When Now is Minimal

Ai Weiwei (Pechino, 28 agosto 1957) è un artista, designer e attivista cinese. Artista e designer ‐ Diplomato all'Accademia del Cinema, si è poi dedicato alla pittura. Negli anni Settanta è cofondatore del gruppo artistico Stars ("stelle" in italiano). Nel 1981 si trasferisce negli Stati Uniti. Si sposa a New York dove svolge la maggior parte della sua attività artistica. Frequenta due prestigiose scuole di design, la Parsons The New School For Design e l'Art Students League. Nel 1993 torna in Cina per stare accanto al padre ammalato. Collabora alla fondazione dell'East Village di Pechino, una comunità di artisti d'avanguardia. Nel 1997 è cofondatore e direttore artistico dell'Archivio delle arti cinesi (CAAW). Nel 1999 inizia ad occuparsi di architettura. Nel 2003 fonda il suo studio, il «FAKE Design». Lavora a vari progetti con gli architetti svizzeri Herzog & de Meuron. Insieme vincono il concorso per il progetto dello Stadio nazionale di Pechino e del padiglione della Serpentine Gallery di Londra. Attivista per i diritti umani[modifica sorgente] Nel 2009 il suo blog, aperto nel 2006, viene chiuso dalle autorità. Per la sua opposizione al regime è stato recluso per 81 giorni, dal 2 aprile al 22 giugno 2011. La notizia dell'arresto è stata ripresa da tutti gli organi d'informazione mondiali. L'artista è stato recluso in una località segreta, senza che fossero mai state diramate notizie sulle sue condizioni. Durante la detenzione, i principali musei del mondo (tra i quali la Galleria Tate Modern di Londra, che ne ha ospitato l'installazione "Semi di girasole") hanno lanciato in suo favore una petizione online, che ha raccolto l'adesione di migliaia di persone. Scopi della petizione erano: a) esprimere la preoccupazione nel vedere minacciati i diritti e la libertà di espressione in Cina; b) auspicare l'immediata liberazione dell'artista. In Italia, l'Associazione Pulitzer ha lanciato un appello per raccogliere 5 000 firme per Ai Weiwei; contestualmente ha chiesto pubblicamente al Presidente della Repubblica Italiana di intervenire sul governo di Pechino per la sua liberazione. Solo il 15 maggio 2011 l'artista è stato autorizzato a vedere la moglie Lu Qiong. La consorte è stata condotta nella località segreta di detenzione del marito. Il colloquio, come ha reso noto l'avvocato dell'artista, è servito anche a rassicurare l'opinione pubblica mondiale sulle condizioni dell'artista, che, in base a quanto riportato dalla moglie, non ha subito percosse o torture fisiche ed è stato trovato in buono stato di salute. In particolare, gli sono state garantite cure ricorrenti per le patologie croniche (diabete e ipertensione) di cui l'artista soffre. Le condizioni a cui è stata sottoposta la visita, avvenuta sotto sorveglianza delle autorità, non hanno permesso di sapere se Ai Weiwei avesse ricevuto minacce né altri dettagli sulle condizioni della detenzione Il 22 giugno, a distanza di 81 giorni dall'arresto, l'artista è stato rilasciato su cauzione[5]. La liberazione è avvenuta a ridosso del viaggio del premier Wen Jiabao in Europa. Fino al 22 giugno 2012 Ai Weiwei è stato in regime di libertà a raggio ridotto e sotto tutela. Con l'accusa di evasione fiscale, è stato multato per una cifra di oltre 12 milioni di yuan. Ha ricorso in appello nel giugno del 2012, ma la condanna è stata confermata. Approssimativamente 30.000 sostenitori di Ai Weiwei hanno versato 1,37 milioni di dollari per contribuire alle spese.

John Armleder (born in in 1948) as the son of a hotelier (owners of Le Richemond), is a Swiss performance artist, painter, sculptor, critic, and curator. His work is based on his involvement with in the 1960s and 1970s, when he created performance art pieces, installations and collective art activities that were strongly influenced by . However, Armleder's position throughout his career has been to avoid associating his artistic practice with any type of manifesto. Armleder studied at the Ecole des Beaux‐Arts, Geneva (1966‐7) and at the Glamorgan Summer School, Britain (1969). In 1969, with Patrick Lucchini and Claude Rychner, Armleder founded the Groupe Ecart in Geneva, from which stemmed the Galerie Ecart and its associated performance group and publications. The Groupe Ecart was particularly important in Europe during the 1970s and 1980s, not only through its activity as an independent publishing house, but also because it introduced in ‐ and sometimes in Europe ‐ a large number of notable artists, including and Andy Warhol.[1] Armleder was later associated with Neo‐Geo artistic movement and was often referred to as the "darling" of the New York art critics in this period (1980s).[2][3] Armleder frequently examines the context in which art is displayed and views the exhibition as a medium in its own right. Since the 1990s, he has created installations, paintings, wall paintings, sculptures and what he calls Furniture Sculptures ‐ installations which usually juxtapose furniture with monochrome or abstract paintings, either literally on the furniture or on a canvas hanging nearby. His work has varied greatly in form, and has, since the beginnings, used chance as a method of producing the final forms that pieces take, much like John Cage. He often uses a dense scenographic hanging style, putting individual works into close proximity and creating installation‐like exhibitions.

Sara Barker Born in 1980, Manchester, UK. Lives and works in Glasgow, UK. Sara Barker’s works don’t simply breach the boundaries between painting and sculpture, they are that boundary. Skeletal structures in aluminium and steel describe wonky rectangular shapes in the air in hesitant lines, as though uncertain of themselves; their forms are those of sketches, not sculptures. Their surfaces are then coated with layers of oil paint, gouache and watercolour in the blanched and airy palette of a landscape painting. And as landscapes do, Barker’s works posit painting as a thing to be inhabited, and draw on the tradition of inhabited rooms in the quiet modernist lineage of Bonnard and Matisse (one work is named after his 1916 painting ‘The Piano Lesson’).

Martin Boyce (born 1967) is a Scottish sculptor inspired by early 20th century modernism. Boyce was born in Hamilton, South Lanarkshire[1] and educated at Holy Cross High School in Hamilton, South Lanarkshire and at the Glasgow School of Art, class of 1990. Boyce won the 2011 Turner Prize for his installation Do Words Have Voices, displayed at the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead. The installation is a recreation of a park in autumn. Martin Boyce is known for his large installation work in sculpture, creating angular replications of the world around him, finding meaning in everyday surroundings and working steel structures into amplifications of these moments in space and time. “It's all about landscape, I’m interested in the psychological landscape, the physical landscape, the built environment, the things we pass through everyday and then occasionally catch a glimpse of and maybe see something that has a meaningful resonance.”

Daniel Buren (Boulogne‐Billancourt, 25 marzo 1938) è un pittore e scultore francese. Formatosi all'Ecole des Métiers d'Art ha basato tutta la sua produzione giovanile su una stoffa da tende a righe di 8,7 cm alternativamente bianche e colorate. Più recentemente, negli anni '80 ha abbandonato la pittura in favore delle installazioni architettoniche permanenti su spazi pubblici, tra cui Les Deux Plateaux al Palais‐Royal di Parigi. Quasi tutte le sue opere non esistono fuori dal tempo e dallo spazio per i quali sono state concepite: la maggior parte di esse sono dunque state distrutte dopo la loro presentazione. Nel 1986 ha partecipato alla Biennale di Venezia aggiudicandosi il Leone d'Oro per il miglior padiglione.

Alan Charlton è nato a Sheffield, Gran Bretagna nel 1948. Il grigio è l'unico colore che il pittore utilizza e la stesura monocroma l'unico modo in cui lo tratta. Le opere dell'artista sono il radicale azzeramento di ogni tratto espressivo. L'intero sistema della pittura viene ridotto a questa scelta e il repertorio linguistico a quest'unica possibilità. La pittura viene modulata con differenti tonalità secondo poche ma precise regole che l'artista si è dato e con le quali si pone in rapporto con la diversa fenomenologia degli spazi in cui interviene.

Ron Cooper is a west‐coast based American artist born in 1943 who started his career in the late ’60s in Los Angeles. He currently resides in Taos, New Mexico. By 1973, he had already participated in numerous international solo and group shows. Cooper's work explores light, reflection, transparency, and color, through the medium of colored fluorescent lights, neon, and glass. In his Separator Variations series the colored fluorescent fixtures, separated by glass, reflect and appear to overlap combining the colors producing a third hue. Most of his pieces, like the Separator Variations series, demonstrate the additive nature of light, (the subtractive result of combining colors of light). His other work included environmental installations and neon focused on the same themes.

Helmut Federle was born in Solothurn, Switzerland, in 1944. He lives and works in and in Vienna, Austria, and Camaiore, Italy. In 1997 he represented Switzerland at the 47th Venice Biennale. From 1999 to 2007 he was professor at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf and in 2008 he won the Prix Aurélie ‐Nemours.

Peter Fischli (born 8 June 1952) and David Weiss (21 June 1946 – 27 April 2012), often shortened to Fischli/Weiss, were an artist duo that had been collaborating since 1979. They were among the most renowned contemporary artists of Switzerland. Their best‐known work is the film Der Lauf der Dinge (The Way Things Go), described by The Guardian as being "post apocalyptic", as it concerned chain reactions and the ways in which objects flew, crashed and exploded across the studio in which it was shot. Fischli lives and works in Zurich; Weiss died on 27 April 2012. Art critics often see parallels to Marcel Duchamp, Dieter Roth or Jean Tinguely in Fischli and Weiss' parody bearing work. For their art, the duo made use of a large bandwidth of artistic forms of expression: film and photography, art books, sculptures made out of different materials, and multimedia installations. They adapted objects and situations from everyday life and placed them in an artistic context—often using humour and irony.

Félix González‐Torres (Guáimaro, 26 novembre 1957 – Miami, 9 gennaio 1996) è stato un artista cubano. Fu influenzato dall'arte minimalista e dalle posizioni politiche del suo periodo d'attività. Cresciuto a Porto Rico si trasferì a New York dove espose dal 1990 presso la Andrea Rosen Gallery, fino alla sua morte avvenuta per complicazioni dovute all'AIDS. Le sue opere, molte delle quali invitano il visitatore a portarne via una parte e che vedono fra i materiali l'uso di lampadine, orologi, carta, caramelle, son considerate una rappresentazione del suo rapporto con l'AIDS. Una serie di opere permettono al visitatore di portare via delle caramelle poste in un dispenser in un angolo della sala, altre distribuiscono sottili fogli di plastica trasparente o stampe in serie. I dispenser sono riempiti non appena il loro contenuto diminuisce. La lettura più diffusa dei lavori di González‐Torres vuole che i cambiamenti delle sue opere, le lampadine fulminate, l'esaurimento delle caramelle, siano una metafora del processo di morte. Nel 1991 ha esposto un uovo riempito con 315 kg di caramelle alla liquirizia a forma di proiettile rimettendo in discussione ed al centro dell'attenzione dell'opinione pubblica statunitense la sua posizione riguardo alla Guerra del Golfo, ma una delle sue opere più famose, Senza Titolo del 1992, è un cartellone pubblicitario apparso a New York con la fotografia in bianco e nero di un letto vuoto, scattata dopo la morte per AIDS del suo compagno Ross. In un'intervista ha dichiarato: ‐Quando la gente mi chiede chi sia il mio pubblico, rispondo onestamente, senza girarci intorno, "Ross. Il mio pubblico era Ross. Il resto della gente viene solo per i lavori"[

Wade Guyton (born 1972, Hammond, Indiana) is a post‐conceptual American artist who makes digital paintings on canvas using scanners and digital inkjet technology. Guyton’s early “drawings” from around 2003, are filled with black Xs over ripped‐out sheets from 1960s design books and interior catalogues. The color black and the letter X became signature motifs. His tool, however, is not the brush but an Epson Stylus Pro 4000/9600 inkjet printer, a machine used for large‐format prints. Using a computer, Guyton produces abstract paintings: he designs the motifs on the computer in Microsoft Word and Adobe Photoshop and then puts them on canvas, book pages, exhibition invitations, and plywood using the printer. The form of the rectangle is a function of the limits of the printer that creates the paintings. Since 2005, Guyton has worked primarily on canvas. Typically Guyton’s work is exhibited in a series of evenly spaced, upright rectangles, all the same size, lining a gallery’s wall like lowered blinds.

Peter Halley (born September 24, 1953), is an abstract artist from New York City. Halley first came to prominence as a result of the geometric paintings rendered in intense day‐glo colours that he produced in the early 1980s. His practice as an artist is usually associated with minimalism and neo‐geo. Halley is also known as a writer, publisher and teacher.

Imi Knoebel (born Klaus Wolf Knoebel; 1940) is a German artist. Knoebel is known for his minimalist, abstract painting and sculpture. The "Messerschnitt" or "knife cuts," are a recurring technique he employs, along with his regular use of the primary colors, red, yellow and blue. Knoebel lives and works in Düsseldorf. From 1964 to 1971, he studied under Joseph Beuys at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf with fellow students (with whom he shared a studio), Jörg Immendorff and Katharina Sieverding Knoebel's work explores the relationship between space, picture support and color. The style and formal concerns of his painting and sculpture have drawn comparisons with the high modernist principles of both Kazimir Malevich and the Bauhaus.

Sarah Morris (born 1967) is an artist. Since the mid‐1990s Morris has exhibited internationally. Morris was born in Britain in 1967. She attended Brown University, Cambridge University, and the Whitney Museum of American Art Independent Study Program. In 1999‐2000, she was a Prize Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin. In 2001, she received a Joan Mitchell Foundation painting award. Morris uses a conceptual strategy of duality in her films, which investigate both the surface of a city – its architecture and geography – as well as its ‘interior’: the psychology of its inhabitants and key players. To do this, Morris employs very different kinds of cinematography – from documentary recording to apparently narrative scenarios – which work as a method of visual distraction, a way of exploring the urban environment, and more particularly its issues of social power and representation.

Blinky Palermo, pseudonimo di Peter Schwarze, poi Heisterkamp (Lipsia, 2 giugno 1943 – Kurumba , isole Maldive, 18 febbraio 1977), è stato un pittore tedesco. Peter Schwarze, col fratello gemello Michael, viene adottato da bambino e cambia il cognome in Heisterkamp. Nel 1962 si iscrive all'Accademia di Düsseldorf, dove studia con Joseph Beuys. Nel 1964 adotta il nome d'arte Blinky Palermo, da un noto mafioso italo‐americano, promotore di incontri di pugilato. Nel 1968 espone alla galleria Heiner Friedrich di Monaco. Nel 1970 visita New York con Gerhard Richter e vi trasferisce il proprio studio nel 1973. Partecipa ad una settantina di mostre e rappresenta la Germania alla Biennale di San Paolo del Brasile nel 1975. Blinky Palermo rinuncia ad ogni riferimento alla realtà e concentra la sua attenzione e quella degli spettatori sui valori espressivi dei colori e sulla loro carica emotiva e spirituale. Fonti di ispirazione a cui l'artista guarda con interesse sono le opere degli esponenti del movimento Color Field, e cioè Barnett Newman, Mark Rothko, Clifford Still e Ad Reinhardt.

Anselm Reyle (born 1970, Tübingen, Germany) is an artist based in Berlin. He is known for his often large‐scale abstract paintings and found‐object sculptures. Anselm Reyle took an early interest in landscape design and music before finally homing in on painting and sculpture. Characteristic of his work are various found objects that have been removed from their original function, altered visually and recontextualized. Reyle works in different media, utilizing strategies of painting, sculpture and installation and working in serial, structured work groups. The artist uses a vast and diverse group of materials taken from both traditional art and commercial milieus including colored foils from shop window displays, acrylic medium and pastes, automotive lacquer, and useless everyday garbage taken from urban areas. By removing these materials from their contexts and masking their original function, Reyle varies the degree to which each retains its respective visual reference. Utilizing formulas of appropriation the work lets the viewer shift between moments of identification of individual elements within the work, and periods of alienation due to their new context. Even the exhibition and work titles are very often citations from different fields, such as song texts; they function as objets‐ trouvés of the artist´s repertoire.

Gerwald Rockenschaub (* 1952 in Linz) ist ein österreichischer Künstler und DJ. Rockenschaubs frühe Gemälde gehören zur Neo‐Geo‐Malerei, einer Kunstrichtung der 1980er Jahre, die eine abstrakte Formfindung aus der zeitgenössischen Umwelt und Gesellschaft ableitet. 1987 wandte sich Rockenschaub trotz einsetzender Erfolge von der Malerei ab, da ihm diese Kunstrichtung – auch angesichts der Technologisierung der Musik, die für ihn selbst einen Übergang vom Punk zu House bedeutete – als nicht mehr zeitgemäß erschien. Seine späteren Installationen und Skulpturen führen dennoch die für Neo‐Geo charakteristische Verbindung klarer ästhetischer Formen und spezifischer Umweltbedingungen fort: So sind seine Rauminstallationen im Österreichischen Pavillon oder im MUMOK zum einen als minimalistische Objekte zu verstehen, zum anderen verweisen sie auf die Ausstellungsbedingungen der zeitgenössischen Kunst im sogenannten White Cube. Dazu greift er mitunter direkt in die Architektur der jeweiligen Ausstellungsräume ein, um das Verhältnis von Betrachter, Kunstwerk und Raum offenzulegen oder umzukehren, so dass die Ausstellungsbesucher selbst zum (ästhetischen) Bestandteil der Installation werden. Neben seiner Teilnahme an der Clubszene greift Rockenschaub in seinen künstlerischen Werken ebenso deren ästhetische Elemente auf und verwendet Industriematerialien wie PVC, aus denen seine Werke nach Computerentwürfen gefertigt werden. Die Computergrafik als visueller Bezugspunkt wird beispielsweise in seiner Gestaltung der Fassade der Temporären Kunsthalle Berlin deutlich, die er mit einer in Pixeln gerasterten Wolke bemalen ließ. Im Jahr 2007 erhielt Rockenschaub den hoch dotierten Fred‐Thieler‐Preis für Malerei. Seit 2012 gehört er selbst der derzeit fünfköpfigen Jury des Kunstpreises an.

Peter Roehr (* 1. September 1944 in Lauenburg, Pommern; † 15. August 1968 in Frankfurt am Main) war ein deutscher Maler und Objektkünstler. Roehr fertigte mit industriell hergestellten Elementen oder gedruckten Bildmotiven in serieller Reihung meist quadratische Bildtafeln. Durch diese Addition jeweils gleicher Motive, die jegliche Subjektivität ausblendet, wird die Aufmerksamkeit auf die einzelnen repetierten Teile, auf das angewandte Ordnungsprinzip, wie auch auf die entstehende Großform gelenkt. Dabei wählte der Künstler Motive in einer genau bestimmten Größe und Anzahl, so dass eine neue formale Einheit entstand. Die gewählten Materialien bringen prototypisch das Stereotype der Massengesellschaft zum Ausdruck: Postaufkleber wie Schnellsendung oder Einschreibe‐Einlieferungszettel gehören ebenso dazu, wie Motivausschnitte aus der Illustriertenwerbung, Buchaufkleber, Preisetiketten, Bierdeckel mit dem Motiv des Henninger Turms oder quadratische Schulschiefertafeln und runde Kunststofflinsen. Als der Künstler 1968 im Alter von 23 Jahren an Lymphdrüsenkrebs starb, hinterließ er mit über 600 Arbeiten eines der eindrucksvollsten künstlerischen Œuvres. Die Urne des Künstlers wird in einer seriell angeordneten Urnenwand aufbewahrt, die sich auf dem Frankfurter Hauptfriedhof befindet.Das komplette Archiv von Peter Roehr wurde im Jahre 2011 von Paul Maenz dem Museum für Moderne Kunst (MMK) in Frankfurt am Main überlassen. Es enthält Filme, Notizen, Briefe, Manuskripte und das Nachlassverzeichnis des Künstlers.

Ulrich Rückriem (30 September 1938) is a German sculptor notable for his monumental stone sculptures. He lives and works in Cologne and London. His abstract works of art are often assigned to the style of minimalism and process art. Born in Düsseldorf, Rückriem spent his years of apprenticeship as a stonecutter in Düren, followed by employment as a journeyman at the Dombauhütte workshops of Cologne Cathedral. Later on, due to his tight association with Gallery Konrad Fischer, Düsseldorf, he got in contact with artists and colleagues like Carl Andre, Richard Long, Sol LeWitt y Royden Rabinovich. From 1963 on, he worked as a free‐lance artist. For a couple of years, he shared a studio with Blinky Palermo, before he started his academic career, firstly, at Hochschule für bildende Künste Hamburg (starting from 1974), from 1984 on at Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, and, finally, at Städelschule, Frankfurt am Main (starting from 1988).

Reiner Ruthenbeck (* 30. Juni 1937 in Velbert) ist ein deutscher Bildhauer und Konzeptkünstler. Ruthenbeck arbeitete nach einer Fotografenlehre von 1956 bis Ende der 1960er Jahre als freier Fotograf in Düsseldorf. Seine Dokumentar‐ und Theaterfotos, Porträtbilder und Werkaufnahmen von Arbeiten seiner Künstlerkollegen erfolgten vom Ende der 1950er bis zur Biennale in Venedig im Jahre 1976 und die konzeptionelle Fotografie zwischen Mitte der 1960er bis Ende der 1970er Jahre. Er dokumentierte unter anderem berühmte Avantgarde‐Aktionen, wie die Fluxuskonzerte in der Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, eine Reihe der Aktionen von Joseph Beuys und der Gruppe ZERO und begleitete die Aktion Leben mit Pop – eine Demonstration für den kapitalistischen Realismus im Möbelhaus Berges, Flinger Straße 11, mit Gerhard Richter und Konrad Lueg. Von 1962 bis 1968 absolvierte er an der Kunstakademie Düsseldorf ein Bildhauerstudium bei Joseph Beuys. Schon während seines letzten Studienjahres wurden seine Plastiken und Kunstobjekte in der Galerie Konrad Fischer, einer wichtigen Düsseldorfer Avantgardegalerie, ausgestellt. 1975 und 1976 war er Gastdozent an der Hochschule für Bildende Künste Hamburg. Er lehrte von 1980 bis 2000 als Professor für Bildhauerei an der Kunstakademie Münster. Ruthenbeck lebt und arbeitet in Ratingen bei Düsseldorf. Seine Werke sind sehr individuell und schwer einzuordnen, die frühen Arbeiten sind skulptural und zeigen zum Teil sein damaliges Interesse am Surrealismus, werden später abstrakter und nehmen Elemente der Minimalkunst auf, der Materialkunst, der Concept Art sowie der Arte Povera. Er benutzt oder benutzte Metall, Asche, Stoff, Glas, Holz, Papier, Licht, Geräusche, Fotografien, es gibt ein berühmtes Videoobjekt, (eigentlich ein Anti‐Videoobjekt) und Zeichnungen.

Michael Sailstorfer (* 12. Januar 1979 in Velden (Vils)) ist ein deutscher Bildhauer sowie ein Installations‐ und Objektkünstler. Sailstorfer begann seine künstlerische Tätigkeit mit ungewöhnlichen Skulpturen in freier Landschaft, fremdartigen temporären Gebilden, zum Beispiel eine Blechhütte aus zerschnittenen Wohnmobilen auf einer Wiese, von denen nur Fotos zeugen. „Wohnen mit Verkehrsanbindung“ heißt eine Installation, bei der er im bayrischen Landkreis Erding verschiedene Wartehäuschen an einer Buslinie mit Schlafzimmer‐ und anderen Wohnungseinrichtungsgegenständen ausgestattet hat. 2008 schuf er ein Video, das ein Wellblechhaus zeigt, das seine Wände wie aufgeblasen ausdehnt und zu zersprengen scheint, dann aber immer wieder in sich zusammensackt. Von Ausgangspunkten älterer Kunst ist kaum geprägt, weder inhaltlich noch formal. Er verwandelt „Objekte und entzieht ihnen den ursprünglichen Zweck. Dafür flößt er ihnen neues Leben ein und verleiht ihnen eine Seele. Mit der neuen Identität beginnt eine neue Geschichte. Spannend dabei ist immer wieder Michael Sailstorfers kabarettreife künstlerische Schöpfung der neuen Welten.“ Die Skulpturen des Bildhauers Sailstorfer überschreiten das körperlich Figürliche, sie breiten sich in weitere Dimensionen aus und erhalten durch Licht, Geräusche oder Geruch wuchernde Erweiterungen. Dabei faszinieren den Künstler Alltagsobjekte.

Fred Sandback (August 29, 1943 – June 23, 2003) was a minimalist conceptual‐based sculptor known for his yarn sculptures, drawings, and prints. His estate is represented by David Zwirner, New York. Frederick Lane Sandback was born in Bronxville, New York where, as a young man, he made banjos and dulcimers. He majored in philosophy at Yale University (BA, 1966) before studying sculpture at Yale School of Art (MFA, 1969) where he studied with, among others, visiting instructors Donald Judd and Robert Morris. Sandback is primarily known for his Minimalist works made from lengths of colored yarn. The artist's early interest in stringed musical instruments led him to make dulcimers and banjos as a teenager. In 1967, he produced the sculpture that would establish the terms of his mature work. Using string and wire, he outlined the shape of a 12‐ foot‐long 2‐by‐4 board lying on the floor. Though he employed metal wire and elastic cord early in his career, the artist soon dispensed with mass and weight by using acrylic yarn. His yarn, elastic cord, and wire sculptures define edges of virtual shapes that ask the viewer's brain to perceive the rest of the form.

Karin Sander (born 1957 in Bensberg, Nordrhein‐Westfalen) is a German conceptual artist who lives and works in Berlin and Zurich. Sander’s work reveals form present but unseen—exposing, with exquisite subtlety, the sculpture inherent in her extant subjects. Pieces such as highly polished eggs or painted walls, and machine‐made precision miniature replicas of people, invite us to question the way we see things, both inside and outside the gallery setting.

Haim Steinbach (born Rehovot, Israel, 1944 and living in New York City since 1957) has been an influential exponent of art based on already existing objects. Since the late 1970's Steinbach's art has been focused on the selection and arrangement of objects, above all everyday objects. In order to enhance their interplay and resonance, he has been conceiving structures and framing devices for them. Steinbach presents objects ranging from the natural to the ordinary, the artistic to the ethnographic, giving form to art works that underscore their identities and inherent meanings. Exploring the psychological, aesthetic, cultural and ritualistic aspects of objects as well as their context, Steinbach has radically redefined the status of the object in art.

Katja Strunz (Ottweiler, Germania 1970), partecipa dalla metà degli anni 90, partecipa a svariate esposizioni per le più importanti gallerie d’arte contemporanea del mondo. In questo modo si afferma la sua figura di artista internazionale. Il metallo, in tutte le sue sfaccettature, è l’elemento catalizzante delle opere concettuali di Katja Strunz. Berlinese d’adozione vince il Vattenfall Contemporary 2013, premio concepito nel 2010 dalla Berlinische Galerie sulla scia del Vattenfall Kunstpreis Energie, altro riconoscimento assegnato fino al 1992 ad artisti di fama internazionale. The works of Katja Strunz bear the traces of lived experience, of a past that manifests itself through the use of recycled materials. In some of her pieces she combines these old elements with new designed, industrial or handmade elements. She calls this group of works "constructed fragments". Fed by her own archaeology of modernity, her work constructs itself in the present, by proposing a temporality in which future, present and past draw heavily on one another.

Wolfgang Tillmans (born in 1968, in Remscheid) is a German Fine‐art photographer. His diverse body of work is distinguished by observation of his surroundings and an ongoing investigation of the photographic medium’s foundations. In 2000, Tillmans was the first photographer ‐ and also the first non‐English person ‐ to be awarded the Tate annual Turner Prize. In 2009, he was awarded the Kulturpreis der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Photographie (The Culture Prize of the German Society for Photography). Tillmans lives in Berlin and London. Tillmans further explores the bounds of photography as a medium in his “paper drop” series (2001–8). Tillmans started to make ‘paper drop’ images depicting photographic paper specifically exposed to coloured light in his darkroom in 2001. He creates extraordinary sculptural forms in photographic paper, then by photographing them returns them to the accustomed flatness of that same medium. Photography’s step from ‘picture’ to ‘object’ is best demonstrated in the works from the “Lighter” Series (2005–8), in which the artist dropped the act of photographing and allowed the photographs ‐ in their three dimensional form ‐ to only represent themselves, recalling his ongoing series "Impossible Color" (1996–present). These colourful photo‐paper works are folded, creased or otherwise manipulated, allowing for a subtle play with the material surface and the resulting illusion of lines and contrast. Contained under Plexiglas lids, they have a rather sculptural quality.

Rosemarie Trockel (born November 13, 1952 in Schwerte, North Rhine‐Westphalia) is a German artist and an important figure in the international contemporary art movement. She lives and works in Cologne, and teaches at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. Though Trockel has consistently resisted an explicit stylistic signature, certain recurring themes weave throughout her oeuvre, most notably notions of female identity and feminism, the disjunction between fine art and craftsmanship, and the varying presence or anonymity of the artist traceable in a physical object. Wool has been considered one of Trockel’s signature materials since she first utilized the medium to create a series of machine‐knit wool works in the 1980s. Trockel's "knitting pictures", produced in 1985, consist of lengths of machine‐knitted, woolen material stretched onto frames. The material is patterned with computer‐generated geometrical motifs, or with recognizable logos, such as the hammer and sickle motif of the Soviet Union superimposed on a background of red and white stripes reminiscent of the US flag. I See Darkness (2011) is one of the wool series for which Trockel is best known. Black yarn is stretched across a square of white perspex in vertical lines which, from far away, create the illusion of a monochrome painting. More recent wool paintings feature bold horizontal and vertical stripes of color as well as monochromatic compositions, with clear references to the formal compositions of twentieth century abstract painting. Another of Trockel's pieces consists of a steel cube fitted with six hot plates in two parallel, diagonal lines, meant to establish a bridge between the "feminine domain" of cooking and the "masculine domain" of industrial production.

Wang Guangle was born in 1976 in Songxi, Fujian Province and later graduated from the Oil Painting department at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 2000. The artist currently lives and works in Beijing. Wang Guangle is regarded as a leader amongst China’s younger generation of painters. He is a member of the N12 art organization. He spent a short time working at a publishing house, and then quit, because he hated the working stiff’s lifestyle, but also because artist and CAFA professor Liu Xiaodong had connected him to a collector who started buying his work, giving him an income of RMB 30,000 a year. Back then, an income stream like that meant everything for an aspiring artist. With a guaranteed stipend, he would never need to work again.

Andrea Zittel (born 1965) is an American sculptor, installation artist, and Relational artist. In the early 1990s, Andrea Zittel began making art in response to her own surroundings and daily routines, creating functional objects that fulfilled the artist’s needs relating to shelter, food, furniture, and clothing. She produced her first “Living Unit”‐‐an experimental structure intended to reduce everything necessary for living into a simple, compact system—as a means of facilitating basic activities within her 200‐square‐foot (19 m2) Brooklyn storefront apartment. In order to make customized “Living Units” and other usable artworks available to contemporary consumers, Zittel launched the one‐woman corporation, A‐Z Administrative Services. While some of her modernist‐inspired products were designed with the intention of making daily routines easy and efficient, others, such as the pod‐like “Escape Vehicles,” appealed to fantasies of isolating oneself from the outside world. Much of her work reflects qualities that she feels create independence for the owner and user such as compactness, adaptability and transportability. Zittel found that despite moving to the desert to be alone, she ended up doing many social and public projects. At the core of the project, she found that she had always wanted to start a commune, but couldn't find others to join her until then.

A cura di Giorgia Marotto