BROWNIE Project Up Next丨Group Exhibition Per-Form

Diego Bianchi was born in 1969 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he still lives and works. Bianchi’s work is made up of visually transgressive materials, gathering together discarded objects such as chairs, pipes, electronic devices, or casts of body parts. His practice includes sculptures, installations, video art, photographs and elements of performance, which examine aesthetic norms as well as socio-political subjects. The artist focuses on the formal and mostly chaotic traces of consumerism, specifically the fallout of neoliberal economic damage. One of the dominant themes in Bianchi's work is the use of the human body as an artistic and constructive element. He proposes an apotheosis of everyday situations, such as the derailment of human excess and the anarchic order it produces.

Amongst other grants and awards, he was awarded the Concurso de artes Visuales - Fondo nacional de las Artes Premio Azcuy, Museum de Arte Moderno in 2019. His recent exhibitions include Syntactic Tactic, Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo, Madrid, Spain, 2022; Bienal de Performance 2021 (B.P.21), Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (MNBA), Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2021; Sauvetage Sauvage, Galerie Jocelyn Wolff, Romainville, France, 2020; The Stomach and the Port, 11th Liverpool Biennial, Liverpool, UK, 2020; BIENALSUR Córdoba, Argentina, 2019.

Miriam Cahn was born in 1949 in Basel, she lives and works in Stampa, Switzerland. Cahn's artistic practice, consisting mainly of figurative painting, explores social topics related to her objection to all forms of oppression, and in reaction to current political issues including gender-based violence, migratory conflicts and armed conflicts. In dialogue with the European feminist movements of the 1970s, the body remains central in her works, both as a subject and as an artistic medium.

She has received prestigious awards and prizes, such as the Käthe Kollwitz Prize in Berlin in 1998, the Meret Oppenheim Prize of the Swiss Federal Office of Culture in 2005, Baseler Kunstpreis in Basel in 2013, and the Rubenspreis of the city of Siegen in 2021. In 1984, she represented Switzerland at the Venice Biennale. In 2017, she took part in Documenta 14 in Kassel and Athens. In 2022, her work is yet again presented at the 59th International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale ‘The Milk of Dreams.’

Many solo exhibitions have been devoted to her work, internationally, including ‘Ma Pensée Sérielle, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, 2023;  ‘MEINEJUDEN’ at the Museum für Gegenwartskunst in Siegen in 2022; ‘ME AS HAPPENING,’ presented at The Power Plant, Toronto Canada and at the Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen Denmark in 2021; ‘I as Human,’ a travelling exhibition in 2019 co-organised by three major institutions at the Haus der Kunst, Munich, Kunstmuseum Bern, and the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw; ‘everything is equally important’ at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid in 2017;  ‘körperlich/corporel,’ the artist’s first major retrospective in France at the Swiss Cultural Centre in Paris in 2014; and at the Fundación ‘La Caixa’ in Madrid in 2003.

Gao Lei was born in Changsha, Hunan in 1980. Now he lives and works in Shanghai. Gao Lei's art practice spans multiple media, including installation, sculpture, photography, and painting. Gao often adopts everyday objects and "standardized" industrial products as the essential component, whose works are manipulated through synthetic or abstract regulatory forms, in which the functions, properties, and meanings are tampered with or added through blurring transformation. Thus, they become a scale or model for measuring various domains such as the body, power, consumption, and religion. Through precise material testing and vectorization of graphics, Gao's works, along with the objects they confront and the questions raised, alternate between spatial and conceptual dimensions, allowing the viewer to re-examine and remeasure our inherent boundaries with the world using a standard other than that of experience.

Gao's works have been the subject of solo exhibitions at White Space (Beijing, China), Arario Gallery (Seoul, Korea), Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei, etc. His works have also been exhibited in international art institutions including, Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Minsheng Art Museum (Shanghai), Long Museum, Tank Shanghai, Hao Art Museum, Guangdong Times Art Museum, Singapore Art Museum, Institute of Modern Art (Valencia, Spain), Tinguely Museum (Basel, Switzerland), Ludwig Museum im Deutschherrenhaus (Coblence, Germany), National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (Korea), and others.

Prinz Gholam is a Berlin-based artist duo consisting of Wolfgang Prinz and Michel Gholam. For nearly a decade, the duo has developed a performative practice that, through a series of choreographed sequences, aims at embodying a range of source material—from ancient paintings, sculptures to contemporary art, film and images from the media. Reminiscent of Gilbert & George’s living sculptures, the long-term collaboration revolves around a corporeal interpretation of the world around us: their various gestures and poses act as a form of mapping through the body of the array of information they internalize. Often performed in historically loaded venues, like a graveyard or an archaeological site, their work speaks of the information we carry in our bodies and how we experience and negotiate the world through images the mind already contains. In addition to their performances, the duo often uses drawings to sketch the poses that they reenact. These preparatory studies, while referencing pictorial tradition, also play a role in their investigation: a negotiation between references, and the physical and pictorial self.

Yingguang Guo (b. 1983, Liaoning, China); lives and works in Beijing. Yingguang Guo graduated from London College of Communication (UAL) with a Master’s degree in photography, Communication University of China with a Bachelor's degree in Photography (Art Direction).

Moving on to the artistic world, Yingguang Guo’s work revolves around social issues in contemporary China, using image creation to deconstruct / construct relationships and express emotions linked to her past. Her multi-media practice of photography, printmaking, video, installation, performance and artist book explores the marriage, living and self-value reality faced by women in today’s Chinese society. Guo won the Jimei ARLES 2017 Madame Figaro Women Photographer Award with the series The Bliss of Conformity and was invited to exhibit at Rencontres d'Arles International Photography Festival in France in 2018. During the exhibition, her works were highly recommended by the well-known artists Sophie Calle and Paul Graham. She had her solo exhibition Yingguang Guo: The Bliss of Conformity opened at Maison Européenne de la Photographie (Paris, France) in 2019, marking her the first Chinese female artist to hold a solo exhibition at the MEP.

Isa Melsheimer was born in Neuss, Germany, in 1968, and lives and works in Berlin. Her practice spans painting, embroidery, sculpture, installations and botanical works, reflecting her documentary research and formal investigations. Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, Norman Foster, Superstudio… Isa Melsheimer’s reflections are based on architectures which convey ideals, with the great responsibility of formalising theories, depicting utopias with wood, glass and concrete, and, above all, reinstating them on a living, human scale. Drawing on the history of architecture and urban planning, the artist builds her work around the relationships between humans, animals and plants, and their architectural and environmental expressions. The artist’s theoretical vision takes up architectural concepts and histories as spaces of collision and creation. Yet her approach is not only aesthetic, but also analytical, returning to the fundamentals, again and again, in order to extract their essence.

Her recent solo exhibitions include ‘Concrete Bodies are Finite’ at the Centre International d’art et du paysage, Île de Vassivière (2022); ‘Compost’ at the MAMAC, Nice (2021-22); ‘Der unerfreuliche Zustand der Textur’ (2020) at KINDL – Centre for Contemporary Art, Berlin; ‘The Year of the Whale’ (2018) at Fogo Island Gallery, Fogo Island; ‘Der tote Palast zitterte – zitterte!’ (2017) at Mies van der Rohe Haus, Berlin. 

Elodie Seguin was born in Paris, France in 1984. She lives and works between Paris and Madrid, Spain. Elodie Seguin has defined a unique approach to painting in which she explores the relationship between several painted objects, as well as their organisation within and their relationship to the given exhibition space. Her practice navigates between sculpture, painting, and in-situ installations. Oftentimes, the elements of her works, consisting of materials such as wood, paper, MDF or cardboard, are not joined together but simply placed on top of or next to each other, leaning on the gallery walls or carefully placed directly on the floor, usually painted in single monochromatic colours which defy categorisation. Seguin's work displays an obvious affinity to the minimalist tradition. Her theoretical and phenomenological interest in colour as a dimension of perception also links her approach to a modern tradition of painting which began with Mondrian and Malevich.

Elodie Seguin has been the recipient of various awards and residencies, including at the Fondazione MAAC, Calassetta, Italy in 2022, at Interface Dijon, France in 2021-2022, at FLACC, Genk, Belgium in 2021-2022, at Lafayette Anticipations, Paris, France in 2014, at MACRO Roma, Italy in 2012, and at the Cité international des Arts in Paris, France, 2011-2013. Recent projects and solo exhibitions include ‘The Missing Thing’, Galerie Jocelyn Wolff, Paris-Romainville, France, 2022; ‘Yes, Not’, MACBA, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2019; ‘hall painting (Wall work)’, L40/Kunstverein am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, Berlin, Germany, 2019; ‘Debout Derrière Scène Ouverte’, Centre Culturel Français, Milan, Italy, 2011.

Francisco Tropa was born in 1968, and works and lives in Lisbon. Time, tales and formal aesthetics are the main elements of his work. The artist links stories together, retelling mythologies, technologies, science and societies. Tropa uses several media – sculpture, drawing, performance, engraving, installation, photography and film — to convey a series of reflections catalysed by the different traditions of sculpture and science. His installations abound in precise and precious objects, geometric and elaborate forms, delicate prototypes and complex machines. His pieces are most clearly underpinned by the notion of time. Time is also decisive in the studio work by the artist, who sometimes develops his projects over several years.

Besides representing Portugal in the Venice Biennale (2011), he also took part in the Rennes Biennial (2012), the Istanbul Biennial (2011), Manifesta (2000), the Melbourne Biennial (1999) and the São Paulo Biennial (1998). Some of his recent solo exhibitions include: The Lung and the Heart, Musée d’art moderne de Paris, France (2022); Che Vuoi?, Le Creux de l’Enfer, Thiers, France (2022); Behind Us, MUCEM, Marseille, France (2020); The Pyrgus from Chaves, Fundaçào Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon, Portugal (2019); Performance Scripta, Centre National de la Danse, Paris, France (2018); Performance Gigante, Festival MOVE, Centre Pompidou, Paris, France (2018); TSAE - Trésors Submergés de l’Ancienne Égypte, Musée Régional d’Art Contemporain Languedoc-Roussillon, Sérignan, France (2015); TSAE - Tesouros Submersos do Antigo Egipto, Museu de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal (2014-2015); STAE - Submerged Treasures of Ancient Egypt, La Verrière, Fondation d’Entreprise Hermès, Brussels, Belgium (2013).

Santiago de Paoli was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1978, now he lives and works in New York, USA. De Paoli’s painting might seem surprising to the viewer. At first glance, the artist appears to be representing a number of common themes and elements, such as moons, candles, lamps, flowers, hearts, socks, human posteriors and genitalia, skies and landscapes, using quite vivid colours. But his work requires being contemplated through a feeling of strangeness and simplicity. Using unusual media, included recycled textiles, wood and plaster, de Paoli seeks to obviate the seriousness of the medium, elaborating the composition of his paintings and the combination of evocative elements with a disruptive sense of humour and a childlike innocence.

Santiago de Paoli’s recent projects and solo exhibitions include ‘Inside the Red Barn’, OSMOS Station, Stamford, New York, USA, 2022; ‘A leaf in the wind’, Galerie Jocelyn Wolff, Paris-Romainville, France, 2021; ‘Bebê Rasteja’, Mendes Wood, São Paulo, Brazil, 2019-2020; ‘Entre nosotros y el objeto’, Môvil, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2016; ‘Pescado y Papas’, Wireless Ridge, Stanley, Falkland Islands, 2015; ‘The New Society’, Swan Coach House Gallery, Atlanta, USA, 2007. Amongst other group shows, his work has been presented at X Museum, Beijing, China, 2021; Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2019; Nouveau musée national de Monaco, Villa Paloma, Monaco, 2018; Musée d'art contemporain de la Haute-Vienne, Château de Rochechouart, France, 2018.

Franz Erhard Walther was born in 1939, in Fulda, Germany, where he lives and works. Since the 1950s, he has been developing work that examines the role of spectators in the grasping of a piece, and also its status. As the creator of pieces to be put into motion, with his famous multi-part sculpture First Work Set (1963 – 1969), he has turned public participation into one of the drivers of his art. His use of fabrics combines elementary forms with conceptual notions, engages visitors, and marks a radical rethinking of the relationship between sculpture and action.

Franz Erhard Walther participated in the legendary exhibition curated by Harald Szeemann ‘When Attitudes Become Form’, 1969, at the Bern Kunsthalle, Switzerland, as well as ‘Spaces’, 1969, at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, USA. Since the 1960s, he was invited to present his work in numerous international solo and group shows. He participated in Documenta 5 to 8 (1972, 1977, 1982, 1987) in Kassel, Germany. He was invited to the 57th International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale ‘VIVA ARTE VIVA’, and honoured by the Golden Lion Award for the Best Artist of the exhibition.

His recent solo exhibitions include : ‘Franz Erhard Walther, de l'origine de la sculpture’, Mamco, Geneva, Switzerland (2010); ‘LINE/FRAME/ACTION/DRAWN NOVEL’, Drawing Room, London, UK (2012); ‘Franz Erhard Walther’, Hamburger Kunsthalle, Germany (2013); ‘The Body Decides’, CAPC, Bordeaux, France and WIELS Centre d’art contemporain, Brussels, Belgium (2014); ‘Architektur mit weichem kern’, MUDAM, Luxembourg, Luxembourg (2015); ‘A Place for the Body’, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte, Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain (2017); ‘Thinking Action’. the awarding of the Aachen Art Prize at Ludwig Forum Aachen, Germany (2017); ‘Objects to use’, Museo Jumex, Mexico (2018); ‘Migrations of Forms 1956-2006’, Peter Freeman Inc., New York, USA (2019); ‘Shifting Perspectives’, Haus der Kunst, Munich, Germany (2020); ‘Body Space Time’, Kunsthalle Winterthur, Winterthur, Switzerland (2021).