SZCZECIN.- Thresholds | TRAFO is an international exhibition featuring 61 artists from 23 countries crossing thresholds between visual arts practices. It showcases works from the MOMENTUM Collection and Performance Archive alongside seminal works of video art from Hungary, and selected films from the 1st Kiev Biennale. The program is complemented by the documentation of Christian Jankowski’s project Heavy Weight History and works of TRAFO’s first Artists in Residence: a German sculptor Andreas Blank and a Dutch painter Jarik Jongman.

The theme of the exhibition focuses on a unique moment or timeframe, when borders are crossed, rules are broken. It is about certain situations, when changes happen and something new might come into the world. It fits to Szczecin - a city on the crossroads between Poland and Germany, finding its new identity.

The project is a collaboration between TRAFO Center for Contemporary Art in Szczecin, MOMENTUM Berlin and Collegium Hungaricum Berlin.

THRESHOLDS l TRAFO exhibition curated by: Vera Baksa-Soos, David Elliott, Constanze Kleiner, Rachel Rits–Volloch, David Szauder
In December 2013, TRAFO Center for Contemporary Art in Szczecin inaugurated the Artist in Residence project, a collaboration with MOMENTUM Berlin. Through the Residency Exchange, TRAFO hosts a German sculptor Andreas Blank, and a Dutch painter, Jarik Jongman.

Andreas Blank attended the Karlsruhe State Academy of Art (Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste) and was Meisterschüler under Prof. Klingelhöller. He held a scholarship with the German National Academic Foundation and received his MFA from the Royal College of Art in London. In 2009 he was a finalist for the New Sensations Award by Channel 4 and the Saatchi Gallery. Blank lives and works in Berlin. Andreas Blank‘s stone encarved trompe l’oeils seem casual at first sight. However, his arrangements are precisely staged and after closer inspection, one discovers that light bulbs, transport boxes and plastic bags are made of marble, alabaster or sand stone. Andreas Blank sources stones from quarries from all over the world, carves them with elaborate deliberation and assembles them in sometimes consciously stylized, and other times deceptively realistic objects of the everyday. In his precise installations, the apparently ephemeral objects achieve monumental permanence. Whether marble, alabaster, or porphyry, material historically used to serve religious or political functions, has in Blank’s hands acquired a seemingly casual and fragmentary character. The geographical and cultural identity of the stone and the memorial function of stone-sculpture in general refer to the value of each object. Blank questions the obvious and transforms traditional ideals and values on the ordinary and present. As Artist in Residence at TRAFO, Blank will show a selection of his previous work, and will make a new sculpture in dialogue with these previous works.

An exhibition of Natalia Szostak SANATORIUM curated by Aurelia Nowak and featured as part of the Artist in Residence project is presented at MOMENTUM Berlin until January 26, 2013.

Artist in Residence project curated by: Constanze Kleiner, Rachel Rits-Volloch
In December 2013, TRAFO Center for Contemporary Art in Szczecin inaugurated the Artist in Residence project, a collaboration with MOMENTUM Berlin. Through the Residency Exchange, TRAFO hosts a German sculptor Andreas Blank, and a Dutch painter, Jarik Jongman.

Jarik Jongman. A former assistant of Anselm Kiefer. He studied in Arnhem and has had numerous exhibitions in London, Berlin, Switzerland, Amsterdam and at the 53rd (2009) and 54th Venice Biennale in collateral events. He lives and works in Amsterdam. Jongman expands his series of painted portraits of icons of the contemporary art world. Originally developed for the ABOUT FACE exhibition at MOMENTUM in 2012, Jongman has applied traditional oil painting to an interactive performative practice. Painting some of the richest and most influential art-world players of our time and giving the audience the tools to leave their mark on the paintings, Jongman encourages the purest form of iconoclasm in the context of the sacred space of the museum. The result is a series of mutilated images, reminiscent of the damaged murals and toppled statues of ousted dictators across the world. This series of work has so far been enacted in Berlin, Jerusalem, and London, with portraits of icons of the art world site specific to each location. For his Artist Residency at TRAFO, Jongman shows the results of the previous performances, in addition to creating five new portraits of icons of the Polish art scene. The subjects of these portraits were selected through an open call. The local audiences was thus involved in the process of art production; in the very first stages of choosing a subject. They were then offerred an opportunity to put their own signature on the finished work during the artist’s performance (de) facing REVOLT at the exhibition opening.

An exhibition of Natalia Szostak SANATORIUM curated by Aurelia Nowak and featured as part of the Artist in Residence project is presented at MOMENTUM Berlin until January 26, 2013.