ArtNews writing about Albrecht Becker at the Independent New York

Image: Albrecht Becker, 1979, untitled, 20.5x18.5cm, Copyright Hervé Joseph Lebrun, Courtesy Delmes & Zander

Claire Selvin writing for ArtNews about Albrecht Becker at the Independent New York

(...) Becker, who became a celebrated set designer in Germany following World War II, took hundreds of performative self-portraits over the course of 40 years, beginning in the early 1930s. The images, which function as meditations on the artist’s body and sexuality, often incorporate illusionistic elements and techniques like mirrors, photographic duplication, multiple-exposure, and collage. Having frequently utilized the transformative powers of make-up, costume, and decoration in his work, Becker, who died in 2002, is considered in the vanguard of art involving body modification.

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Albrecht Becker / VICE

Tim Geyer writing about Albrecht Becker for Vice Magazine "Albrecht Becker survived WWII to become a pioneering photographer"

"Becker was proud of his sexuality, his body and his experiments, even those that failed – including one that left his penis permanently disfigured. This is one of the reasons the art world has rediscovered his work. From the 7th to the 10th of March, 2019, Becker's photographs will be shown at the Independent Art Fair in New York"

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www.vice.com

Jesuys Crystiano at the Fundação Arpad Szenes – Vieira da Silva in Lisboa.

 

Jesuys Crystiano in the exhibition "Lusofolia. Insane Beauty", curated by Antonio Saint Silvestreat at Fundação Arpad Szenes – Vieira da Silva in Lisboa.

Jesuys Crystiano is shown in the exhibition "Lusofolia. Insane Beauty", curated by António Saint Sivestre at at Fundação Arpad Szenes - Vieira da Silva in Lisboa, opening on the 21st of March. With works from the Treger Saint Silvestre art collection the exhibition is organized in partnership with the Centro de Arte Oliva in São João da Madeira.

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“Art Brut”, the last artistic discovery of the 21st century, is the fad of biennials, museums and international art fairs, but it is yet to become popular in our country.

Portuguese “Art Brut” authors still live in “terra incognita”, apart from Jaime Fernandes, and for that reason we have decided to assemble about twenty “Brut” artists from the Portuguese-speaking world, bringing Portugal, Brazil and Angola together, and introducing them collectively for the first time.

The starting point will be Jaime Fernandes (1900-1969), the Portuguese artist from Covilhã who was committed to Miguel Bombarda Hospital, where he created his work, which is part of all international “Art Brut” collections.

Unfortunately, few pieces by this artist are left in Portugal, some in the Gulbenkian Foundation collections, others in our own collection, and some pieces still in in the hands of private collectors.

We will also introduce works by Portuguese artists Manuel Bonifácio, who lives in London, siblings Manuel and Ana Carrondo, Jaime Fernandes, Daniel Gonçalves, Ti Guilhermina, Rui lourenço, Carlos Victor Martins, Artur Moreira, José Ribeiro, Serafim Barbosa, Brazilian artists Albino Braz, Jesuys Crystiano, Evaristo Rodrigues, Marilena Pelosi, Camilo Raimundo and José Teófilo Resende, alongside precious drawings by unknown Angolan artists. It is the third time that the Arpad Szenes-Vieira da Silva Foundation has the audacity to host exhibitions from Centro de Arte Oliva, Treger/Saint Silvestre Collection, the only museum dedicated to this artistic field in the Iberian Peninsula.

António Saint Silvestre

Read more about TSS Collection and Fundação Arpad Szenes – Vieira da Silva 

"Outliers and American Vanguard Art" at Lacma, Los Angeles

Type 42 (Anonymous), Ava Gardner, mixed media on photography, 1960s-1970s, 8,3 x 10,8 cm

Type 42, Morton Bartlett and Eugene von Bruenchenhein are part of the show "Outliers and American Vanguard Art", curated by Lynne Cooke at LACMA, Los Angeles until March 17, after it was shown in the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. in 2018.

LACMA hosts the West Coast presentation of Outliers and American Vanguard Art, the first major exhibition to explore key moments in American art history when avant-garde artists and outliers intersected, and how their interchanges ushered in new paradigms based on inclusion, integration, and assimilation. The first part of the exhibition illustrates how the early history of American modernism, especially the first years of the Museum of Modern Art, championed folk art and self-taught artists before the ascendance of abstract expressionism. The second section begins in the late 1960s when artists affiliated with the Chicago Imagists and West Coast assemblage practices became the leading advocates for outliers and visionary artists. The third section shows the continued impact of outlier practices on contemporary art.

The exhibition features over 250 works in a range of media by more than 80 self-taught and trained artists such as Henry Darger, Sam Doyle, William Edmondson, Lonnie Holley, Greer Lankton, Sister Gertrude Morgan, Matt Mullican, Horace Pippin, Martín Ramírez, Betye Saar, Judith Scott, Charles Sheeler, Cindy Sherman, Bill Traylor, and Kara Walker.

Read more on the homepage of Lacma.

Hipkiss - Pit Land (Against Sea)

Image: Hipkiss, Capitule 11, 2018 (archive # 1139) mixed media on paper 42 x 40cm, Courtesy the artists / Delmes & Zander, Cologne 

Hipkiss

Pit Land (Against Sea)

Curated by Monika Koencke Amorosa

February 23 – March 29, 2019 

Opening: February 22, 6-9 pm

Working together as HIPKISS since their first encounter in the early 1980s, Alpha and Chris Mason (*both 1964) draw inspiration from seemingly disparate fields such as architecture, ornithology, punk, ecology, feminism, and entomology. Their work reflects a fascination with birds, landscapes (both human and natural), and the compositional elements of mathematics, a subtle balancing act between science and art. Addressing such themes as gender issues, politics, and sociology, their works are the visual transcription of a narrative born of an ongoing collaborative dialogue. Their meticulous drawing technique renders an organic texture which incorporates hidden discourses, private jokes, and fragments of the every day.

The central pillar of their latest project PIT LAND (AGAINST SEA) concerns the futility of a ‘battle’ - or even polarisation – between the two elements, both of which are fundamental and unavoidable. For this project, Hipkiss have chosen plant-inspired, rather than industrially themed motifs, including a handpicked selection of self-defensive kinds of weeds and wild plants such as Hogweed, Melancholy Thistle, Thornapple, Hedge Mustard - an instinctive response to the recent global reinforcement of patriarchy and the unpredictability of nature manifest in climate change. Using graphite, ink and gold leaf on paper, Hipkiss have opted for a vertical, totem or tower-like composition (with all its symbolism of the irrational, the man-made, the hubris that these might entail) and structured by a series of concentric elements that bring to mind the circular outlines of Robert Hooke’s 17th century microscopic observations as much as they recall the rotoreliefs of Marcel Duchamp. There is a clear homage to early botanical and natural history illustrators (Elizabeth Blackwell, Charles Plumier, Maria Merian) as well as pioneers and mavericks of photography (Anna Atkins’ cyanotype photograms and Blossfeldt's stripped-back masterpieces, for instance) – to all the women and men that freed the eye and mind to new perspectives and to new realities.

In this sense, PIT LAND (AGAINST SEA) can be seen as a response to the darkness, the misuse of power (physical, financial, political, religious) and the urge for destruction. It announces a gentler, less nihilistic revolution kindled by duality and partnership, a revolution which uses the best of humanity, male - female, dark - light, zero - sum, to conjure a new kind of strength that might restore biodiversity, the environment, and essentially dignity and equality within the human race.

The exhibition PIT LAND (AGAINST SEA) at Delmes & Zander explores the first part of the dichotomy within an extensive, ongoing project initiated by Hipkiss in 2018, and comprises 16 new works (Capitules, Instars, Imagoes).

* HIPKISS is the pseudonym of Alpha (*1964 in Widnes, UK) and Chris Mason (*1964 in Perivale, UK). The artists live and work in the south of France. Solo shows include Bulwark at The Drawing Center, New York, Drawings at INTUIT, Chicago and Mercury Springtime at John Michael Kohler Art Center, Sheboygan. Hipkiss have featured in group exhibitions at Tate Britain, London; KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin; La Maison Rouge, Paris; New Museum, New York; David Zwirner (System and Vision in collaboration with Delmes & Zander) and others. Works by Hipkiss are found in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin; Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam; FRAC Occitanie, Whitworth, Manchester and the Treger/Saint Silvestre Collection amongst others. Hipkiss are a three-time recipient of the Pollock-Krasner Award. Delmes & Zander has represented Hipkiss since 2005.
 
See more Information on delmes-zander.de

VICE writing about Albrecht Becker

Image: Albrecht Becker, untitled, 1982, Photocollage, 13 x 19 cm

VICE writing about Albrecht Becker "Wie dieser Tattoo-Pionier die Nazis überlebte und zum Body-Positivity-Symbol wurde"

 

(...) "Wenn wir heute offen über Body Positivity reden können, liegt es auch an Menschen wie Albrecht Becker. Denn geschämt hat Becker sich nie. Für nichts. Nicht für seine Sexualität. Nicht für seinen Körper. Nicht für seine Experimente – obwohl sie manchmal missglückten, eines davon entstellte seinen Penis für immer. Auch deshalb entdeckt ihn die Kunstwelt gerade wieder. Die Kölner Galerie Delmes und Zander hat Beckers Fotografien in ihr Programm aufgenommen. Und vom 7. bis 10. März hängen seine Fotos auf der "Independent"-Kunstmesse in New York."

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For more information click here: VICE

Tissue Magazine writing about Albrecht Becker

Image: Albrecht Becker, untitled, 1962, Photocollage, 19.2 x 13.2 cm, Courtesy Collection Hervé Joseph Lebrun

 

Tissue Magazine writing about Albrecht Becker "In a Pervert World"

 

On the occasion of their 30th anniversary, Delmes & Zander show one the most ruthless and uncompromising artists of German post-war history. The works of Albrecht Becker are not only impressive contemporary documents, but in the current era of ‘body shaming’ or ‘body positivity’ they are as fascinating and relevant as at the time of their creation. Comprehensive and affectionate, the Cologne gallery shows, among other works, Rosa von Praunheim’s film ‘Liebe und Leid’ about the self-proclaimed autoerotic and masochist.

When Paragraph 175 of the German Criminal Code was abolished in 1994 and homosexuality was no longer punishable in Germany after more than 100 years, Albrecht Becker already looked back on a career spanning several decades. His photographic self-portrait began in the middle of the darkest chapter in German history. Detained as a homosexual by the Nazis for three years in the fall of 1935, during World War II he pledged himself to serve on the Russian front, where he began to modify his body and discover his lust for pain. As an award-winning production designer of the post-war era, he provocatively pushed artistic self-staging to the extreme, staging his tattooed body and his sexuality uncompromisingly in hundreds of pictures over four decades.

As the protagonist, director and cinematographer of his works, he uses his own body as a canvas and places himself in carefully composed flm sets. The contrast between Becker’s appearance as an elegant gentleman and his accidental and intentional body transformations and erotic depictions creates a special charm. Accentuated by experimental post-production techniques, Becker’s work addresses the themes of time, sexuality and fetishism, often with a wink, his physical explorations and their portrayals represent a call for liberality and serenity.

Curated by Lucas Foletto Celinski, the exhibition Albrecht Becker – Libidinal Motion continues until February at Delmes & Zander, Lindenstraße 20, in Cologne. In March, Delmes & Zander will present Albrecht Becker in a solo exhibition at Independent Art Fair in New York City.

Click here for the Article In a Pervert Word


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Tissue Magazine