THE SOLO PROJECT 2014 – Kunstmesse in Basel

St. Jakobshalle
Brüglingerstrasse 19-21
Basel

OPENING HOURS

Wednesday June 18
Private view by invitation only,
10 am – 12 noon
General public
12 noon – 8 pm

Thursday June 19 - Saturday June 21
10 am – 7 pm

Sunday June 22
10 am – 5 pm


Hans-Christian Schink (* 1961 in Germany) photographs "special landscapes, at the intersection of human endeavor and natural conditions. It is this human interest, which constitutes the idea of 'landscape' by separating it from the surrounding territory", writes Kai Uwe Schierz.

"Can you speak less and yet tell everything at the same time?" asks Mark Siemons of the „Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung“, while Boris Hohmeyer of Germany’s leading „Art“ magazine reasons Schink’s works to be "as severe and beautiful as painted by Barnett Newman".

Schink gained renown with his "Traffic Projects". The photographs of this fascinating series were taken between 1995 and 2003. They document the modernization of East Germany, where large new infrastructures covered ancient cultural landscapes. After a well-received presentation at the Martin-Gropius-Bau in Berlin in 2004, the series was presented by museums in Europe, the USA, Japan and Latin America.

The spectacular images of Hans-Christian Schink’s portfolio "1h" are devoted to the core questions of photography – the imaging of light and time. Schink took advantage of the "true solarization" effect, described in 1857 by William Henry: If the sun is photographed with long exposure, the overexposure causes a reversal effect at the photographical negative. On the prints the sun leaves a black dot, with longer exposure times a black line. Schink experimented two years with different materials and photo technique, until he succeeded in capturing the black sun effect as well as the landscape scenery. He chose an exposure time of one hour and called his series "1h". It’s twenty-four motifs he found at all latitudes, from Spitsbergen in the north to Zanzibar at the equator to Tierra del Fuego in the deepest South of the American continent.

In 2008, he was honoured for a photograph of the series with the ING REAL Photography Award. Schink was granted with numerous other awards and scholarships, including the Villa Aurora Los Angeles (2002) and the Villa Kamogawa Kyoto (2012). By 2014, he was awarded the scholarship of the Villa Massimo in Rome.

At „The Solo Project“ we will show works from his „Traffic Projects“ series and out of the portfolio "1h".

Axel Anklam’s sculptures fascinate with clarity and power. Vibrant and calmly floating parts follow each other and create shapes full of tension. Preferably, the artist uses transparent or opaque materials: stainless steel mesh, epoxy, latex. Shimmering surfaces cover metallic carcasses. Even small changes of light and atmosphere create new expressions.

The majority of the artist's sculptures use harmonic structures based on selected sound sequences. To transfer them to the proportions of the supporting elements, Anklam brings to action a monochord, an ancient one-string instrument already applied by Pythagoras. Other series of works are inspired by landscape formations.

Axel Anklam was born in 1971. He apprenticed as a blacksmith, became master craftsman, worked as a restorer at the Sanssouci Palace and trained at the Centro Europeo di Venezia. In 1998 he enrolled at the HfKD Giebichenstein art school. He began studying sculpture, and completed his studies at the University of the Arts Berlin in 2004. In the same year Anklam's first sculptures were installed in public spaces - in Berlin and Bangkok. More sculptures followed in Japan, France, Spain and in several German cities. In 2006 the Berlin University of the Arts awarded him a master student’s fellowship.

In 2010 Anklam was honoured with the Ernst Rietschel Art Prize and the Gerlinde Beck Award for Sculpture; in the same year the State Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart appointed him to teach as visiting professor. 2013 he participated in the Venice Biennale and won two art in architecture competitions for the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research.