Allora and Calzadilla

Jennifer Allora was born in 1974 in Philadelphia, and Guillermo Calzadilla was born in 1971 in Havana. The artists live and work in San Juan, Puerto Rico and are currently DAAD scholarship holders in Berlin. Allora & Calzadilla’s work has been exhibited worldwide. Recent solo exhibitions include: Haus der Kunst Munich, 2008; Kunstverein Munich, 2008; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, 2008; Kunsthalle Zurich, 2007; Renaissance Society, Chicago, 2007; Serpentine Gallery, London, 2007; Whitechapel Art Gallery, London; 2007; San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, 2007; S.M.A.K. Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst , Ghent, Belgium, 2006; Palais de Tokyo, Paris, 2006; an
d Dallas Museum of Art, 2006.

Pawel Althamer

Paweł Althamer was born in 1967 in Warsaw, where he lives and works. Althamer studied at the Faculty of Sculpture of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw from 1988 to 1993. His works have been shown at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Tate in London and at documenta in Kassel, and at the 4th Berlin Biennial in 2006. In 2004 he received the Vincent Award in Maastricht. Althamer creates sculptures, installations, videos, and actions. His recent project The Path was realized for sculpture projects in Muenster in 2007.

Micol Assaël

Micol Assaël was born in Rome in 1979, and works between Rome, Berlin, and Moscow.  Recent solo shows include: Johann König, Berlin; Kunsthalle Basel, Basel (2007);  ZERO…, Milan (2005).  Recent group exhibitions include: 16th Sidney Biennial; KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin (2008); Hamburger Bahnohf, Berlin (2007); 4th Berlin Biennal (2006); and the 51st Venice Biennial (2005).

Fikret Atay

Fikret Atay was born in 1976 in Batman, Turkey, where he lives and works. Atay graduated from Dicle University in Diyarbakir, Turkey with a degree in Fine Arts. Atay makes videos that offer short vignettes of life in Batman, a Kurdish city near the border between Turkey and Iraq. Using a hand-held camera and natural lighting, Atay films young local residents as they perform traditional dances, assemble makeshift drum kits, and play war games. Despite the difficulties of filming in the highly charged political atmosphere of Batman, Atay’s insistence in the specificity of place gives the work a distinctive presence although the performers’ actions remain mysterious to viewers unfamiliar with the local culture.

Roger Ballen

Roger Ballen was born in New York in 1950.  Since 1982 he has been living and taking photographs in South Africa. His work is represented in many museums, including the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, Maison Europeene de la Photographie in Paris, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In 2002 he won the Photographer of the Year Award at the inaugural Rencontres d’Arle Awards. In December 2002 he had one-man shows in the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego and Gagosian Gallery in Los Angeles. Ballen’s work has been exhibited in numerous museums in Europe and the United States.

Huma Bhaba

Huma Bhabha was born in 1962 in Karachi, Pakistan and lives and works in Poughkeepsie, NY. She received an MFA in 1989 from Columbia University. This year The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum gave Bhabha their Emerging Artist Award. She has had solo exhibitions at Salon 94 and ATM Gallery in New York. Her work Bhabha’s work is included in the public collections of The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York and The Saatchi Gallery, London.

Berlinde De Bruyckere

Berlinde De Bruyckere was born in 1964 in Gent, where she lives and works.
Recently she had solo shows at Kunstmuseum, Luzern (2007), Galleria Continua, San Gimignano (2007), La Maison Rouge, Paris (2005); De Pont Stichting voor hedendaagse kunst / Foundation for Contemporary Art, Tilburg (2005); and Quadrennial 06 Artcity, Düsseldorf (2006).  Recently she has contributed to the group exhibitions Berlinde de Bruyckere,  Jenny Saville, and Dan Flavin, at Kunstmuseum Luzern (2007), “Of Mice and Men,” Berlin Biennial, (2006), ARS 06, Kiasma, Helsinki (2006) and the 50th Venice Biennial in 2003.

Maurizio Cattelan

Maurizio Cattelan was born in Padua in 1960. The Italian artist has had exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art in New York; the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris; the Museum Ludwig in Köln; the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago; the Museum für Moderne Kunst; Portikus in Frankfurt; the Fondazione Nicola Trussardi in Milan; and most recently the Kunsthaus Bregenz in Bregenz. Cattelan has participated in five editions of the Venice Biennial and in many collective exhibitions such as the Skulpturenprojekt Münster, Manifesta, and the Whitney Biennal.

William Christenberry

William Christenberry was born in 1936 in Tuscaloosa, Alabama and currently lives and works in Washington, D.C. He attended the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa, where he received BA and MFA degrees in painting (1958, 1959). Since his first solo show in 1961, Christenberry’s multimedia work has been the subject of one-person and group exhibitions in the United States and abroad. Christenberry’s work belongs to numerous collections, including the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; the High Museum of Art, Atlanta; the Menil Collection, Houston; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the National Museum of American Art, Washington, D.C.; the Milwaukee Museum of Art; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; and the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven.

Roberto Cuoghi

Roberto Cuoghi was born in Modena in 1973 and lives and works in Milan. He has been featured in many of the world’s most prominent venues of contemporary art, including the 4th Berlin Biennial (2006) and the Prague Biennale (2003), as well as major museums in Europe, and the United States. He is now having an important solo exhibition at Castello di Rivoli in Italy. Later this year, his work will be included in ‘‘Italics: Italian Art Between Tradition and Re
volution, 1968–2008’’, a monumental exhibition debuting at the Palazzo Grassi in Venice and then traveling to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. His projects have been exhibited in group shows at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris (2004), the ARC-Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (2005), the Tel Aviv Museum of Art (2007), and the Frankfurter Kunstverein in Frankfurt (2008). Major public and private collections worldwide contain his work, including the Dakis Joannou Collection, and the François Pinault Collection.

Bill Daniel

Bill Daniel was born in 1959 in Dallas, Texas and is a self-trained itinerant filmmaker and photographer. He began documenting American subcultures starting with the Texas skate/punk scene in the early 1980s. His film Who is Bozo Texino? has screened in over 300 venues. He has been a participant in the underground film scenes of San Francisco and Portland, and is currently based in Braddock, PA.  Daniel has received awards from Creative Capital, Pioneer Fund, and Film Arts Foundation, and had residencies at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and the Headlands Center for the Arts. He is currently a Guggenheim Fellow.

Nathalie Djurberg

Nathalie Djurberg was born in 1978 in Lysekil, Sweden and lives and works in Berlin.  She has had solo exhibitions at the Prada Foundation in Milan, Kunsthalle Wien in Vienna, and Färgfabriken in Stockholm. Her work has been featured at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Tate Modern in London, and Moderna Museet, Stockholm. In 2007, she was awarded a Carnegie Art Award.

Reverend Howard Finster

Howard Finster (December 2, 1916- October 22, 2001) is the creator of Paradise Gardens Park & Museum, a product of all his folk art and Chattooga County’s largest tourist attraction. He began this Paradise Gardens around 1961 before he had a vision to do sacred art. In 1976 he was rubbing paint on a bicycle with his fingers and saw the image of a face on the end of his finger. He had a vision. A voice told Howard to do sacred art. He replied that he could not do art because he was not a professional. The voice asked him repeatedly, “How do you know?” The Reverend Howard Finster has followed his vision and the image of the face on his finger has become known as his “Resting Souls” figures in his art. Hundreds of visitors come each week to wonder through the park and Howard is still there in heart and in spirit.

Nancy Graves

Nancy Graves was born in 1939 in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. In 1964 she received an MFA from Yale University and a Fullbright-Hayes Grant in Painting to study in Paris. She had solo exhibitions at The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Neue Galerie, Aachen; and Museum of Contemporary Art, La Jolla. Her work was commissioned for several institutions. Graves received honorary degrees from Yale University, Skidmore College. Nancy Graves died October 21, 1995.

Werner Herzog

Werner Herzog was born in Munich on September 5, 1942. He grew up in a remote mountain village in Bavaria and never saw any films, television, or telephones as a child. He started traveling on foot from the age of fourteen. He made his first phone call at the age of seventeen. During high school he worked the night shift as a welder in a steel factory to produce his first films, and made his first film in 1961 at the age of nineteen. Since then he has produced, written, and directed more than forty films, published more than a dozen books of prose, and directed as many operas.

Robert Kusmirowski

Robert Kusmirowski was born in 1974 in Lodz, Poland, and lives and works near the city of Lublin in southeastern Poland. Kusmirowski had his first shows in Poland in 2002. He has participated in many international exhibitions: Stockholm Art Fair 2002; Junge Scene at Secession 2003, Vienna; Le Plateau in Paris 2004; Frieze Art Fair 2004; and most recently Art Basel Miami and at Andrew Kreps Gallery in New York City, both 2005; as well as in shows in Poland, including Novart.pl 2002 in Krakow, the first Lodz Biennial in 2004, and the 4th Berlin Biennial in 2006. Kusmirowski has also had numerous solo exhibitions including the Biala Gallery in Lublin, 2002; CCA “Ujazdowski Castle” and Gallery XX1 in Warsaw, 2003; Galerie für Zeitgenoessiche Kunst, Leipzig, Germany; Kronika Gallery, Bytom; Arsenal Gallery, Bialystok; and Foksal Gallery Foundation, Warsaw, all in 2004. Currently his solo exhibition “ new” production is being shown at Kunstverein, Hamburg, Germany.

Zoe Leonard

Zoe Leonard was born in Liberty, New York in 1961. Leonard’s work has been widely exhibited since 1979 with solo exhibitions at the Centre National de la Photographie, Paris, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, Kunsthalle Basel, the Wexner Center for the Arts, Ohio, and the Fotomuseum Winterthur, Zurich. In 2007, Leonard’s series “Analogue” was unveiled at the Wexner Center for the Arts and included in Documenta XII, as well as shown at the Villa Arson in Nice. Additionally, a catalogue devoted to this ten-year project was published by MIT Press. Leonard’s work is included in numerous public collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York;  the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Tate Modern, London; and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, among many others. Most recently, the Fotomuseum Winterthur organized a survey exhibition of Leonard’s photographs, which continues to travel to MUMOK, Vienna; Reina Sofia, Madrid, and Pinakothek, Munich.  A monograph was published by Steidl on the occasion of this survey exhibition.

Klara Liden

Klara Liden was born in 1979 in Stockholm, Sweden. Her first solo show was at Kunsthalle Fridericianum, Kassel. Her work has been featured in shows around Europe and America, including: Kunsthalle Zurich, Zurich; Gagosian Gallery, New York; Moscow Biennale of contemporary art, Moscow; White Columns, New York; P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, New York; and Serpentine Gallery, London.

Erik van Lieshout

Diego Perrone

Diego Perrone was born in Asti, Italy in 1970, and currently lives and works in Asti and Milano. Perrone’s work has been exhibited worldwide, and extensively in Italy. Recent solo exhibitions include Galerie Giti Nourbakhsch, Berlin, 2008; Casey Kaplan, New York, 2008; Galerie Andreas Huber, Vienna, 2006; and Gallerie Massimo de Carlo, Milan, 2005.  Perrone’s solo museum exhibition, “La Mamma di Boccioni in ambulanza e la fusione della campana,” curated by Charlotte Laubard and Andrea Viliani, opened in May 2007 at the CAPC-Musée d’Art Contemporain, Bordeaux, France, and traveled to the MAMbo-Museo d’Arte Moderna di Bologna, Italy in December 2007. He will also participate in “Italics: Italian Art Between Tradition and Revolution, 1968­–2008” curated by Francesco Bonami and co-presented by the Palazzo Grassi, Venice in 2008 and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago in 2009.

Thomas Schütte

Thomas Schütte was born in Oldenburg, Germany in 1954 and lives and works in Düsseldorf.  He completed his education at the Düsseldorf Kunstakademie in 1981.  He is the receipient of the Kurt Schwitters Preis für Bildende Kunst der Niedersächsischen Sparkassenstiftung in 1998; Kunstpreis der Stadt Wolfsburg in 199; and the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennial in 2005. Recent solo exhibitions include: Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein in 2008; MART Roverto, Italy in 2006; Museu Serralves, Portugal in 2005; Kunstmuseum Winterthur, Switzerland in 2003; Musée de Grenoble, France and K21, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany in 2003–2004; as well as the Dia Center for the Arts, New York in 1999.

Dana Schutz

Dana Schutz was born in 1976 in Livonia, Michigan and received an MFA in 2002 from Columbia University. She has had solo exhibitions at the Rose Museum at Brandeis University, Boston, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland, SITE Sante Fe, and the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas, and has also been included in group exhibitions at the Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sammlung Goetz, Munich, the Royal Academy of Art, London, and the Museum of Modern Art, New York.  Schutz’s work is in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. She currently lives and works in Brooklyn. 

Tino Sehgal

Tino Sehgal was born in London in 1976 and currently lives in Berlin. He is the youngest artist to have represented Germany at the Venice Biennial (in 2005, together with Thomas Scheibitz). In 2006, he was nominated for the prestigious Hugo Boss Prize,  and in 2007 for the Preis der Natinalgalerie für Junge Kunst at the Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin.  He has had solo exhibitions at the Museum Moderner Kunst, Frankfurt (2007); Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (2007, 2006, 2005);  Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria (2006), Kunstverein Hamburg (2006), Serralves Foundation, Porto (2005); Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven; and Musée des Beaux-Arts, Nantes (2004). His work was included in the 4th Berlin Biennial for Contemporary Art in 2006,  and the Tate Triennial of the same year, in “Utopia Station” at the 50th Venice Biennale (2004), and in numerous group exhibitions at Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Museum Ludwig, Cologne, and ARC Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris,  amongst others. Sehgal will have solo shows at the Fondazione Nicola Trussardi in November 2008 and at the Guggenheim Museum in New York in January 2010.

August Strindberg

August Strindberg was born on January 22, 1849 and died on May 14, 1912. He was a Swedish writer, playwright, and painter. Along with Henrik Ibsen, Søren Kierkegaard, and Hans Christian Andersen he is arguably the most influential and most important of all Scandinavian authors. Strindberg is known as one of the fathers of modern theater. His work falls into two major literary movements, Naturalism and Expressionism.

Eugene Von Bruenchenhein

Eugene Von Bruenchenhein was born in Marinette, Wisconsin in 1910, a year when Halley’s Comet came back into the near solar system. His mother died when he was seven. His father, a sign painter, married again to a woman who not only wrote treatises on evolution and reincarnation, but also painted on canvas. Eugene Von Bruenchenhein married Eveline Kalke (who called herself Marie) in 1943, and a year later went to work in a commercial bakery. He stayed with the bakery until it went out of business in 1959, and then spent the rest of his life in semi-retirement. Shortly after his death in 1983, thousands of drawings and paintings were discovered in his home, along with odd floral ceramic pieces, miniature furniture and towers made from gilded chicken bones, large cement sculptures, dozens of poems and written works, and hundreds of photographs of his wife Marie in exotic costumes and settings. She and his close family had kept his immense output a secret for decades. Although his early works were more traditional depictions of flowers and landscapes, among them was found a vast series of apocalyptic finger paintings, begun in 1954 in reaction to the development of the hydrogen bomb. Later works reveal interests in evolution and the origins of life, outer space, and futuristic cities. The works of Von Bruenchenhein are represented in numerous museum collections, including: American Folk Art Museum,
New York; High Museum of Art, Atlanta; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; John M. Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, Wisconsin; Milwaukee Art Museum; New Orleans Museum of Art; Newark Museum of Art; Philadelphia Museum of Art; and Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.

Arthur Zmijewski

Artur Żmijewski was born in Warsaw in 1966. He studied at the Faculty of Sculpture of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw in the years 1990–1995 and received his diploma from the studio of Professor Grzegorz Kowalski in 1995. In 1995 he was a bursar of Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam. For the exhibition “Guarene Arte 2000” he was given the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Per L’Arte prize for the work “An Eye for an Eye.” In 2005 his Repetition was shown in the Polish Pavilion at the Venice Biennial. Żmijewski’s latest film Them was shown at documenta in Kassel in 2007. He creates installations, photographs’ objects, photographs, video realisations, and films. Żmijewski was an editor of Czereja magazine. He currently works with DAAD Artists in Residence in Berlin.