Leslie Bauer/ Daniel Eyrich / Carolin Liebl & Nikolas
Schmid-Pfähler/ Stephanie Kayß / Dominik Keggenhoff /
Jaewon Kim / Marc Krause / Tom Król / Daisy von Mitzlaff /
Sertan Satan / Johanne Schröder / Rudi Weissbeck /
Malte Zenses
For the first time, artistic positions of graduates of the Hochschule für Gestaltung (HfG) Offenbach will be publicly shown in an institutional setting. The exhibition of the year 2017 from the field of art forms the prelude to a long-term series in which the works of graduates of the HfG Offenbach in a public exhibition will be shown alternately in different locations each year.
HfG Offenbach stands for an all-round artistic training based on the teachings of the Bauhaus and is consciously positioned between and within the arts: a methodology that more than adequately responds to the changing contemporary context, which currently includes post-medial, hybrid and digital approaches. Dissolving boundaries between the diverse artistic media and genres as well as augmenting the latter are topics discussed from the first semester onwards and on a regular basis.
The stimulating, trend-setting and exploratory character of the works on show reflects the open, modular curriculum at HfG Offenbach. A recurrent topic in many of the exhibited works is how they combine organic and technological elements. By drawing on natural themes including plant growth, gardens and landscapes, as well as indirectly referencing scientific experimental setups time and again, the young artists create systems that are often open-ended and process-driven.
Working with a very broad range of media, the works on show generate landscape-like and architectural spaces that oscillate between the abstract and the figurative. The artists nudge us into considering ourselves in relation to these spaces as they unfurl – sometimes even within ourselves, our mind’s eye or subconscious.
In the works on show, the perceptual mode through which the artists contemplate themselves as individuals and their environment challenges more than just our sense of seeing. The media often report a shift in favor of a purportedly chiefly visually-based perception and increasingly virtual and fast-paced realities, yet the young artists in the show clearly reject the notion – by offering an explicitly multi-sensorial experience. Their paintings and sculptures, videos, performances and photographs intensify and irritate our everyday understanding of what and how we hear and feel - at times even what we smell, taste or intuit.
On the occasion of the opening, State Secretary Patrick Burghardt and the President of the HfG Offenbach Prof. Bernd Kracke will give a short welcoming speech.
