As part of the Failure series, TPR is following the work of Paris-based visual artist Veit Stratmann. Stratmann, whose work often results in proposals that purposefully cannot be realized, is studying the Italian city of L’Aquila after it was evacuated during an earthquake and never repopulated. As Veit writes in his introductory essay on the subject, L’Aquila is in a middle state, neither a ghost town nor a functioning city.
Read an introductory essay about L’Aquila on Off Paper here:
And read a follow-up essay here:
Wednesday, February 6 @ 6pm: Join us for a conversation with Veit as he shares his responses to L’Aquila and other projects in a presentation titled “Impossible Tasks.” And follow the development of Veit’s ideas through this website as the project continues.
About the Artist:
Born in Bochum (Germany), Veit Stratmann lives in Paris. Stratmann’s work essentially rests upon questioning: can an artistic gesture be based on the notions of choice, of decision-making, of the posture of those who encounter the artwork? Can this decision-making become constructive material? If political action originates in the act of making a choice, can an encounter with art generate a permanent oscillation between a political and an artistic gesture? Can an artistic gesture undo the coherence of a space without affecting its physical integrity, create a “parenthesis” or construct a loophole in its meaning in order to generate a statutory blurring? Can this statutory blur become creative matter?
The artist’s works are often site specific although he has also shown extensively in gallery and museum contexts. Drawing and writing are also ongoing areas of engagement for Stratmann as tools of projection, control and distancing. In 2004, a residency at the Atelier Calder (Saché, France) was the occasion for the artist to create a new series of objects and to integrate them with images realized in 3D. And in 2009, he realized a photographic series of ex-votos in gardens that was published as an artist book, Shrines by Les Presses du Réel.
VS has exhibited widely and internationally. At the Museum Folkwang in Essen, Fondation Serralves in Porto, Musée d’Art Contemporain du Val de Marne MAC/VAL, Vitry sur Seine (France) , Sox in Berlin, Le Centre d’Art et de Diffusion Clark in Montréal, CAPC-Musée à Bordeaux, The Project Art Centre in Dublin, The Taedok Science Town in Taejon (South Korea), LiveInYourHead-Institut Curatorial de la Haute Ecole d’Art et de Design, Geneve, L’Institut d’Art Comtemprain in Villeurbanne, The Anderson Gallery at the Virginia Commenwealth University in Richmond, Virginia, The Nevada State Museum of Art, Reno, Nevada, La Fondation Miro in Barcelone, Le Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, le Saarlandmuseum à Saarbrücken and Galerie Chez Valentin in Paris.