Mercedes Benz Munich and Kunstkonnex Ausstellungskonzepte cordially invite you to the vernissage of the exhibition “Female Presse-Information Images in Contemporary Photography – Works by Xiao Hui Wang, Andreas Hosch, Marlen Raabe and Juan Saliquet”. The exhibition 8.9.2014 will be presented on 21 October at 7 pm in a VIP press tour in the presence of the artists. At 8 pm, Ulrich Kowalewski, Head of Mercedes-Benz Munich, will officially open the exhibition, followed by a speech by the curator, Dr Sonja Lechner. The exhibition runs until 10 November in Arnulfstraße 61. “Female Images in Contemporary Photography”: The exhibition offers an insight into what four photographic artists from different countries, of different ages and from different cultural backgrounds consider to be today’s femininity. Xiao Hui Wang is the super- star of the Chinese arts scene, whose works have won numerous awards and been presented all over the world. She focuses on the oscillation of young women from Shanghai between East and West, tradition and modernity. Firmly rooted in the modern world, however, is Andreas Hosch, shooting star among the young wild ones: His works approach the myth of woman eternal through a tightly constructed, almost painting-like picture composition. Marlen Raabe’s black and white body pictures, on the other hand, fo- cus on the erotic power of women by playing with highly evocative motifs. Finally, the works of Juan Saliquet refer back to paragons in the history of art, which he transfers into the present by his photographs, only to modify them again by sculptural incisions. XIAO HUI WANG Xiao Hui Wang, born in Tianjin, China, works mainly in photography but also in other areas of art: sculpture, installation, film and media art. In 2001 she became a professor at the University of Tonji, where she founded the “Xiao Hui Wang Art Center” in 2003 and the “Tonji Internati- onal Media Art Center” (TIMAC) in 2006. Her team designed the Theme Pavilion of the 2010 World Exhibition in Shanghai, and she has worked with several world-renowned companies on big arts projects. Her works have won numerous awards, been shown all over the world and can be found in private and public collections in China and abroad. Her contributions to German-Chinese cultural exchange were honoured with the “German-Sino Friendship Award” by the German government. The Hong Kong magazine “Phoenix Life” lists her as one of 50 “Chinese who Impact the Future of the World”. In September 2013 the “Xiao Hui Wang Art Museum” was opened, which was made available for the presentation of her work by the city of Suzhou (www.xiaohuiwang.com). ANDREAS HOSCH Born in Stuttgart in 1975 and raised in Munich, the artist started taking photographs at the early age of 15. After his apprenticeship, he was awarded the “German Kodak Photography Youth Award” at the age of 21 and afterwards specialised in fashion photography. Since then his works have been featured in international magazines. Since 2011 Andreas Hosch has fo- cused increasingly on artistic photography and accepted the offer to teach photography at Blo- cherer-Design-School in Munich. In 2013 he had his breakthrough as a photo artist: His work “Der Halt” was presented in the Circle Culture Gallery in Berlin and attracted great attention on the arts market. MARLEN RAABE After her apprenticeship, Marlen Raabe started photographing people and achieved internati- onal success with her celebrity portraits. However, she has always been interested in artistic black-and-white photography: For years, her focus has been on pictures of the female body, the power of women and their sensuality. Her works had so far been published in print only, but there were continual requests for her works to be shown in exhibitions. In 2014 she relented and, for the first time, presented her works in a walk-through exhibition. JUAN SALIQUET Born in Spain in 1969, Saliquet first studied journalism and marketing. After visiting the ate- lier of Oscar Benedi, he decided to become an artist. His works have been shown international- ly, from Madrid, Barcelona, New York, Miami and Beirut to Damascus. His oeuvre combines the usually quite distinct areas of photography, painting and sculpture by photographically recrea- ting paintings, which are then modified by incisions. The sculptural effect of those incisions is emphasized even more by the light boxes, which frame his works. Dr Sonja Lechner, MA, art historian, www.dr-sonja-lechner.de Contact: Birgit Fetting (Munich branch), + 49 89 1206 1330, [email protected].