Aesthetica Art Prize 2021 20 SHORTLISTED ARTISTS
This year’s shortlisted artists are dealing with themes that are ever-present in today’s world. There are works that are looking at social bias in 21st century algorithms, the climate crisis, the pandemic and beyond, as well as projects that are dealing with the European colonial past. The exhibition opens 28 May and continues until 28 September 2021 at York Art Gallery, UK. yorkartgallery.org.uk.
1
Arthur Kleinjan Above Us Only Sky, Three-Channel Video | Netherlands
arthurkleinjan.nl A narrator leads us into a magical-realist history that is bereft of fabrication. His story begins with an investigation into a plane crash in communist Czechoslovakia, which one woman survived after an unlikely fall from the air. This event becomes the point of entry to a dense web of seemingly unrelated events that appear to be deeply entangled – questioning the logic of chance and synchronicity. Kleinjan explores layered and evocative stories.
2
Gabriel Hensche
3
Erwin Redl
Almost Heaven, Artists' Film | Germany
gabrielhensche.com Gabriel Hensche’s performance, moving image and installation pieces deal with the question of how the internet and new digital technologies affect the way we coexist and "perform" for each other. In Almost Heaven, the artist asked people to perform or dance to a song that they didn’t like. The result is both surprising and unnerving; the connection between the viewer and performer is demonstrative of how we engage with videos on the internet.
Reflections V2, Installation | USA
paramedia.net Reflections V2 comprises over a decade of research into the nature of visual perception. The formal representation of the work is strongly tied to the aesthetic of Minimal Art. The tradition of colour field painting is combined with slow, seasonal changes found in nature. The custom software uses generative algorithms and random processes to create a stream of colour sequences, reframing the relationship between fine art and digital media.
4
Carlos David Personae II, Artists' Film | USA
carlosdavid.org Personae II is an exploration of how the human spirit – as expressed through dreams, fantasy and imagination – can endure and transcend to provide perspectives on lived experiences. For this instalment, David collaborated with a diverse group of people connected through the overarching experiences of conflict and trauma. Working with stigmatised and marginalised groups, he opened up a new dialogue between the spectator and the subject.
5
Kitoko Diva
The Black Man in The Cosmos, Artists' Film | UK
kitokodiva.com The Black Man in The Cosmos is a poetic and experimental art film created as a part of a video installation mixing new form of Afrofuturism, cyberspace imagery and poetry. Aiming to be both social and political by addressing the contemporary identity crisis issue amongst European Afro-descendants, this short film is revisiting Space Is the Place, the science fiction film, released in 1974, directed by John Coney, written by Sun Ra and Joshua Smith.
114 Aesthetica
6
Christiane Zschommler
The Will of the People, Multimedia | UK
christianezschommler.co.uk The images in The Will of the People are based on spectrograms of speeches by the British government, headlines in the media and the artist’s own writing where she reflects on the impact of the 2016 UK / EU referendum. Distorted facts and invented statistics – coupled with hate speech – make impossible promises to the nation, helping to create a climate of fear towards immigrants. The voices of Europeans currently living in Britain are missing.
7
Dirk Hardy
Vivarium, Photography | Netherlands
dirkhardy.com Vivarium was started in 2018 as a crafted photographic microcosm. The constructed worlds depict confined spaces in which people find themselves all day. Each diorama is a hyperreal tableau: a portal into the inner-worlds of its exposed inhabitants. These deeply personal encounters are reflections of Hardy’s observations and memories – a concert of subjective narrative elements by which the artist creates a conspiracy between himself and the viewer.
8
Henny Burnett
365 Days of Plastic, Installation | UK
axisweb.org/p/hennyburnett 365 Days of Plastic is an installation cast in pink dental plaster. It demonstrates one year’s worth of plastic food packaging from a single household, which is both simultaneously beautiful and horrifying. This is a disturbing view of one typical family’s environmental impact. Of course, the plastic was recycled, but the scale of this piece reveals the enormity of the problem. The work plays with the ambiguity of outcome and interpretation: domestic and industrial.
9
David Brandy Newer Topographics, Photography | Canada
davidbrandy.com Brandy’s passion as an artist is to capture man-altered landscapes with the uncanny – the psychological experience of something strangely familiar. Familiar objects or places evoke a sense of being both beautiful and strange, reflecting a kind of splendour we seldom notice. In Newer Topographics a canvas is created, which emphasises a strong sense of isolation due to the juxtaposition of natural landscape with solitary manmade constructs.
10
Andrew Leventis Freezer Box and Refrigerator (Vanitas), Painting | USA
andrewleventispainting.com Freezer Box (Vanitas) and Refrigerator (Vanitas) are from a series that considers vanitas in a modern-day circumstance, which really came to light when the pandemic hit in March 2020. The works reflect on the mass panic induced by the Covid-19 pandemic and how the idea of “stocking up” was so crucial and almost primal instinct, in a notion to survive. In the traditional sense, vanitas allude to themes of plague, desperation, dehumanisation and loss today.
