DISSIDENTS, Group Show opening April 12th

The ongoing economic crisis and the rise of all kinds of populism in Europe demonstrate a dangerous backlash in 21st century history; meanwhile extreme industrialization, mass production & over consumption has led global warming to break all records. Quarrels over diminishing but vital natural resources and shrinking living space may well be the cause of future conflicts. However fucked up the situation our world is facing right now, there is still hope. To keep faith, we need to remember people’s abilities to protest and to resist. Protest is when I say this does not please me. Resistance is when I ensure what does not please me occurs no more. From the Arab Spring to the Occupy movement, the eastern and western worlds have both lately shown the capability to fight against establishment. Protest always starts in the streets, and so often does art. The street is a mixture of languages and a hotchpotch of voices, where the pictograms of road signs and the surreal messages written by street artists live side by side, and where the simple commercial communication runs up against the political. To the careful observer the street makes visible the underlying noise of our society.

By acknowledging the social and political unrest of our time, OPEN WALLS Gallery cordially invites you as we debut DISSIDENTS, a group show. A dissident, broadly defined, is a person who actively challenges an established doctrine, policy, or institution. Using the urban landscape as a playground, seeking truth and raising awareness, the artists that we have chosen for this show strive for non-conformity and create work representative of both political and social opposition, making them pioneers of dissident activity.

Join us on Friday April 12th in Stattbad Berlin as we contribute to the social strife of 2013 with works by:

BR1 - By ripping off advertisements from billboards or giving a new face to Muslim women BR1 is fighting the hegemonic policing of sense imposed by late capitalism . The point is to fight hegemonic ideas and to give back the public space to the public. His aim is to give social and cultural functions to billboards which, while lacking those, are imposed to society. Portraying veiled woman in their daily life, BR1 challenges the ideological isolation of the veil.

JUST – Just’s photographic work is a journey. He studied photography in Scotland where he also worked as a picture framer while taking photos of the punk- and squatter scenes that he was part of. One scene led to another, and Just then went on to focus on the graffiti and street art cultures. American photojournalist, Martha Cooper has it: “Just’s breathtaking photos are dramatic documents of daring graffiti artists in action. Through them you can vicariously experience the danger and thrills of rooftop writing.”

ALIAS - Rather than directly dealing with war or politics, Alias is focusing on how individuals are personally affected by their environment. It is like zooming on individuals and seeing things on their scale; zooming in on children in particular and observing how they experience that world and context they live in. There is a lot of compassion in Alias’ work as he delicately infiltrates the urban environment to reveal the existence of loneliness and personal crisis behind a larger catastrophe.

EMESS - Confronting the viewer with issues that would rather be swept under the rug, Emess’ work is most often motivated by political questions, for which there are perhaps no clear answers or solutions but that need to be addressed. The use of humor and his sense of aesthetics catch the viewer off guard for a moment allowing attention to be drawn to the subject. Emess sees no difference between the street or the gallery space, his work is designed to reach an audience and adapts itself to the situation.

VERMIBUS – Berlin based artist Vermibus regularly collects advertising posters from the streets, using them in his studio as the base material for his work. There, a process of transformation begins. Using solvent, he brushes away the faces and flesh of the models appearing in the posters as well as brand logos. Once the transformation is complete, he then reintroduces the adverts back into their original context, hijacking the publicity, and its purpose.

GIACOMO SPAZIO - Pioneer of the Italian Street Art movement, Spazio’s iconography is borrowed from fanzines of the 1970s and 1980s, from punk graphics and the album covers of those years, from documents of the underground scene and artistic-musical performances, from photos taken from publications, magazines, and daily newspapers. The mind immediately races to the silk screens of Andy Warhol and Pop Art, but it is only a superficial evocation because Spazio goes well beyond, making his own the practice of incursion and theft typical of the punk who uses information and images from the media and propose them with an ironic and desecrating, cynical and subversive intention.

NEGATIVE VIBES – Self made, street taught, Negative Vibes delivers a great deal of gravity through his existentialist and symbolic imagery.

Exhibition on display: Saturday April 13th - Saturday May 11th
Opening hours: Thursdays to Saturdays, from 15:00 to 20:00
Press & Private View: by invitation only, Friday April 12th
Vernissage: Friday April 12th from 20:00 onwards
Admission: €5 Free for Gallery members & clients

STATTMARKT - AN ART MARKET IN THE BATH

STATTMARKT 2012 is an Art only edition, featuring designated artist project spaces combined with a commercial element. Each space will be individually curated presenting a twist to the traditional art market format & resulting in the most diverse array of artists to be showcased in STATTBAD Wedding to date. Works range from Leipzig-based duo DOPPELDENK whose art recourse to traditional visual media and iconographies to capture the dimensions of moral and ethical conflicts in a globalized world, to Berlin Urban Art legends ALIAS & ANTON UNAI using mostly found objects, or “golden garbage” salvaged from the streets of Berlin as a medium to bring street art inside the gallery, through to the colorful world of GIACOMO SPAZIO whose paintings take inspiration from pop culture and visuals associated with punk music.

Project Space highlights will include a large installation by MARKUS MAI & MORITZ ARNOLD whose experiments use movement and light to define space. It draws on basic physical forces and elementary characteristics of the materials used. Through the collaboration of several factors like kinetics, velocity and mirroring an architectural aspect comes into being. The installation understands itself at the same time as an investigation and its own result.

Berlin-based artist VERMIBUS ‘borrows’ advertising posters from the streets, using them as a base material in his studio where a process of transformation begins. Kate Moss is the subject of his latest body of work.

SP38 usually paints like a human color copy machine, mixing silkscreen and paint, rabbits and urban poetry, he has become a master in the field of play on words and provocative sentences. «Vive la Crise» or “Vive La Bourgeoisie” are SP38’s trademarks. At STATTMARKT, SP38 will unveil his latest series of pop-surrealist paintings.

YZ primarily works as a painter producing artworks on kraft paper that can be put on city walls like posters. She is also a photographer and a video artist and she combines these medias to create multi-dimensional projects. Her art is centered on the question of humanity and authenticity in the context of a modern metropolis. Her work has been recently exhibited at the Fondation Cartier & the Grand Palais in Paris.

BR1 is an Italian artist fighting the hegemonic policing of sense imposed by late capitalism by ripping off advertisements from billboards or giving a new face to Muslim women. His works are designed to transmit a social message and bring collective awareness. The point is to fight hegemonic ideas and to give back the public space to the public. With his colorful images and comics-to-pop-inspired portrait, BR1 makes the city more livable and harmonious. His aim is to give social and cultural functions to billboards which, while lacking those, are imposed to society

Thomas “MAROK” Marecki founded the pop culture magazine Lodown in 1995. In addition to his work as publisher and creative director of Lodown magazine, MAROK realized personal and social art and design projects worldwide. In his installment, MAROK likes to create a parallel approach to common things, to link and connect things which are otherwise considered disparate elements, and thus creating a present that is both absurd and real - just like today’s reality.

EMESS, whose work is most often motivated by political questions, will join forces this time with STEPHEN HIAM to execute a performance resulting in abstract expressionistic artworks leaving the interpretation of their meaning open to the mind of their viewers.

Integrating various techniques and influences, the art of BLO is a smart balance between illustration and painting, earning him respect from the graffiti community as well as recognition in the contemporary art world, allowing him to display his work in prestigious venues such as Le Grand Palais in Paris.

Berlin Graffiti king, PROST, whose bold visual statements on society are a crime to miss, is most recognized for his Prostie smileys, but as the artist likes to say, “I’m always and never the same”, expect the unexpected!

KEN is a Berlin-based street artist that has walked the walk. Starting from small scale, on the street he has gone all the way to complicated monumental Stencils. He uses dark nuclear graphics that create a sensation of their own.

Last but not least, any urban art exhibition happening in Berlin wouldn’t be complete without the insiders photos from Berlin based Artist, Blogger and Photographer: JUST. His breathtaking photos are dramatic documents of daring graffiti artists in action. Through them you can vicariously experience the danger and thrills of rooftop writing.

STATTMARKT will feature a total of 15 dedicated project spaces, allowing artists & galleries, to exhibit their work in their chosen surroundings. This year STATTMARKT also teamed up with STATTLAB, our in-house independent print studio, and will be releasing a series of affordable limited edition prints that can be purchased directly from the fair. 

Admission* to STATTMARKT is €5 from Thursday to Sunday and €10 including entrance to the after show party, which takes place on December 1st from 22:00 onward. * 3€ (under 25 years-old visitors, job seekers & students)

Artists Showcased at STATTMARKT 2012
YZ, BR1, JUST, ALIAS, ANTON UNAI, VERMIBUS, MAROK, DOPPELDENK, MARKUS MAI & MORITZ ARNOLD,  SP38, BLO, PROST, KEN, EMESS, STEPHEN HIAM, GIACOMO SPAZIO, ELIOT

Galleries & Media Exhibiting at STATTMARKT 2012
OPEN WALLS, ATM, RIOT ARTS, LODOWN MAGAZINE

VISITING
Saturday 1st -­ Sunday 16th December 2012
STATTBAD Wedding, Gerichtstr. 65, 13347 Berlin
U6 (Wedding) + S-Bahn (Wedding or Humbolthain)

VERMIBUS Prints @ Jealous Gallery

This October Jealous has been be collaborating with urban contemporary art fair Moniker Projects to create a number of screenprints, which have be printed live during the fair. Visitors have been able to see exactly how the screen printing process is done and meet the artists behind each exciting new screen print we will be printing during the fair.

At Moniker, Jealous has released an exclusive VERMIBUS 4 color screenprint on somerset paper (75 x 55cm). This is an edition of 25 prints at 225£ each. Hurry up to buy yours before they’re all gone!

Jealous Gallery and Print Studio are dealers and publishers of limited edition prints. Since its opening in September 2008 its changing program of exhibitions has featured prints by emerging and established artists from varied schools, movements and styles. Alongside its print program, Jealous also curate installations, exhibitions of original painting and drawing and photography shows. Jealous also awards an annual Graduate print prize, accompanied by a large scale exhibition of the winners work.

From its brand new studio in the heart of Shoreditch, Jealous prints offers a fine art screen printing service and top level archival inkjet editioning for galleries and artists alike. With state of the art working space for proofing and printing editions we work with upcoming artists to create unique Jealous print editions, many of which have already sold out.

More information can be found at www.jealousgallery.com  & www.jealousprints.com.

OPEN WALLS at MONIKER ART FAIR 2012

VERMIBUS featured in FINANCIAL TIMES

” Go forth and multiply.

The most expensive and venerable art may be at Frieze but the best back stories are at Moniker. Now in its third year, the fair that started as a showcase for street art has evolved into a vitrine for, in the words of co-director Kristophe Hofford, “contemporary artists with urban roots”. The result is an assembly united by a desire to rebel. A century after Duchamp, one might argue that a longing to conform would be the mark of a truly revolutionary artist. Nevertheless, several of Moniker’s gang genuinely stray into uncharted and sometimes perilous territory.

Take Vermibus, the 25-year-old Majorca-born artist who shows with Open Walls Gallery in Berlin. Using a set of skeleton keys, he unlocks the vitrines protecting glossy fashion posters and dissolves the models’ contours with white spirit.”

Words: Rachel Spence in Financial Times October 13 / October 14 2012

Vermibus Poster Stolen in London (Shoreditch)

Vermibus - The Sting from Vermibus on Vimeo.

If you happen to pass by some of Vermibus’s posters in London, enjoy it while it last because it’s not gonna be long until they disappear. In Shoreditch (East London) it took just a few hours for someone to come with a hammer, smash the glass and steal the art.

Join us with VERMIBUS at MONIKER ART FAIR 2012

Berlin most wanted adbuster VERMIBUS will reveal his new body of work in London this week at MONIKER ART FAIR. This year’s event will see trademark ‘artist project spaces’ fully cultivated to create an experiential showcase of cutting edge contemporary art.

2011 affirmed MONIKER position as London’s must see multidisciplinary event within the alternative contemporary art world. With thousands of visitors flocking to the prime East London location, from collectors to art enthusiasts – Moniker affirmed its popularity across the contemporary art spectrum. This year’s event will take place from October 11–14, 2012 to once again coincide with London’s foremost international art event, Frieze. This week sees the global art community descend on the UK capital and provides Moniker with the perfect launchpad from which to propound a fresh and exciting alternative to its counterparts.

Moniker 2012 will be the boldest and most ambitious undertaking yet. Each individually curated project space will provide an opportunity for artists to showcase work that might otherwise transcend their everyday practice. This compelling facet of Moniker will emphasise the individual capacity of each chosen artist in a setting beyond that of most conventional contemporary art galleries. We hope you enjoy this years event and look forward to meeting you in London this week.

Moniker Art Fair 2012 

Moniker Art Fair, the event that put East London on the art map, returns to Shoreditch. Now in its third year, Moniker is firmly established as London’s alternative art event during Frieze week, attracting some of the most renowned and talked about artists and galleries from the cutting edge of the contemporary art market and the finer side of the street art movement.

Moniker Art Fair Trailer 2012 from Owen McGonigle on Vimeo.

This year Moniker is an installation based only edition, featuring designated artist project spaces combined with a commercial element, presenting a twist to the traditional art fair format. OPEN WALLS will proudly represent Vermibus for his first appearance in London.

SAVE THE DATE!