VENUSIA 
a sensual exhibition organised by Mohamed Almusibli for Preliminary Group

with Melanie Akeret, Chelsea Culprit, Lauren Devine, Deborah Holman, Adrian Manuel Huber, YC Iselinki, Hanna Lan Quinn & Rosie Hastings, Real Madrid, Benjamin Muzzin, Ceylan Oztur016

Mohamed Almusibli

Mohamed is a curator and art historian based in Zurich, Switzerland. He is currently studying Theory at the Zurich University of Art. His work mainly focuses on different aspect of human emotions and its impact on society. His recent curated exhibitions include Reality Leave Me Alone with Real Madrid at 1.1 space for Zeitgeist in Basel (2016), DisOrder Interventions (co-curated with Yael Wicki) at RaumStation in Zurich (2016), Venusia at Localedue in Bologna. He was also involved in the Performance Project during the ArtDubai Fair in Dubai (2016) and the Liste Art fair in Basel (2016). 

+Melanie Akeret – Love Is More Than To love, Am I depression? Loneliness? Crystal? They Call Me FAG The Chemical Witch (wood, plastic, metal; dimension variable, 2016)

Melanie Akeret lives and works in Geneva. She is completing a Bachelor degree of Fine Art at the Geneva University of Arts (HEAD). Recent exhibitions include Enter/Reenter the ghost in Geneva (2015), !V`n during ArtBasel (2016). Melanie took part of the artist summer residency DisOrder at RaumStation in Zurich (2016).

+Chelsea Culprit – Pinky on a Pole // Waves on Wave // Glass Shoe (oil on paper, 45x60 cm; 2016) (glass, 30x20x5 cm; 2016)

Chelsea Culprit lives and works in Mexico City.  She has a Bachelors of Art History Theory and Criticism and Studio Art from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.  Recent solo exhibitions include Miss Universe at Yautepec, Mexico City, Blessed With A Job at Queer Thoughts, NYC and Cloud Illusions I Recall at Born Nude, Chicago. Her paintings and sculptures begin at the intersection of body memory and emotional memory, using her own subjectivity to make portraits of contemporary life, exploring the shared values that identify social groups and the behaviors that regulate their boundaries.

+Lauren Devine – Venusia (sound installation; 2016)

"Equal parts performance artist, pop singer, and cultural anarchist…Devine is, in that most postmodern of ways, enthusiastically all over the map."

— W Magazine

Full-time muse and part-time pop star Lauren Devine celebrates folkLaur, her début album released July 15, 2014 on iTunes and DIS Magazine. Recorded alongside producers Nightfeelings (Nick Weiss of Teengirl Fantasy), Adaron(Aaron David Ross of Gatekeeper), Michael Beharie (of Tezeo), Nar, Sam Mehran, Ryan Trecartin, and Bruno Coviello(formerly of Light Asylum), folkLaur is comprised of nine original tracks, perfect for any party or mid-resort cruise. Equal parts sexual, mechanical, intimate, glistening, and experimental, the record serves as a bold statement of purpose from a stunningly original new voice in pop.

Deborah Holman – READY (plastic, water; 2016)

(*1991, Basel, Switzerland)

Deborah is currently studying Arts Visuals at the Geneva University of Arts (HEAD). She is the founder and director of the artist-run space 1.1- Space for Zeitgeist in Basel, Switzerland. Solo shows include #CenterTheVoid, at Kaschemme in Basel (2014); Untitled at the Old Gewerbemuseum in Basel (2015) and TOMBE at DownSpace in Basel (2016). She took part of group exhibitions as Black Sites at gallery Andata.Ritorno in Geneva (2016) and Local.Host at the 1.1 space for Zeitgeist in Basel (2016).

+Adrian Manuel Huber - „Che disgrazia che hanno impiccato le pianoforti dai balconi della borghesia!“ (wood, metallic wire, condoms, bird seeds, plastic; 2016)

Adrian Manuel Huber (*1990 in Basel, Switzerland) lives and works in Geneva. He has a BA of Fine Arts from HEAD, Geneva and his first solo exhibition CARPE DIEM took place there at Marbriers 4 in 2016. Group shows include 'Design im Fenster' at wellwellwell, Vienna. 'Spring Awakening' at Galerie Francesca Pia in Zurich, Stoneroses #5 at Riverside, Bern; and More Is More in Unterwaltersdorf, Austria. He was part of the DisOrder summer Residency at RaumStation, Zurich in 2016.

+Hanna Quinlan & Rosie Hastings – UK Gaybar Directory (video & photo installation; 2016)

Hannah Quinlan (b.1991) & Rosie Hastings (b.1991), Newcastle & London, are an artist duo living and working in South East London. Their practice includes @Gaybar, an event series that seeks to re-materialise the historic gay bar as a container for queer discourse as well as CGI animation, video installation, archival, text and audio work. Recent solo shows include: GENTRIFICATION presented by Daata Editions and Zuecca Projects, 15th Venice Architecture Biennale, IT (2016); If these Fossils Could Talk They Would Tell You Who Got Fucked and Who Didn’t Room, E10-27, Paris (2015); Cruising Extinction @Gaybar, Oslo 10, Basel (2015) & Tifkas, Arcadia Missa (2015). Recent Group shows include: Utopian Voices Here & Now, Somerset House, London, UK (2016); Ways of Living, David Roberts Art Foundation (2016); S, Arcadia Missa (2015)

+Real Madrid – Infinite Interview (resine, 2016)

Real Madrid is an artist duo founded by Bianca Benenti Oriol and Marco Pezzotta in 2015. Based between Geneva and Berlin, self-defined as a corporation of tenderness whose practice is based on the area of the soul where politics crash with intimacy. Fair play and foreplay. Their work focuses on social constructs like gender, family, collective codes and aboriginal practices within nowadays society. Their work is mainly developed through exhibitions and visual installations. Recent exhibitions include Realitiy leave me alon, curated by Mohamed Almusibli at 1.1, Basel, Switzerland; Beefy at Placentia, Italy (2016), Tennis FKK at Kreuzberg Pavillon Berlin (2015), and Idioletta at O’ Milano.

+Benjamin Muzzin – Sweet Dreams Siri (video installation, 2016)

Benjamin Muzzin (born 1989) is a Swiss artist working predominantly with digital moving images. Since graduating in 2013 from the ECAL/University of Art and Design Lausanne in Switzerland, he has exhibited work worldwide; in places like Dubai, Hong Kong, London, Lyon and Miami. Most of his work focuses on leaving the usual frame of the flat screen. He has already explored different mediums; such as kinetic installations, video mapping and VJing. For Venusia, he decided to produce a non-linear video inspired by the 1968 Philip K. Dick novel “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?”. Instead of androids, he imagined what an iPhone and its AI, Siri, could possibly dream of.

+Ceylan Öztürk – Call Me Venus (ceramic, 2016)

Ceylan Öztürk received her undergraduate (2006) and graduate (2011) degrees from the Fine Arts Faculty at Anadolu University. She had her PhD in practice degree in Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University and was working there as a researcher. Her recent solo exhibitions include: The Venuses of Monruz (Special Moments Sex Shop Zurich, 2016), Call me Venus (Mars Istanbul, 2016), History in Lowercase (Alan Istanbul, 2015), Re-treating: thr Artist, the Space (Museum of Ideas, Lviv, UA, 2013), I Saw (Daire, 2012) and Vision of Expression (Daire, 2011). Performance and interventions, Promoting the Venus of Monruz, Cabaret der Künstler, Manifesta11, Zurich, 2016; Private Investigator, Villa Arson Contemporary Art School (2015), Naturhistorisches Museum, Vienna, AT (2014); Besiktas Market, Istanbul, TR (2014); Strand Bookstore, New York, USA (2013), Bernardine Monastery, Lviv, UA (2013).

+YCiselinki – EMOTIONALLITOY (clay & variable materials; 2016)

YCiselinki is a fusion between YC (Yael Wicki, CH) und iselinki (Iselin Iversby, NOR,) two concept based multi-media artists. After meeting at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, they develop together performances and art projects since the summer 2012. The importance of performance or LARP opposed to other art technics is the direct, time relevant contact with other people, which is the main focus of their collaborations. Materialised research always engages with movement, touch, temporality and narration.

24/09_11/10

photo credit: Alessandro Trapezio