looking for. If so, I hope Levi Okunov's designing the
costumes. Or lack thereof.
____________________________________________________________________________________________
In: The Jewish Museum.
Off the Wall 27. März 2008
Andrew Ingall: It was
Fierce
Levi Okunov launched
his Fall 2008 Collection at the Closing Night Party to an enthusiastic,
sweaty crowd. Levi drew inspiration from the Museum's extensive collection
of Torah crowns and Hanukkah lamps. Garment materials include Torah
mantle velvet, parchment, hand-painted organza, and parachute fabric
silkscreened with Rumi love poetry in English, Yiddish, and Arabic.
Kudos to Almog for hair, Linda Mason for makeup, Sascha Ascher and
Rita Ackermann for hand-painted fabrics, and Kaethe Wenzel for crowns.
Melissa Shiff and Diwon, also artists-in-residence during Off the
Wall, collaborated with Levi respectively with projected video mandalas
and a live score. Afterparty included performances by Diwon (premiering
"That Yemenite Kid," his Off the Wall project), Smadar, Miriam Zafri,
and Y-Love. All photos courtesy of Adrian Nina. More after the jump.
__________________________________________________________________________________________
Christian Asbach in: vernissage.tv,
06. 10. 2006
Berliner Kunstsalon / Opening Reception
Impressions
of the opening of the "Berliner Kunstsalon", September 28,
2006. The Berliner Kunstsalon is an independent, off-mainstream art
fair, exhibiting over 200 artists during Berlin's Autumn of the Arts.
Princess Hans represents the performing arts at this opening, and the
camera spends some time with the photographies of Jan Vanhöfen,
Bertram Kober, and Gregor Brandler at the space of "fas" (Fotoakademie
Am Schiffbauerdamm, Berlin). Finally we meet Käthe Wenzel, a young
object oriented artist who works with sugar, bones, wax, latex and other
form(id)able materials. By VTV correspondent Christian Asbach.
Clip
here
________________________________________________________________
In: The Berlin Paper, 31. August 2006
Nothing but Net
von Michael Scaturro
Until 1 September: Net-kit shipped around the world and modified by
each recipient hints at humans' role in architecture
The “Flying Buildings” exhibit at "artTransponder" is a 16-piece, string
building kit that was shipped around the world six times and modified
by each recipient as he or she saw fit (usually with knots). The resulting
shape-shifting, soft work would seem to prove the creator Käthe Wenzel's
thesis that “most architecture is soft” and that "cities and buildings
are shaped by human needs, tastes, and interaction." Closes tomorrow.
(tbp, 31 Aug 2006)
____________________________________________________________________________________________
El
San Juan Star, 2. Oktober 2004
Bestias de peso cultural
von Melba Ferrer
No se preocupe que ellos estaban
combatiendo temperaturas extremas, desde el sofocante calor
de la calle al aire acondicionado del interior, según iban de
una jurisdicción a la próxima en el Viejo San Juan. Vienen desde
Alemania con sus cargas. Y están dispuestos a cargar a cualquier
otro también.
Sabine Schlunk, Emil Gropoz, Anke Kalk, Sonja Hartmann, Käthe
Wenzel, Peter Woelck y Niklas Goldbach, son un grupo de jóvenes
artistas contemporáneos con sede en Berlín quienes estarán desplegando
"One to Carry the Other´s Burden" ("Uno para cargar el peso
de otro"), una exhibición que comienza el martes en la noche
a las 7:00 en la alcaldía de San Juan, como parte de las presentaciones
de Noche de Galería en el Viejo San Juan.
El espectáculo ofrece una buena idea de las actuales tendencias
de arte en Alemania, ellas también revelarán eso, pero este
también revelarán eso, pero este también demuestra que no importa
de dónde vienen, artistas de todo el mundo están preocupados
sobre la mismas cosas. Invitado poer el Museo de Arte e Historia
de San Juan, y auspiciado por el Istitut für Auslandsbeziehungen,
el grupo ha estado trabajando durante más de un ano en su proyecto,
el cual envuelve todo desde meditar sobre la identidad y el
sí mismo, a la memoria.
"Uno para cargar el peso de otros" es una frase bíblica. "Pero
no somos un grupo religioso", manifesta Gropoz, quien junto
con Schlunk, Kalk y Hartmann se encontraban en la Isla para
la exhibición. "Tomamos este tema y trabajamos, no en una forma
religiosa. Lo comprendimos como un problema moderno". Trabajando
durante un ano en el tema, el grupo trató de aclarar su significado
y determinar lo mucho o lo poco que una persona puede llevar
el peso de otros. Claro está, para cada uno significó algo diferente.
"Es más una expresión sicologíca", manifiesta Schlunk sobre
la interpretación de ella de la frase. "Siento que es más un
asunto de empatía. Es una expresión sicológica con mi propia
filosofía, también."
El tema del espectáculo llega en un momento en que los alemanes
están pensando sobre sus identidades. "Se ajusta bastante bien",
senala Gropoz. "Tuvimos esta unficación hace 15 anos. Tuvimos
cambiar nuestros puntos de vista y renunciar a muchos." Kalk
está de acuerdo, destacando que lo que una vez fue Alemania
Oriental permanece menos desarollada, a pesar de la unificación.
Las discrepancias permanecen todavía allí. "La discusión es
porque ello no resultó", manifiesta ella. Ambos lados de una
ahora unificada Alemania - en una ocasión separadas por décadas
- se están cuestionando su sentido de identidad. "Mi país y
ano existe", anade Schlunk, "Es una mezcla de dos sociedades,
al igual que Puerto Rico". "Sin embargo no hacemos trabajo político",
anfatiza Hartmann. "One to Carry the Other´s Burden" se presentará
durante seis semanas.
(Übersetzung: Es macht ihnen nichts aus, dass sie mit extremen
Temperaturen kämpfen müssen, aus der erstickenden Hitze der
Strasse in die klimatisierte Luft drinnen, während sie sich
von einem Bezirk von Alt San Juan in den anderen bewegen. Sie
kommen aus Deutschland, beladen mit Gepäck. Und sie sind bereit,
es allen anderen aufzuladen. Sabine Schlunk, Emil Gropoz, Anke
Kalk, Sonja Hartmann, Käthe Wenzel, Peter Woelck und Niklas
Goldbach sind eine Gruppe von Künstlerinnen und Künstlern mit
Sitz in Berlin, die "One to Carry the Other´s Burden - Einer
trage des Andern Last" eröffnen werden, eine Ausstellung, die
am Dienstag Abend um 7 im Rathaus von San JUan eröfnnet, als
Teil der Veranstaltungen der Nacht der Galerien in Alt-San Juan.
Die Veranstaltung vermittelt eine gute Vorstellung von den aktuellen
Tendenzen der Kunst in Deutschland, auch dies, aber vor allem
zeigt sich dass, gleich, woher sie kommen, die Künstler und
Künstlerinnen sich auf der ganzen Welt mit ähnlichen Dingen
befassen. Eingeladen vom Museo de Arte e Historia de San Juan,
unterstützt durch das Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen, hat
die Gruppe seit mehr als einem Jahr an dem Projekt gearbeitet,
das alles umfasst, vom Nachdenken über die Identität und sich
selbst bis zur Erinnerung.
"Einer trage des Andern Last" ist ein Bibelzitat. "Aber wir
sind nicht religiös," erklärt Gropoz, der sich zusammen mit
Schlunk, Kalk und Hartmann zur Eröffnung auf die Insel gekommen
ist. "Wir haben dieses Thema ausgesucht und dazu gearbeitet,
aber nicht in religiöser Form. Wir haben es als modernes Problem
aufgefasst." Während ihrer einjährigen Auseinandersetzung mit
dem Thema veruschte die Gruppe, seine Bedeutung zu verstehen
und auszuloten, inwieweit jemand die Last des Andern tragen
kann. Natürlich bedeutete das für jede und jeden etwas anderes.
"Es ist mehr psychologisch,§ erklärt Schlunk ihre Interpretation
des Zitats. "Ich empfinde das mehr als eine Angelegenheit des
Mitfühlens. Es ist eine psychologische Interpretation auch miener
eigenen Philosophie."
Das Thema der Veranstaltung trifft auf einen Moment, in dem
sich die Deutschen Gedanken über ihre Identität(en) machen.
"Es passt ganz gut dazu," sagt Gropoz. "Vor 15 Jahren hatten
wir die Vereinigung. Wir mussten unsere Standpunkte überdenken
und uns von vielen verabschieden." Kalk stimmt zu, und führt
aus, dass das ehemalige Ostdeutschland wirtschaftlich noch immer
weniger entwickelt ist, trotz Wiedervereinigung. Die Unterschiede
bestehen noch immer. "Es wird diskutiert, warum das so ist,"
sagt sie. Beide Seiten des wiedervereinigten Deutschland - nach
jahrzehntelanger Teilung - stellen ihre Identität in Frage.
"Mein Land existiert nicht mehr," fügt Schlunk hinzu. "Wir haben
jetzt eine Mischung aus zwei Gesellschaften, wie in Puerto Rico."
"Trotzdem machen wir keine politische Kunst," betont Hartmann.
"One to Carry the Other´s Burden wird sechs Wochen lang zu sehen
sein.
____________________________________________________________________________________________
In: El Nuevo Día, 1. Oktober
2004
Noches de Galería
Este
martes se celebra otra edición del concurrido evento. Así comienza
Arte cubano, San Juan 2004, que recoge la producción de
los artistas Yovanis Caisé, Lissett Román y Esteban Machado quienes
de forma individual expondrán, a partir de las 6:00 p.m., en el
Museo de Las Américas, sala 8, segundo piso del Antiguo Cuartel
de Ballajá.
De otra parte los artistas alemánes Niklas Goldbach, Emil Gropoz,
Sonja Hartmann, Anke Kalk, Käthe Wenzel, Sabine Schlunk y Peter
Woelck unen esfuerzos en la muestra One to Carry the Other´s
Burden: Arte Contemporàneo Alemàn, que inaugurará a las 7:00
p.m., en la Galerìa San Juan Bautista de la Casa Alcaldía sanjuanera.
El aprovechamiento de la iconografía, tanto de la realidad exterior
como de la virtual, de los medios de comunicación masivos, la
fotografía, el vídeo y diversas formas de armar obras de arte
conforman la exposición que se extiende hasta el 14 de noviembre.
(Übersetzung: (...) Ausserdem vereinen die deutschen Künstler
und Künstlerinnen Niklas Goldbach, Emil Gropoz, Sonja Hartmann,
Anke Kalk, Käthe Wenzel, Sabine Schlunk und Peter Woelck ihre
Anstrengungen in der Ausstellung One to Carry the Other´s Burden:
Zeitgenössische Kunst aus Deutschland, die um 19 Uhr in der
Galerìa San Juan Bautista de la Casa Alcaldía in San Juan eröffnet.
Der Gebrauch der Ikonografie, der äußeren ebenso wie der virtuellen
Realität, von Massenmedien, Fotografie, Video und diversen Formen
der Kunstproduktion sind in dieser Ausstellung zu sehen, die bis
zum 14. November dauert.)
______________________________________________________________________________________________
The Ex-Berliner 12/June 2003, S.36.
Black Market
by Uta Kornmeier
The bowl of fruit in this
exhibition of new work by Käthe Wenzel is not recommended as refreshment,
for it has passed its use-by date by several hours - hours spent in
an oven at nearly 200°C. Charred but miraculously not burned it is a
tongue-in-cheek-reference to Christ´s time in limbo and His Ascension.
Do I hear cries of overinterpretation? Be assured the artist knows her
iconography, having just completed a PhD in art history. Her work feeds
off these little intellectual references and is particularly strong
on the side of secular relics of a modernised Passion.
____________________________________________________________________________________
Breed Uit, April 2003
Käthe Wenzel - Expositie mei Lokaal4
Amersfoort - NL
Käthe Wenzel beweegt zich op het grensvlak van natuurwetenschap en kunst.
Zij gebruikt wasafdrukken en afgietsels van lichaamsdelen en organen.
Ze werkt met botten, haar, veren, suiker, rubber en brood. Haar objecten
lijken zo uit een medisch laboratorium, een archief of een vreemdsoortig
museum te komen. De verbluffende overeenkomst van de kunstobjecten met
een medisch of archeologisch voorwerp, een bewijsstuk of gevonden voorwerp,
doelt op een verwarring van vermeend helder gescheiden "domeinen". Dat
leidt tot hernieuwde overwegingen over de verschillen en gemeenschappelijkheden
van uitgangspunten.
______________________________________________________________________________________________
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