Our world consists of an infinite number of things, of an infinite variety of materials. Almost all these materials can be used in artworks. But how can we find the right material, how can we establish a sustainable relationship with this material? This is the question participants in Yorgos Sapountzis’s course will explore.
Starting by reconnoitring the space, in short performative exercises they will make a study of diverse materials with which they have already worked or new ones they wish to investigate. What is my relationship with the space I’m working in? How do I find “my” material? How do I establish a relationship with it? By means of these and similar questions, the participants will discover their “own” material and establish with it a relationship that enables them to employ it creatively.
The aim of the course is for participants to develop their personal material world, thus learning how to express exactly what they wish to say. Participants will work on their own projects as well as in the group. Group work will focus on questions of the body – their own, and that of the work going on in the room.
The course concludes with the final presentation, which will be prepared collaboratively.
Yorgos Sapountzis, born in Athens, in 1976, lives and works in Berlin. Sapountzis’s multi-media work engages both public and private spaces, taking often as his starting point public monuments and everyday images, objects that represent some aspect of collective and personal memory. At the core of most of his works are sculptural installations that employ such materials as aluminium sheets and rods, brightly-coloured fabric, pins, knots and straps. The daily encounter with the materials and objects he comes across in his routes reconstructs within the works the scenography of a city. Buildings, machines, bodies – all generate power, heat; only the fluidity of the memories rescues his personal narrative. The closed nervous system of the city with the countless images in high resolution is dominant and imposing. Within this inhospitable condition, the abstract precedes as an imperative need.
Solo exhibitions
2017 Nacktes Erbe: Die Äpfel, Barbara Gross Galerie, Munich (DE). 2016 Yorgos Sapountzis: ATM (…songs about love and death), Eleni Koroneou Gallery, Athens. 2015 Übersetztes Handbuch “weich und hart” – Duo- Exhibition with Benedikt Rugar, Prince of Wales, Munich. 2014 Die Landschaften Griechenlands, Barbara Gross Galerie, Munich. Athens Screens, Eleni Koroneou Gallery, Athens. 2013 Freymond-Guth fine Arts, Zurich (CH). The Protagonists, Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol (UK). Urnerknabe am Schaufenster/ Empathie, Kunsthaus Glarus, Glarus (CH). Schinken und Käse, Kunsthalle Lingen, Lingen (DE). 2012 Stechfliegen Festtage/The Gadfly Festival, Westfälischer Kunstverein, Münster (DE).
Group exhibitions
2017 Viva Arte Viva, 57th Biennale die Venezia, Venice (IT). PRODUKTION. made in germany drei, Kestner Gesellschaft, Kunstverein, Sprengel Museum, Hannover (DE). 2016 Idiopolis, State of Concept, Athens. The Kids Want Communism | Part 3, MoBY, Tel Aviv (IL). 2015 esse estranho, ubíquo e implacável sítio a que chamamos memória, Galeria Pedro Cera, Lisbon. wow! Woven? Entering the (sub)Textiles, Künstlerhaus Graz (AT). All Tomorrow’s Past, Kunsthaus Hamburg (DE). 2014 Glass Puzzle, Simone Subal Gallery, New York, NY (US). Inundumundumherum, Kunstverein Arnsberg, Arnsberg (DE). Common Spaces, The Kitchen, New York, NY. Future Perfect. Contemporary Art From Germany, Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw.