André Sousa’s spatial installations incorporate a huge range of objects: minimal sculptures, detached advertising posters, empty beer bottles, photographs of car stickers or graffiti slogans, and drawings in the style of “stick men”. In his installations, the unspectacular objects – which Sousa finds in the cultural environment of each place where he is living – are combined with the aid of a cleverly-calculated strategy into a complex network of meanings and references.
Sousa has constructed two large wooden sculptures reminiscent of shop counters across the architectonic diagonals of Studio 2; they function as symbolic, reflecting axes separating public space from the exhibition space. Numerous small-format oil paintings, which Sousa displays on one of the counters, resemble an anthology of abstract painting and play with the concepts of axis and centre. On the second counter, he arranges found objects from the environment in Kreuzberg so that they are given completely new meanings. Like at the till in the local supermarket, André Sousa has fixed angled mirrors to hang from the ceiling above the wooden counter. They show the viewer of his installation quite clearly that nothing is concealed behind the art object: the artist is playing with his “cards on the table”.
He sees himself not so much as an “author”, but as a mediator and organiser of highly diverse pictorial repertoires within an apparently infinite network of meanings and references.
André Sousa holds the João Hogan Fellowship from the Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon in the context of our International Studio Programme.
At the opening of "FABEL (Fábula/Fable), we are delighted to present a further round of OPEN STUDIOS.
The following artists will be opening their studios between 7 pm and circa 10 pm on 9th July:
Wafae Ahalouch el Keriasti (NL), Dafni BarbageorgopoulouD (GR), Manolo Bautista (E), Patrick Bernatchez (Québec), Rossella Biscotti (I), Soo Jung Choi (ROK), Romeo Gongora (CA), Ane Graff (N), Sara Hughes (NZ), Jost Kirsten (NA), Tomasz Kowalski (PL), Michael Kutschbach (AUS), Christodoulos Panayiotou (CY), Björn Perborg (S), Thomas Lerooy (B), André Sousa (P) and Guy Zagursky (IL), as well as Zak Ostrowski (USA).
Special sale of publications by Künstlerhaus Bethanien:
On the evening of the opening of “FABEL (Fábula/Fable)” we will be offering another special sale of (almost) all publications that have been produced through the Künstlerhaus’s publishing activities. Again, you will have the opportunity to acquire catalogues and books at extremely reasonable special prices.
The special sale is only on 9th July 2009 (Studio 3, as from 7 pm).
OPENING, OPEN STUDIOS + PUBLICATION SALES: Thursday, 9th July 2009, from 7 pm
Free Admission.
Presse- und Öffentlichkeitsarbeit
Künstlerhaus Bethanien GmbH
Mariannenplatz 2
D-10997 Berlin
Tel. +30-616 90 315
Fax +30-616 90 330
http://www.bethanien.de