Past Residents
Past Resident2011: LETO Gallery
Radek Szlaga
Radek Szlaga explores marginal topics and trash baroque aesthetics in his painting. The grotesque universe he creates is without boundaries between the aesthetic and historical orders. His work is a constant quest for new solutions where anything can happen. In his work, the simplicity of naive painting meets the philosophy of Jean Baudrillard, the magical thinking of Carlos Castaneda, and a topos of the total reproduction of reality from Borges’s stories.
Radek Szlaga (born 1979, Gliwice, Poland) studied at the Academy of Fine Arts, Prague, and the Academy of Fine Arts, Poznan, Poland. Recent solo shows include Fake Fauna, Arsenal Municipal Gallery, Poznan, Poland; Dreams/Icons, The way, LETO Gallery, Warsaw; Arsenal Gallery, Bialystok, Poland; Iconoclasm, White Space Beijing; Signs of the End, Alexander Ochs Galleries Berlin; and Freedom Club, West, The Hague. Group exhibitions include Where to Go? Notes on Transformation after 1989, < rotor >, Graz, Austria; Le coeur est un chasseur solitaire, Gare Saint Sauveur, Lille, France; They don’t know why but they keep doing it, Waterside Contemporary, London; 14th Vilnius Painting Triennial: False Recognition, Contemporary Art Centre, Vilnius. Since 2007 he has been a member of the artistic group PENERSTWO.
Radek Szlaga, Fake Fauna, 2010, Wood, fur, plaster, and slide projections, Dimensions variable. Courtesy of the artist.
Radek Szlaga, Fake Fauna 02, 2010, Wood, fur, plaster, and slide projections, Dimensions variable. Courtesy of the artist.
Radek Szlaga, Fake Fauna 05, 2010, Wood, fur, plaster, and slide projections, Dimensions variable. Courtesy of the artist.
Radek Szlaga, Signs of the End, 2010, Video installation. Courtesy of the artist.
Past Resident2012: Bunka-cho - Agency for Cultural Affairs, Government of Japan
Motoko Dobashi
By means of different media, including wall paintings, drawings and prints, Motoko Dobashi creates imaginary landscapes that reflect visions of contemporary society. In her work elements from the graphic art of various cultures and eras coexist on a monochrome surface. The source for her inspiration can be found in Rennaissance copperplate engravings as well as in contemporary Japanese Mangas, computer graphics and images from the internet. Dobashi makes use of diverse perspectives to establish a unique visual perception, and allow the viewer to access fictitious worlds, particularly in her site-specific wall paintings.
Motoko Dobashi (born 1976, Tokushima, Japan) lives and works in Munich and Berlin. She studied painting at the Musashino Art University, Tokyo, and the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich. She has exhibited nationally and internationally, including Lenbachhaus, Munich; Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin; and Tokyo Wonder Site. She is represented by Gallery Dina4 Projekte, Munich, Lullin + Ferrari, Zurich, and Galerie Laurent Mueller, Paris, and her work is included in major public and private collections.
Motoko Dobashi, Roots, 2010, Acrylic on wall , 125 × 215 × 476 in. (317.5 × 546.1 × 1209.04 cm). Courtesy of the artist and Tokyo Wonder Site, Tokyo.
Motoko Dobashi, The Folded Hut, 2011 , Acrylic and poster print on wall, 97 × 546 × 136 in. (246.38 × 1386.84 × 345.44 cm). Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Laurent Mueller, Paris.
Motoko Dobashi, Riverside, 2009 , Acrylic on paper, 65/8 × 133/16 in. (16.76 × 33.53 cm). Courtesy of the artist.
Motoko Dobashi, Tower of Straw, 2009, Adhesive foil on window, photocopy and acrylic on wall and wood, 531/2 × 531/2 × 427/8 in. (135.89 × 135.89 × 108.97 cm). Courtesy of the artist and Gallery Dina4 Projekte, Munich.
Motoko Dobashi, Spores, 2009 , Photocopy and acrylic on wall, 117 × 156 × 78 in. (297.18 × 396.24 × 198.12 cm). Courtesy of the artist and Gallery Lullin + Ferrari, Zurich.
Past Resident2012: Akio Tagawa
Mono Schwarz-Kogelnik
Mono Schwarz-Kogelnik explores issues of perception and phenomenology within visual art. He investigates these issues through a variety of media including sculpture and drawing. Schwarz-Kogelnik questions the different values that art institutions and the art market place on works and analyzes how viewers relate to them. His work is a meditation on the values of uniqueness, authorship, originality, objecthood and labor within art, probing the differences between experiencing art directly and through mediated reproductions.
Mono Schwarz-Kogelnik (born 1967, London) currently lives and works in New York City. He studied philosophy at the University of Chicago and Kings College, London, holds an M.Arch from the Southern California Institute of Architecture and an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts.
Mono Schwarz-Kogelnik, Urtypes of Threat, 2002, Mixed media, installation with four 60 x 84 in. digital C prints, mercury vapor lights and low frequency sound, Dimensions variable. Courtesy of the artist.
Mono Schwarz-Kogelnik, X90 Project, 2010-2012, Mixed media, 22 × 30 in. (55.88 × 76.2 cm). Courtesy of the artist.
Mono Schwarz-Kogelnik, Orb, 2003, Mixed media with Xerox toner, 36 × 60 × 9 in. (91.44 × 152.4 × 22.86 cm). Courtesy of the artist.
Mono Schwarz-Kogelnik, Plato’s Ring, 2002, Mixed media with high voltage high frequency generator, 48 × 48 × 12 in. (121.92 × 121.92 × 30.48 cm). Courtesy of the artist.
