Künstlerhaus Bethanien

Founded in 2002, Network Baltic is an international network of artists and art institutions from the Baltic region concentrating on the genre of graphic art. Network Baltic combines real and virtual exhibitions, and since 2002 it has been organising a regular programme of workshops, seminars, publications and exhibitions which will be continued until 2005.
In Studio 238, Künstlerhaus Bethanien - one of Network Baltic's partner institutions - is now showing works by artists who have received awards within the context of the network. Selected artworks by the prize-winners Märit Aronsson (Norway), Patricija Brekte (Latvia) and Caroline Lund (Germany) are complemented with works by the second prize-winners from Germany, Klaus Jörres and Vlado Velkov.
In addition, in the run-up to the exhibition opening there will be lectures by qualified experts on various models of private art promotion by business concerns. The participants will include Anders Ström (project director Grafikens Hus, Mariefred), Elfriede Buben (Philip Morris Art Promotion, Munich) and Dr. Ilona Muráti-Laebe (Schering Foundation, Berlin).
(Lectures will be given in English, entrance free of charge: Thursday 11th December 2003, 4 - 7 p.m., club room in the administration area of the Künstlerhaus, 3rd floor.)

The illustration shows a work by Klaus Jörres.

Opening times of the exhibition: see right

Heman Chong's new series of works The Silver Sessions represents a change in direction for the artist's multidisciplinary oeuvre. A dialogue with the recipient is developed by means of seven individual objects; Heman Chong conveys the sense of being tied to a specific time, the transitory quality of the working situation that he experienced during his twelve months as an artist in residence in Berlin. Each individual work is devoted to a quite different aspect of the temporary role of an artist in residence: they are about initiation and insight, about flaws in the institutional system, or they document the artistic consequences of working with worn-out computer equipment. After the installation by the Swiss artist duo Relax in November, the state and status of the institution itself is once again examined. Heman Chong, an expert in analysing and undermining institutional expectations of art and artists, requestions the position and function of the artistic calling within society.

Louise Paramor's exhibition "Off-cuts" is a project using remains of material from her previous exhibition "forever yours", transposing these into a new, abstract, self-contained creative process. Scraps of paper left over in the production of earlier collages are transformed into "speed collages" or "blind collages" – as the artist herself characterises these works. The outcome – within the limitations of the picture format for hanging – is determined almost exclusively by the raw materials.

Gerson Bettencourt Ferreira combines the subjective perspective of portrait analysis with elements of social research. He himself refers to his method as "empathic". But what emerges from this "empathy and understanding" is a representative aesthetic sample of life in Berlin sport clubs.

The individual and group portraits are not only a reflection of the individual protagonists, but also of the details and peculiarities involved in popular sport. "Bettencourt Ferreira's pictures return to us an element of metropolitan originality in images demonstrating marvellous humanity and a pleasing lack of irony. Against the harried optimism of the winners, he sets tiny nuances of an individuality that is open to play and to critical analysis. No trace of the conventional image." (Christoph Tannert, catalogue)