Week 1 / Course (engl.) –
Nobert Bisky

What does it mean to be a painter in 2015? Can you still trust painterly transformation? Katja Blomberg's put it into the following words: 'Bisky has lived through many of the events he paints: on the edge of the tsunami in Thailand, during the attacks on a famous Mumbai hotel or after the sudden death of his younger sibling. During such times: Life means being thrown back on oneself. The seconds in which everything is hurt, when waves of love and loathing mingle, are brought to the canvas by Bisky with an immediacy supplementing K.R.H. Sonderborg‘s energy-charged paintings with a late variation which can be described as figurative art informel.'

Norbert, born in Leipzig in 1970, lives and works in Berlin. He studied at the Berlin University of the Arts; further places of study included Madrid and Salzburg. His works have been shown in many exhibitions at home and abroad, and are represented in collections such as the MoMA in New York. Using powerful colours, he reformulates personal experiences of terror. He has traveled in Brazil and is heavily influenced by world media it’s scenes of beauty; sexuality, violence and destruction play strong roles in his works. During 2008–2010 Norbert Bisky was guest professor at the Geneva University of Art and Design (HEAD). In 2013 he designed the stage-set for the performance of Masse at the Berlin State Ballet.

Some of his recent exhibitions were presented at Kunsthalle Rostock (2014), MEWO Kunsthalle, Memmingen (2014), MARTa Herford (2012), Tel Aviv Museum of Art (2012), Kunsthalle Marcel Duchamp, Cully (2011), Haifa Museum of Art (2011).

Please also go to see: www.norbertbisky.com

Week 1 / Lecture (engl.) –
Marie Graftieaux

Lecture

Marie Graftieaux is a Berlin based curator and director of insitu, a non-profit space for contemporary art. The space is super interesting for it's annually themed cycle of shows. She is also the co-founder of NuN, an exhibition space located in a private ground floor apartment in Berlin Neukölln.

Week 1 / Tour (engl.) –
Mareike Dittmer and Anne Schwanz

We just had to ask lovely Mareike Dittmer to create a tour for this year’s ACSA. Mareike actually knows everything and everyone in the Berlin but also international art scene – nope, we are not exaggerating here! In fact she kind of has to – not only since she is the co-founder and co-publisher of frieze d/e - together with Jörg Heiser. She has frequently collaborated with artists for text-based interventions and has contributed to publications as well as exhibition projects in various institutional and commercial spaces in Europe. She studied Communication Sciences, Cultural Studies and Sociology at the UDK Berlin Mareike Dittmer. We are so looking forward to what she will decide is worthwhile seeing, visiting, and getting to know in and about Berlin…

Week 1 / Lecture (engl.) –
Ulrich Loock, Martin Germann, Mod. by Jennifer Allen

Ulrich Loock is a freelance curator, university lecturer and art critic based in Berlin.

Martin Germann has been the Senior Curator at S.M.A.K. Ghent since 2012.