GlogauAIR seemed quiet during these first months of 2021. If one paid close attention however, a rumor could be heard through the walls: the resident artists who kept on creating despite these odd winter times.
Lockdown and current adversities have led all of us to develop and embrace new methodologies. In relation to art, some people have been able to acquire more detailed, profound and deep investigations in materials, texts and techniques. Others have experienced a multiplication of references, their nodes and points of interest have grown and are now connecting dots in order to create unique compositions. Most of us could not carry out our hopes and plans for these last months; pieces and projects had to be changed and we had to find new ways to create.
A common ground in these strange experiences has been the change of rhythm and the resignification of spaces. The reclusion has become a frame in time to integrate the process of creation in a more intimate and individualized way. During this term, these changes have been specially present at GlogauAIR, and every day we looked for new ways to stay connected, to keep on creating and to share the gap in space and time that is GlogauAIR. In a context where everything seems to be either black or white, the team and artists have been working on finding the grey areas in between.
Adi Oz-Ari played and experimented with a range of new mediums: working with printing, collage and superposition of image techniques, both analogue and digitally. Using color to work around the concept of pain and illness she has been able to develop a body of work on two dimensions full of material and deepness. The unique combination of colours and textures results in a perfect match for screen-tired eyes.
Yves Hänggi, the author of this catalogue cover, has brought the streets of the Berlin we all knew inside GlogauAIR’s walls. He combines colours, materials and inspirations which he gathers from the city and then transforms into striking illustrations. His works show maze forms, humanly figures and bizarre scenarios full of layers of meaning.
The abstraction ambiguity and undefinition of the ink works by Lucas Ngo can also be seen in his pencil drawings that represent the body and human forms. He uses both techniques to come up with fluid images that represent his imagination. We will have the pleasure to have Ngo continue his residency program and research process in GlogauAIR during the next residency term.
The recent incorporation of our on-line residency program has allowed us to reach artists who could not join us in Berlin. We had the pleasure of having Julia Hannafin, a writer based in Los Angeles, as this term’s online resident. During this time she has been able to connect with Berlin and the onsite residents through a creative writing process in which their words have travelled to Hannafin’s interpretation. The result is a compelling of pseudo-fiction imaginaries that allow her to feel closer to the shared experience that is an artist residency. At the same time, she has continued to work on her “Novella in progress”.
The projects we had the pleasure to discover, follow and curate during these last three months are individual paths of creation that have been materialized in many different formats and ways of expression: from sculpture installations to illustration and collage our resident artists found a way to express themselves and keep on researching and developing their projects.
In an effort to support our resident artists, GlogauAIR gave all it has to facilitate different platforms in which those projects could be shown. Our already established Virtual Open Studios welcomes people from around the world to get in contact with the resident artist and their work. The physical installations in the artist studios we have been offering since the beginning of the residency and the Showcase that passers-by have been enjoying weekly, are some of the resources GlogauAIR had the satisfaction to share with the artists who were part of the program this term.
In these physical and cyber-spaces what was created in the intimacy of a studio gets revealed and opened up to the world to be discovered, enjoyed and questioned.
Curatorial Team Laura Olea López, Maria G. Latorre, Ana Ferrand
