Alba D'Urbano

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Alba D'Urbano (born April 13, 1955 in Tivoli , Italy) is an Italian artist who has lived in Germany since 1984 and has been a professor at the Leipzig School of Graphics and Book Art since 1995 .

Life, career and political engagement

Alba D'Urbano is the middle of three children of the stonemason Quirino D'Urbano and his wife Giuseppa Baldacci. She was born one year after her older brother died. To escape the stressful atmosphere in her parents' home, she withdrew into her own world and drew a lot.

After graduating from high school, she studied philosophy at La Sapienza University in Rome from 1974 to 1978 . She was already politically active during her school days; at the university she continued this commitment and took part, among other things, in the occupation of the university in 1977. Alba D'Urbano experienced her character as an artist as part of the "scattered avant-garde" (Klemens Gruber), which saw a paradigm shift in the relationship between Sought to bring about art, politics and mass communication. Against this background, Alba D'Urbano produced, among other things, experimental radio programs for the alternative radio station Radio Gulliver in Tivoli (based on radio stations such as Radio Alice in Bologna and Radio Città Futura in Rome) and founded a feminist group with like-minded women.

In 1979 - against the resistance of her family - she began studying fine arts at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome with Enzo Brunori . During this time, experimental works were created in collaboration with other artists. One of them was the composer Alessandro Cipriani , with whom she realized performances, Super 8 films and artistic actions in public spaces.

In 1984 Alba D'Urbano moved to West Berlin, where she studied visual communication at the University of the Arts from 1985 . In 1989 she became a master student of Wolfgang Ramsbott in the subject of experimental film design. In 1990 she received a scholarship at the Institute for New Media in Frankfurt am Main, which was headed by Peter Weibel . During this time she met her future husband Nicolas Reichelt , with whom she implemented several intermedia projects in the following years.

After a teaching position at the Offenbach am Main University of Design , she received a call to the Leipzig University of Art and Graphic Design in 1995 , where she has held a professorship for computer graphics since 1998 and has headed the class for intermedia since 1998. In 2003/04 she worked for a year at the Free University of Bolzano . Since 2000, she has curated numerous at national and international level as part of her university activities, who deal with political and social issues and include both process-oriented and media-reflective methods. In addition to her own artistic activity, Alba D'Urbano has been working with Tina Bara since 2000 .

plant

In the 1980s Alba D'Urbano's artistic interest focused on the serious changes in the perception of reality due to the increasing influence of the virtual, manipulable flood of images in the mass media . The relationship between writing and new media was at the center of her artistic exploration. The West Berlin urban space with its partially cut communication channels and the "island status" was the scene of her first video works from the series Nur die Augen kann (shot at Checkpoint Charlie , 1985) and Kreis, der (shot at Ernst-Reuter-Platz , 1987) . For the video installations in the Berlin European City of Culture series , she looked at the local communication media, while in the Prometheus series of paintings she worked on human communication impoverishment and the loss of writing.

In the 1990s, Alba D'Urbano turned to "the interactive video and computer installation, to which it gave important impulses as a means of artistic expression through its creative, complex, experimentally expanding and problem-conscious design". In her projects, some of which have been varied in terms of media (e.g. L'esposizione impraticabile , 1992, 1996, Rosa Binaria , 1993–96, Hautnah and Il sarto immortale , 1995–98), she “sensitizes” the viewer to the mass media “problem without polemics and while maintaining the aesthetic suggestive power of various media. "

In order to counter the overwhelming range of media images, she played with the viewer's expectations. She replaced images with illegible strings and drew the viewer's gaze to the process of creating media images. She became internationally known through her multi-part projects Hautnah and Il Sarto Immortale , in which she digitally processed images of her own body, had them printed on fabric and transformed into items of clothing that were presented by models on catwalks . In the interplay of clothing and nudity , she wanted to expose the marketing of the woman's body in the mass media and in the fashion industry.

In her works, developed together with Tina Bara, which are inspired by feminist positions, the body stands as a matrix in which identity is inscribed as a cultural and social construction. The artists are always concerned with the process of assigning normative behavior. In a series of cross-media projects such as Portrait Alba / Tina Ritratto and Bellissima , the artists sometimes fall back on biographical material. Tina Bara added the topic of the GDR past. The series of portraits award ceremonies (2003), for example, shows former competitive athletes from the GDR. The project Covergirl: Wasp Files (2007–2009) deals with the opposition group Women for Peace , of which Tina Bara was a member.

Solo exhibitions (selection)

  • 1987 Ingranaggio / Interlocking with Andrea Scrima . Karo Gallery Berlin
  • 1991 video installations with Martin Figura. Shin Shin Gallery, Berlin
  • 1991 Occhio Elettronico. Studio Leonardi, Genoa
  • 1992 L'esposizione impraticabile. Municipal gallery, Frankfurt am Main
  • 1993 Un Anno. Galleria Stefania Miscetti, Rome
  • 1993 Rosa Binaria. Gallery in the community center, Neunkirchen; Fellbach City Gallery
  • 1994 The negated space. Sequence, Frankfurt am Main
  • 1994 Un Anno. Beckers Gallery, Darmstadt
  • 1995 up close. Special exhibition in art '95, Zurich
  • 1996 Rosa Binaria: spiral. Friedrichshafen Art Association
  • 1996 Rosa Binaria. Art video forum, Stadtwerke Hameln
  • 1996 The thread. Kunstverein Celle, Gothic hall in Celle Castle
  • 1996 In Vitro. Institute for New Media, Frankfurt am Main
  • 1997 Il sarto immortale: couture. Nassauischer Kunstverein, Wiesbaden
  • 1998 Il sarto immortale: display. Art Association on Finkenstrasse, Munich; Gallery Pohlhammer, Steyr, (A)
  • 1998 The beautiful wound. Municipal gallery in the Carmelite monastery, Frankfurt am Main
  • 1998 … as save as… Literaturhaus, Munich
  • 2000 outside. Kunstforum Berlin, action in urban space / performance in urban space, Berlin
  • 2003 Whoami. Lindenau Museum, Altenburg
  • 2003 Corporal Identity with Tina Bara. Gallery Schüppenhauer, Cologne
  • 2004 whoami. City Gallery Kiel; New art association Aschaffenburg
  • 2004 Opere d'Arte 36 with Tina Bara. Galleria Stefania Miscetti, Rome
  • 2009 Bellissima with Tina Bara. Gallery Schüppenhauer, Cologne
  • 2010 blush / redden with Dagmar Varady . UFO gallery in Halle on the Saale
  • 2011 ! Perla_Miseria! with Tina Bara. Landesgalerie, Linz; House at Kleistpark, Berlin
  • 2012 ! Perla_Miseria! with Tina Bara, Kunst + Projekte eV, Sindelfingen City Gallery
  • 2012 Alba D'Urbano , Topographie de l'art, Paris
  • 2013 know with Dagmar Varady, Kunstverein Ludwigshafen , Kunsthalle
  • 2015 History / Tales with Tina Bara, Galerie im Turm, Berlin

Group exhibitions (selection)

  • 1988 video installation Kreis: la Piazza as part of the Berlin Cultural Year , European Capital of Culture 1988. Esplanade, Berlin
  • 1989 Internationaal audio-visual experimenteel festival 1989. Arnhem
  • 1990 Il recinto e il luogo sacro. Sora (Italy)
  • 1992 information service. Künstlerhaus Stuttgart
  • 1993 Xenografia project . Venice Biennale
  • 1993 Computerkunst / Arte digital. Goethe Institute, Buenos Aires
  • 1993 Voyages Virtuels. Espace Aventures, Paris
  • 1994 borderline. New Berlin Art Association, Berlin
  • 1994 Intelligent ambience. Ars Electronica '94, Design Center, Linz
  • 1995 art, chaos, media. Sindelfingen City Gallery
  • 1995 Manual Devices. Frankfurt Art Fair, Frankfurt am Main
  • 1995 Telepolis. FIL, Luxembourg
  • 1996/97 Arte Electronica. Goethe Institute, Madrid
  • 1996/97 photography after photography. Kunsthalle Krems; City Gallery Erlangen; Museet for Photo Art, Odense; Winterthur Photo Museum; Finnish Museum of Photography, Helsinki; Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia
  • 1996/97 staging and visualization. Church of St. Martin, accompanying event to Documenta X , Kassel
  • 1998/99 Lingerie: an underworld. Museum Bellerive , Zurich
  • 1998/99 sculpture, figure, female. Upper Austria State Gallery, Linz
  • 1998/99 art and paper on the catwalk (fashion show). Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin
  • 1998/99 Natural Reality. Ludwig Forum for International Art, Aachen
  • 2000 The anagrammatic body. ZKM, Karlsruhe
  • 2000 cross female. Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin
  • 2001 GeldLust: ModelBanking. Kunsthalle Tirol, Hall
  • 2001 KIMAF. Gallery of the Center for Contemporary Art, Kiev
  • 2002 Skin: Surface, Substance and Design. Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, New York
  • 2002 naked. Museum of Arts and Crafts Hamburg
  • 2002 The second skin - art and clothing. Museum Bellerive, Zurich
  • 2002 The Nude in 20th Century Art. Art gallery in Emden
  • 2003 now and forever - permanence and fashions in art. Luitpoldblock, Munich
  • 2003 Bellissima. Gallery of the HGB, Leipzig
  • 2003 Through the Looking Glass: Women and Self-Representation in Contemporary Art. Palmer Museum of Art, Pennsylvania State University
  • 2004 Approaches to Happiness. ACC Gallery, Weimar
  • 2005/06 Pattern Language - Clothing as Communicator. Tuft University Art Gallery, Medford; Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; University Art Museum, University of California Santa Barbara; Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis
  • 2005/06 Elettroshock The video in Italy from the 70's till today (1973-2006). China Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing, Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou
  • 2005/06 A question [about] the gesture , Leipzig Opera
  • 2007 Second Skin: Entry 2006. Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei, Taiwan
  • 2007 Transparent. Granary, Fiskars, Finland
  • 2008 women at the Olympics. Women's Museum, Bonn
  • 2008 Artworks 36th International Festival of Art and Technology, Melbourne, Florida
  • 2009/10 Evil is a squirrel. Leipzig Regional Court, Leipzig
  • 2009/10 YOU_Ser: The Century of the Consumer, ZKM 10th anniversary. Santralistanbul, Istanbul
  • 2009/10 Moving world - told time. Academy of Arts, Berlin; Center for Contemporary Art, Moscow; Museum of Contemporary Art, Kiev; Loft gallery floor, St. Petersburg, Siberian Center for Contemporary Art, Novosibirsk, Almaty, Tashkent
  • 2009/10 That Obscure Object of Desire. offiCina Gallery, Beijing
  • 2009/10 Intimacy! Bathing in art. Ahlen Art Museum
  • 2009/10 Agents and Provocateurs. MedienKunstVerein Dortmund
  • 2011 puzzle. Gallery for Contemporary Art, Leipzig
  • 2011 Morceaux Exquis. Espace Fondation EDF, Paris
  • 2011 When someone goes on a trip. Gallery for Contemporary Art, Leipzig
  • 2012 let's see! , Dresden engine hall
  • 2012 Viaggio in Italia , exhibition by students of the HGB Leipzig and invited guests, Werkschauhalle, Spinnerei Leipzig
  • 2012 Collection's Show 2012, Part 1: Appropriation of the Present , Gallery for Contemporary Art (GfzK), Leipzig
  • 2013 Inside Out - Insights into fashion , Museum for Art and Commerce, Hamburg
  • 2013 INTIMATE (students of the Intermedia class, HGB) , Galerie Eigen + Art, Leipzig
  • 2013 Cultural Clash Nomade (HGB Leipzig, HEAD Genève), in: Leipzig, Nordhausen, Frankfurt am Main, Ludwigshafen, Strasbourg, Genève
  • 2013 Subversive Design , Brighton Museum & Art Gallery (UK)
  • 2014 Gyeongnam International Photography Festival , Art Center, Changwon (KR)
  • 2014 Source , Nanjing University of the Arts, Nanjing (CN)
  • 2014 Media emergency with Tina Bara, National Museum Stettin (PL)
  • 2015 Leipzig, hero city? with Tina Bara, Goethe Institute Marseille (F)
  • 2015 2.5.0. - Object is Meditation and Poetry with Tina Bara, Grassi Museum, Leipzig
  • 2015 IKONISCH / ICONICO - The image as a reference, media art of Latin America and Germany with Tina Bara, Goethe Institute Madrid (E)
  • 2015 Desperate Housewives? Women artists clean up , Museum Kulturspeicher Würzburg

Works in public collections (selection)

  • Gutenberg Museum, Mainz
  • Collection of the City of Frankfurt am Main
  • Collection of the city of Fellbach
  • German Society for Securities (DWS), Frankfurt am Main
  • Dresdner Bank , Munich
  • Collection of the contemporary art gallery in Termoli, Italy (Galleria Civica d'Arte Contemporanea)
  • Deutsche Bank, Darmstadt
  • Media Museum, Karlsruhe
  • Medienhaus, Frankfurt am Main
  • Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin
  • Saxon Art Fund of the Free State of Saxony, Dresden
  • Kunsthalle Dominikanerkirche, Osnabrück
  • Museum of Arts and Crafts Hamburg
  • Museum Bellerive, Zurich

Awards and grants / awards

  • 1987 Funding of the editorial team of Das kleine Fernsehspiel (ZDF) for the realization of the video Kreis, der
  • NaFög scholarship from the University of the Arts, Berlin
  • Project funding from Röhm GmbH, Darmstadt
  • 1990 Pépinières scholarship from Eurocréation, Paris
  • 2006 Project funding by the German Federal Cultural Foundation for a question (about) the gesture
  • 2009 Project funding by the Art Fund Foundation for Covergirl: Wasp Files

German-language literature by and about Alba D'Urbano (selection)

  • Thomas Wolff: News from spatial research . In: Steiger, Charly (ed.) : Sequence , Frankfurt am Main 1995.
  • Alba D'Urbano: Up close . In: Kunstforum International , Kunstforumverlag Ruppichteroth 1995; as well as in photography after photography ( memento of November 18, 2015 in the Internet Archive ), Verlag der Kunst, Munich 1995.
  • Hans-Peter Schwarz: Touch me . In: Media-Art-History , Prestel Verlag, Munich 1997.
  • Ingrid Mössinger : Alba D'Urbano . In: Barbara Wally (ed.), Sculpture, figure, female , (exhibition catalog), Bibliothek der Provinz, Linz 1998.
  • Karin Wendt: Experimentum Loci: Virtual Spaces . In: Hermann, Mertin, Valting (ed.): The present of art , Wilhelm Fink Verlag, Munich 1998.
  • Claudia Benthien: skin. History of literature - body images - border discourses , Rowohlt Verlag, Reinbek 1999.
  • Günter Meißner: Alba D'Urbano . In: Günter Meißner (ed.), General Artist Lexicon, Volume 31, pp. 181ff., Saur Verlag, Munich 2002.
  • Dieter Daniels, Alba D'Urbano: Utopia: Origin of all media . In: Andreas Broekman, * Rudolf Frieling (ed.): Range of media between art and politics , Kulturverlag Kadmos Berlin 2004.
  • Petra Leutner: Surfaces with bodies . In: Christian Janecke (ed.): Wear hair , Böhlau Verlag, Cologne, 2004.
  • Alexandra Kolossa: The Presence of the Absent Alba D'Urbano - An Approach . In: Alba D'Urbano: Whoami: In ordine Sparso , Verlag für Moderne Kunst, Nuremberg, 2006.
  • Hubertus von Amelunxen : Hear once. For Alba . In: Alba D'Urbano: Whoami: In ordine Sparso , Verlag für Moderne Kunst, Nuremberg, 2006.
  • Cora von Pape: art clothes. The presence of the body in textile art objects of the 20th century , Transcript-Verlag, Bielefeld, 2008.
  • Ingrid Loschek : When is fashion? Structures, strategies and innovations , Dietrich Reimer Verlag, Berlin, 2007.
  • Constanze Küsel: The Made in Chocolate . Frankfurt University Press, Frankfurt am Main, 2010.
  • Alba D'Urbano: Terrifyingly beautiful: body poetics and body construction . In KUNSTmagazin 1005 (pp. 8–13), KUNSTverlag, Berlin 2011.
  • Paolo Bianchi: Alba D'Urbano & Dagmar Varady “Knowing - A Catalog of Works” , in: Kunstforum 225, March – April 2014, pp. 320–323

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Klemens Gruber: The scattered avant-garde. Strategic communication in Italy in the 1970s , Böhlau-Verlag, Vienna 2010.
  2. ↑ edisonstudio.it: News 2009-2010 - Alessandro Cipriani ( Memento from March 26, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ↑ cf. http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/werke/esposizione-impraticabile/ and http://on1.zkm.de/zkm/werke/TouchMe
  4. ↑ http://www.hgb-leipzig.de/index.php?a=person&b=mitarb&id=22&js=2&
  5. ↑ http://www.hgb-leipzig.de/index.php?a=studgang&b=mk&c=&d=&p=261&
  6. ↑ http://www.durbano.de/videography.html
  7. ↑ Günter Meißner (Ed.): Allgemeine Künstlerlexikon , Volume 31, Saur Verlag, Munich 2002, p. 181 ff.
  8. ↑ http://kultur.inm.de/projects/90-94/esposizione.html
  9. ↑ http://90.146.8.18/de/archives/festival_archive/festival_catalogs/festival_artikel.asp?iProjectID=8819
  10. ↑ http://www.durbano.de/sarto/index.html
  11. ↑ Günter Meißner (Ed.) :: General Artists Lexicon , Volume 31, Saur Verlag, Munich 2002, pp. 181 ff.
  12. ↑ http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/werke/hautnah/
  13. ↑ http://www.inm.de/people/alba/sarto/index.html
  14. ↑ Portrait Alba / Tina Ritratto ( Memento from May 30, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
  15. ↑ Bellissima ( Memento of May 30, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
  16. ↑ Awards ceremony ( Memento from May 30, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
  17. ↑ Covergirl: Wasp Files ( Memento from May 30, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
  18. ↑ http://www.goethe.de/ins/ru/lp/prj/bew/kue/bar/de4773508.htm
  19. ^ Museum for Art and Crafts Hamburg: Inside Out. Insights into fashion ( Memento from July 25, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
personal data
SURNAME D'Urbano, Alba
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian artist and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH April 13, 1955
PLACE OF BIRTH Tivoli , Italy