Ottjörg AC

Ottjörg AC , actually Ottjörg Andreas Claus (born September 18, 1958 in Heidelberg ) is a German artist. Graphics, in situ, staging, plastic. Authenticity and globalization are terms that he deals with.

Life

Childhood in the Neckar-Odenwald

Claus' father was a Protestant pastor and his mother was a nurse. Ottjörg Claus grew up with a brother and two sisters in the small community of Mundingen in the Rhine Valley between Kaiserstuhl and the Black Forest. At the age of 11, the family moved back to the vicinity of Heidelberg, to the town of Mosbach , 60 kilometers away , in the Neckar-Odenwald.

On a trip to France he got to know surrealism . Claus took private drawing lessons from the English artist Denis Russel. It was he who recognized his talent and promoted him.

Living and working in West Berlin

After graduating from high school in the late seventies, he completed an apprenticeship as a carpenter in a carpenter's workshop in Mosbach. Two and a half years later he left Baden-Württemberg and went to West Berlin - as part of the squatter scene, the occupation and legalization of Bülowstrasse 52 followed . Claus studied philosophy and journalism at the Free University.

Claus worked for Max Lehnert in one of the leading Berlin joineries at the time. From 1984 to 1986 he set up a wood workshop for unemployed young people in Gropiusstadt, Berlin .

Student of Alfred Hrdlicka

In 1986 Claus was accepted as a painter in the basic class at the University of the Arts . In that year Alfred Hrdlicka took over the professorship for sculpture at the University of the Arts, in whose class he studied.

Alfred Hrdlicka wrote letters of recommendation for his projects, got involved in a gallery and bought some of his work during a solo exhibition of his student in Vienna. Hrdlicka also enabled personal encounters and conversations with important contemporaries. Claus met Stefan Heym , Heiner Müller , Erich Fried and Wolfgang Hildesheimer in Hrdlicka's studio .

Chinese art

China in particular shaped him and his work. In 1982 he visited the country for the first time. He studied Chinese art history and ink painting in the 1980s and 1990s, developing projects and teaching at the Central Academy in Beijing, the Guangzhou Academy and the Beijing normal University in Zhuhai. In 1989 he exhibited for the first time in the gallery of the Central Academy in Beijing - ink drawings. Other exhibitions followed: at the Chinese Art Archive and Warehouse curated by Ai WeiWei and at the Hans van Dyke Archive .

Claus also studied at the Berlin and Vienna University of Applied Arts and at the Repin Institute of the Leningrad Academy. In 1991 he exhibited stone lithographs in the Salon of the Academy in Leningrad. In 1993 Claus acquired the title of " Meisterschüler " at the University of the Arts in Berlin.

Most important individual work

Graphics and printing

• Concrete baroque
• Existential marks
• Deskxistence
• Existing marks
• Protelics
• Supporting pillars

Games about the art business

• Merkartifix : Monopoly for artists and buyers
• Epofact : an evening in the carom of the art business

Project: Existentmale

Between 1995 and 2001, Claus printed scratched, scratched windows on subways and trams, most of which had tags in connection with HippHopp, in various metropolises - including Amsterdam, Berlin, Budapest, Paris, Zurich, Milan, New York and Sao Paulo.

Project: Deskxistence

Between 2007 and 2012, Claus visited 48 schools on five continents - including Berlin, Beirut, Beijing, Istanbul, New York, Sao Paulo, Sarajevo and Ramallah. Over 600 direct prints were made of school desks in their original shapes and sizes.

Exhibitions, actions and performances

• 2013/14 : Group exhibition at Kunstraum Dreieich: “Peanuts of Joy”, Nanjing
• 2012 : Solo exhibition in the old slaughterhouse, art association: “Can we Amazonia?”
• 2011 : Visiting professor of the Chinese Artists Association, Symposium on Contemporary Painting, Zhuhai
• 2010  : Solo exhibition, Gu Yuan Museum, China
• 2009 : artist residence, city of Berlin; Group exhibition, Lower East Side Print Shop, New York, USA; Academy of Arts, Thessaloniki, Greece
• 2008 : Performance of Epofakt in cooperation with the Goethe-Institut, Art Forum Berlin
• 2007 : Solo exhibitions Deskxistence Alphabet Road , Goethe-Institut Jerusalem and Franco-German Cultural Center in Ramallah; Solo exhibition Existential Marks, Zhongshan Museum of Fine Arts and German Consulate General in Canton
• 2006 : Surface Existence, Guandong Museum of Fine Arts, Canton, China; Artist residency in cooperation with DNA Galerie and IFA, 9th Havana Biennale; Joint exhibition Total City Beijing Case, ZKM, Karlsruhe; 3rd Printing Biennale, Tetovo, Macedonia
• 2005 : Solo exhibition Existentmale, Goethe-Institut Shanghai and He Shan Gallery, Shanghai, China
• 2004 : Solo exhibition Existiermal und Deskxistence, Museu de Arte Leopoldo Gotuzo, Pelotas, Brazil
• 2003 : Solo exhibition "Scratched Signs worldwide?", DNA - The New Action Gallery, Berlin
• 2001 : Epofakt: Staging Germany, Akademie der Künste, Berlin; Performance of Epofakt in cooperation with the Goethe-Institut, Art Forum Berlin; Solo exhibition Existentmale, Gerhard-Marcks-Haus, Bremen; Existentmale - Project: "Art instead of freedom", Gallery Ars Nova, Berlin
• 2000 : Existentmale: "Scratched windows getting stamps", Kulturbrauerei , Berlin
• 1999 : Exhibition "Wings and Windows", Chinese Art Archives and Warehouse, Beijing, China
• 2008 : "Wurmend Mahl, Mein Mehlwurm could have done that too", Galerie Ars nova, Berlin
• 1997 : Subjects, Gallery Unwahr im Apparat, Berlin; Avoyeurible word space, Kassel-Berlin
• 1995 : Betoner Barock, Stadtpark, Vienna, Austria
• 1992 : Gallery Naviculus Artis, St. Petersburg, Russia
• 1991 : Salon, Academy of Arts, St. Petersburg, Russia
• 1989 : Artists Association, Harbin Manchuria China; Academy of Arts, Beijing, China

Collections

Albertina, Vienna, Austria Centro Wilfredo Lam, Cuba Gerhard Marcks Haus, Bremen Guandong Museum of Art, Canton, China Gu Yuan Museum, Zhuhai, China Kunsthalle Karlsruhe Kupferstichkabinett MALG, Ljubljana, Slovenia Museu de Arte Leopoldo Gotuzo, Pelotas, Brazil National Institution of Museum, Tetovo, Macedonia SMPK Kupferstich Kabinett, Berlin Städtisches Museum Zwickau, Germany

Publications

• Ottjörg AC: Deskxistence , in: Deborah Cullen (Ed.): Interruption, The 30th Biennale of Graphic Arts Ljubljana, Black dog publishing / The international Center of Graphic Arts, London / Ljubljana 2014 ISBN 978-1-908966-30-8
• Ottjörg AC: Global Realism , Research Paper Collection, Chinese and Foreign Scholars BBS Peak 2001, Nanjing 2011
• Ludwig Seyfarth: Ottjörg, AC, Deskxistence , exhibition catalog, Kerber, Bielefeld 2010 ISBN 978-3-86678-460-4
• Novena Bienal de la Habana: Existentmale , Centro de Arte Contemporaneo Wilfredo Lam Cuba, Havanna 2006 ISBN 959-7178-11-7
• Gregor Jansen: Surface Existences Wandmale, Pavillon Jishuitan , Total City Beijing Case, ZKM Museum for New Art, Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, Cologne 2006 ISBN 978-3-86560-153-7
• Ottjörg AC: Existent Males, Inscriptions in the Surface of Public Space , New German Literature, 52nd volume / Issue 561, 2004 ISBN 3-937738-20-7 ISSN  0028-3150
• Ottjörg AC and Christine Düwel: Can sustainability be relevant for planning or work strategies in art , in: Beate Littig (Ed.): Ecology and social crisis, How sustainable is sustainability, Verb. Wiener Volksbildung, Vienna 1998 ISBN 3-900 799-210
• 2nd International Art Meeting Katowice 1998: Mercartifix by Ottjörg AC , 1998 ISBN 83-908833-2-5
• Ottjörg AC: Betoner Barock, individual artistic project by Ottjörg AC , with contributions by Peter Gorson, Johanna Hofleitner, Wolfgang Knapp, Society for Art and Popular Education, Vienna 1995 ISBN 3-901293-01-9
• 8th International Print Biennale Varna 1995: I want to drink you up, Ottjörg AC , C / o jusautor, Sofia 1995 ISBN 954 406 066 9

Web links

• dna-galerie.de
• zkm.de
• kunstverein-neckar-odenwald.de

Individual evidence

1. ^ An art project by the Berlin artist Ottjörg ( Memento from September 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive ). German-French cultural center in Ramallah, November 12, 2007.