Cell Project Space

LIVE BAND performances by THE B-MEN, Berlin and CACKLE, Los Angeles play from 8pm until LATE

Christian Achenbach . Victor Aguilar . Pablo Alonso . Kai Althoff . Salvatore Arancio . Petra Johanna Barfs . Alexandra Baumgartner . Matthias Beckmann . April Behnke . Joe Biel . Marc Bijl . Derek Bosher . Armin Boehm . Erin Boland . Lutz Braun . Reuben Breslar . Alan Brown . Amanda Leigh Burnham . Ellen Cantor . Jessica Cebra . Natalie W. Cheung . Bradley Chriss . Ben Cottrell . Keith Coventry . Jason David . Thomas Draschan . Sven Druehl . Peter Duka . Benjamin Edmiston . Alexa Gerrity . Stephen Gibson . Adam Griffiths . Florian Heinke . Lori Hersberger . Sean Higgins . Gregor Hildebrandt . Ryan Hill . Stefan Hirsig . Johannes Hueppi . Lisa Junghanss . Andy Kozlowski . Clemens Krauss . Anders Lansing . Xenia Lesniewski . Cedar Lewisohn . Marissa Long . Mara Lonner . Joerg Mandernach . Sandra Mann . Josh Mannis . Maki Maruyama . John McAllister . Meryl Lynn McCorkle . Bill McRight . Aaron Morse . Jan Muche . Mario Neugebauer . Tim Nolan . Adam Pape . Christopher Pate . Manfred Peckl . Mick Peter . Carl Pomposelli . Richard Priestley . Clunie Reid . Rob Reynolds . Lauren Rice . Nora Riggs . Tanja Rochelmeyer . Jenny Rosemeyer . Dennis Rudolph . Jamison Sarteschi . Maik Schierloh . Andreas Schlaegel . Bonnie Brenda Scott . Marcus Sendlinger . Carole Silverstein . Jessica Simmons . Jen Smith . Cammie Staros . Jennifer Stefanisko . Jay Stuckey . Zach Storm . Caro Suerkemper . Alex Tennigkeit . Lisa Marie Thalhammer . Peter Thol . Klaus-Martin Treder . Joep Van Liefland . Rachel Waldron . Allison Wiese . Martin Westwood . Maik Wolf . Michael Wutz . Jacob Yeager . Thomas Zipp . Phillip Zaiser . Frank Michael Zeidler . Jody Zellon 

Conceived by artists, Marcus Sendlinger, Berlin and Jay Stuckey, Los Angeles, the artists invited to contribute to this exhibition have been asked only to submit a work which has their direct hand in it, so physical contact and mark making on the surface of the material is implied in a manner, within this context, akin to the skrier, an ‘automatic writer’, a pyromancer’s stirring of the hot embers, an ectoplasmic medium – the hand that re-creates the subconscious wanderings of its owner. This naturally excludes many types of process, but rather than excluding artists because their process prevents them from physical contact with their final piece, the artists invited to contribute have simply been asked to experiment within the pre-requisits of the theme. This offers them the opportunity to play off their practice and try something slightly new, or indeed, old but discarded.

Like George Orwell’s Room 101, in his predictive tale, ‘1984’, we all have our own version of what constitutes a nightmare, and for this reason, the project has been opened to a large number of artists whose many and varied personal nightmare versions, or visions, act to reflect this hugely variable human state of fears and fobias, pain and panic.

Alptraum, the German of Nightmare, is an artist led project. It is a model which utilizes global communication between localized artist hubs and clusters to form an international grouping with the intent of opening a dialogue about this subject across borders and cultures in order to delve into the stuff and mind murk that is collectively shared or completely random and unrelated, or individual specific within the syndrome of ‘The Nightmare’. Each artist draws on their own personal experience in order to visualize those anxieties which take them beyond everyday dreams.Working within the remit of the ‘artist curated project’, all of the works in Alptaum have been restricted in size and material in order to facilitate the low cost postal transportation of the show from country to country, with each exhibition site taking responsibility to pass the show on to the next host – the number of works and artists may change or grow, and the approach to interpreting and hanging the show vary from space to space as the body of work meanders on from country to country, like a trans-global nimbostratus formation; Alptaum is the exhibition equivalent of Stephen Kings ‘The Fog’.

Starting in Washington DC, at Transformer, the works will travel across the globe to Cell Project Space, London touring to ‘Projektraum Deutscher Kunstlerbund e.v.’, Berlin, March/April, 2011, 'The Company', Los Angeles, May/June 2011 and 'blank projects', Cape Town, August 2011, The Goethe Institute, Johannesburg, January 2012, Green Papaya Art Projects, Manila, March 2012

co curated by Victoria Reis and Marissa Long, Transformer, Richard Priestley, Cell Project Space, Katja Hesch, 'Projektraum Deutscher Kuenstlerbund e. v.', Berlin and Jonathan Garnham, 'blank projects' Cape Town