We encounter play in its complexity in countless aspects of life. And with play come, all by themselves, concepts such as rules, fields, movement and freedom, which define the format and mode of play. In it, our childlike capacities are reactivated: play as pleasure or pastime, measuring oneself against one’s counterpart, other identity, and the negotiation of rules. Above all, breaking rules and thus transgressing boundaries is an ideal in art, a playful method of changing or at least questioning things and the way they are viewed. In an announcement for the current volume of Kunstforum International, Art = Play, art critic Larissa Kikol speaks of art as “the better childhood” and describes “the art world as a playground.” For artists, playing and experimenting with forms, techniques, materials and themes is essential, especially since they can define the rules and fields of their work themselves. Compared to other fields or professions, they thus experience enormous freedom. With its program starting on September 6, the Goldstein Gallery will also become a playground for artists and visitors alike.
Residence and presentation Irène Gerard und Michiel de Jaeger – Les gueules cassées
Residence: September 6-15 Soft Opening: September 15, 4 – 2 p.m. Presentation: September 16-25, Wednesday-Saturday, 12-6 p.m.
Irène Gerard is an artist at La S Grand Atelier, an art center and laboratory for artists with cognitive disabilities in Vielsalm in the Belgian Ardennes. These artists are accompanied by so-called Animateurs. They are comparable to an artistic assistant, but often enter into an artistic dialogue together with the artists of Atelier La S, in order to be able to create a “third language” and thus so-called “mixed works”. One of these animators is the artist Michiel de Jaeger. During the first lockdown in 2020, together with Irène Gerard, he launched a game as an artistic method to remain in exchange and productive despite the threat of isolation.
In the mode of the cadavre exquis (a playful working method of the Surrealists who consciously wanted to relinquish control over the creation of their works), Irène Gerard and Michiel de Jaeger sent each other works on paper over a period of months, which one or the other processed. In this process, the roles of animator and artist temporarily reversed. The result was a series of works entitled “Les gueules cassées” (The Broken Faces), which will now continue in September in a joint residency and subsequent presentation at Goldstein Gallery.
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Cosplay Eden Craft
September 23, 2021, 7 pm
A game with everything you have, identity, body, role – that is cosplay. Originally from Japan, the scene has spread worldwide and differentiated enormously. Cosplayers are fans who take their cues from certain comics and stories and transform themselves into them. Eden Craft has been a professional cosplayer since 2003, in her own roles but also as a costume developer for other players. In conversation and with many examples, she provides insights into the scene and psychology of these dazzling worlds.
Moderation: Jakob Hoffmann
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Event »The Age of Neptune« What about the validity of concepts and rules of the art business?
A conversation on the concept of Outsider Art with the artist Matthias Wollgast, the art historian Michael Stockhausen and Atelier Goldstein.
September 28, 2021, 7 pm
In 2018, artist Matthias Wollgast, together with the Kunsthistorisches Institut Bonn, presented the artist Jan Usinger in exhibitions and with a monographic catalog entitled The Age of Neptune. Wollgast freely invented the figure of the so-called Outsider Art artist Jan Usinger, who is said to have lived from 1916 to 1984, and thus created the sensation of the discovery, the accompanying drama in Usinger’s life, and his coming to terms with it as an artistic work. In doing so, he also plays with a central cliché of such finds, as there have been and continue to be (e.g. Henry Darger, Miroslav Tichy, Gerard van Lankfeld, and countless more): the outsider as a misunderstood artistic genius working far from the established discourse, sometimes without awareness of his own position or career.
At Goldstein Galerie, Sophia Edschmid and Sven Fritz from Atelier Goldstein talk with Matthias Wollgast and art historian Michael Stockhausen about Jan Usinger and so-called Outsider Art as an artistic category. This collective term has been used for about 50 years to ascribe specific social characteristics to certain artists. Thus, in the consideration of their works, the context of their creation and the lives of the artists often play an overriding role. At the same time, artists at Atelier Goldstein today, for example, see themselves neither socially nor artistically as outsiders. So how do they want to be understood and labeled? And what about the validity of conceptualizations and rules of the art business in fields dominated by collectors, curators, dealers, and critics?
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Workshop Maschine ohne Ende by and with Andreas Göcke
Open workshop: 29 September – 9 October Opening hours: Wednesday-Saturday 12-6 p.m.
From September 29 to October 9, Goldstein Galerie will become a Playground, a place where visitors of all ages can playfully compete and experiment together.
Maschine ohne Ende is conceived and accompanied by Andreas Göcke, one of the founders of the live escape room Tumult in Frankfurt’s Moselstraße. Within the first four days, visitors to the workshop are to develop two twin ball tracks. One of the apparatuses will be created exclusively from standardized wooden strips and cable ties, the other from cardboard squares and hot glue. As the productivity of all participants increases, the two ball tracks will grow into the room and keep bumping into each other at crucial moments. Which path the balls take and in which form they play the machine also depends on the rules of the game and their negotiation. In the second week, passers-by and visitors are invited to activate the finished machine again and again without end, to find new modes and to sabotage them.
Über das Spielen
(About Playing)
We encounter play in its complexity in countless aspects of life. And with play come, all by themselves, concepts such as rules, fields, movement and freedom, which define the format and mode of play. In it, our childlike capacities are reactivated: play as pleasure or pastime, measuring oneself against one’s counterpart, other identity, and the negotiation of rules. Above all, breaking rules and thus transgressing boundaries is an ideal in art, a playful method of changing or at least questioning things and the way they are viewed. In an announcement for the current volume of Kunstforum International, Art = Play, art critic Larissa Kikol speaks of art as “the better childhood” and describes “the art world as a playground.” For artists, playing and experimenting with forms, techniques, materials and themes is essential, especially since they can define the rules and fields of their work themselves. Compared to other fields or professions, they thus experience enormous freedom. With its program starting on September 6, the Goldstein Gallery will also become a playground for artists and visitors alike.
Residence and presentation
Irène Gerard und Michiel de Jaeger – Les gueules cassées
Residence: September 6-15
Soft Opening: September 15, 4 – 2 p.m.
Presentation: September 16-25, Wednesday-Saturday, 12-6 p.m.
Irène Gerard is an artist at La S Grand Atelier, an art center and laboratory for artists with cognitive disabilities in Vielsalm in the Belgian Ardennes. These artists are accompanied by so-called Animateurs. They are comparable to an artistic assistant, but often enter into an artistic dialogue together with the artists of Atelier La S, in order to be able to create a “third language” and thus so-called “mixed works”. One of these animators is the artist Michiel de Jaeger. During the first lockdown in 2020, together with Irène Gerard, he launched a game as an artistic method to remain in exchange and productive despite the threat of isolation.
In the mode of the cadavre exquis (a playful working method of the Surrealists who consciously wanted to relinquish control over the creation of their works), Irène Gerard and Michiel de Jaeger sent each other works on paper over a period of months, which one or the other processed. In this process, the roles of animator and artist temporarily reversed. The result was a series of works entitled “Les gueules cassées” (The Broken Faces), which will now continue in September in a joint residency and subsequent presentation at Goldstein Gallery.
_____________
Cosplay
Eden Craft
September 23, 2021, 7 pm
A game with everything you have, identity, body, role – that is cosplay. Originally from Japan, the scene has spread worldwide and differentiated enormously. Cosplayers are fans who take their cues from certain comics and stories and transform themselves into them. Eden Craft has been a professional cosplayer since 2003, in her own roles but also as a costume developer for other players. In conversation and with many examples, she provides insights into the scene and psychology of these dazzling worlds.
Moderation: Jakob Hoffmann
_____________
Event
»The Age of Neptune«
What about the validity of concepts and rules of the art business?
A conversation on the concept of Outsider Art with the artist Matthias Wollgast, the art historian Michael Stockhausen and Atelier Goldstein.
September 28, 2021, 7 pm
In 2018, artist Matthias Wollgast, together with the Kunsthistorisches Institut Bonn, presented the artist Jan Usinger in exhibitions and with a monographic catalog entitled The Age of Neptune. Wollgast freely invented the figure of the so-called Outsider Art artist Jan Usinger, who is said to have lived from 1916 to 1984, and thus created the sensation of the discovery, the accompanying drama in Usinger’s life, and his coming to terms with it as an artistic work. In doing so, he also plays with a central cliché of such finds, as there have been and continue to be (e.g. Henry Darger, Miroslav Tichy, Gerard van Lankfeld, and countless more): the outsider as a misunderstood artistic genius working far from the established discourse, sometimes without awareness of his own position or career.
At Goldstein Galerie, Sophia Edschmid and Sven Fritz from Atelier Goldstein talk with Matthias Wollgast and art historian Michael Stockhausen about Jan Usinger and so-called Outsider Art as an artistic category. This collective term has been used for about 50 years to ascribe specific social characteristics to certain artists. Thus, in the consideration of their works, the context of their creation and the lives of the artists often play an overriding role.
At the same time, artists at Atelier Goldstein today, for example, see themselves neither socially nor artistically as outsiders. So how do they want to be understood and labeled? And what about the validity of conceptualizations and rules of the art business in fields dominated by collectors, curators, dealers, and critics?
_____________
Workshop
Maschine ohne Ende
by and with Andreas Göcke
Open workshop: 29 September – 9 October
Opening hours: Wednesday-Saturday 12-6 p.m.
From September 29 to October 9, Goldstein Galerie will become a Playground, a place where visitors of all ages can playfully compete and experiment together.
Maschine ohne Ende is conceived and accompanied by Andreas Göcke, one of the founders of the live escape room Tumult in Frankfurt’s Moselstraße.
Within the first four days, visitors to the workshop are to develop two twin ball tracks. One of the apparatuses will be created exclusively from standardized wooden strips and cable ties, the other from cardboard squares and hot glue. As the productivity of all participants increases, the two ball tracks will grow into the room and keep bumping into each other at crucial moments. Which path the balls take and in which form they play the machine also depends on the rules of the game and their negotiation. In the second week, passers-by and visitors are invited to activate the finished machine again and again without end, to find new modes and to sabotage them.