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.
____________________________________________________________________________________________
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
________________________________________________________________
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.
______________________________________________________________________________________________
|