Darja Bajagic Carlos/Ishikawa

Darja Bajagic, Puddles of Blood – Go Ahead, 2015, Carlos / Ishikawa

The artworks of Darja Bajagic open up conversations on complex issues such as power struggles between the sexes, censorship, authorship, and the digital landscape. Her work elicits a broad spectrum of reactions and reviews that range from cautiously positive to harshly negative. But to say of her work’s success that “sex sells” or “it’s for shock value” would be reductive. Growing up antisocial and with access to Web TV (an almost ancient way of accessing the Internet), there were only a few things to do: watch game shows and sports, or go on chat rooms. As a girl in her early teens, living in a very protective household, the artist made up several profiles of characters she would play online. Thus began her interest in collecting sexy or raunchy images of women. Her fascination with concealment and misdirection, something that is easily achieved through the Internet, is a common theme permeating her work. Bajagić’s more recent, multi-layered flap paintings flanked with laser cut-outs and patches purchased on eBay, as well as her serial killer art pieces (some of which contain information no one can see without altering the piece’s composition), speak to this idea.

Hannah Black Arcadia Missa

Hannah Black | Arcadia Missa

Hannah Black is a conceptual visual artist and writer. Her work spans video, text and performance and draws on communist, feminist, and afropessimist theory, autobiographical fragments, and pop music. Black was born in Manchester, England. She currently lives in Berlin, Germany, but mostly works in London and New York City.  In 2013, Black received a Masters of Fine Arts in Art Writing from the public research institution Goldsmiths College, University of London. From 2013-2014, she lived in New York City where she was a studio participant in the Whitney Independent Study Program. According to Hatty Nestor in Art in America, “Hannah Black’s practice deals primarily with issues of global capitalism, feminist theory, the body and sociopolitical spaces of control.” She is represented by the London gallery Arcadia Missa. In 2014, Black was a contributing editor to the New York-based magazine, The New Inquiry. In 2016, Black’s first collection of writing titled Dark Pool Party was published. The book consists of seven texts “that blur the lines of fiction, nonfiction, cultural criticism, critique, and poetry.” In March 2017, Black posted an open letter to the curators of the Whitney Biennial to her Facebook page in response to the painting Open Casket by American artistDana Schutz. Black’s letter advocated for the removal of the painting with the additional “urgent reccomendation” that it be destroyed.

Kate Newby Cooper Cole

Kate Newby, Nobody else believes this story, 2016, Cooper Cole

Kate Newby (b. 1979, Auckland, New Zealand) works with installation, textile, ceramics, casting and glass. Her work explores the limits and nature of sculpture, not only in space but also where and how sculpture happens. She received her DocFA and MFA from the Elam School of Fine Arts at the University of Auckland. She has shown internationally at such venues as Auckland Art Gallery, Hopkinson Mossman, Auckland, New Zealand; Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Gertrude Contemporary, Melbourne; Minerva, Artspace, Sydney, Australia; Fogo Island Gallery, Newfoundland, Canada; Sculpture Center, Marianne Boesky, Laurel Gitlen, Ludlow 38, New York; Laurel Doody, Los Angeles, USA; Lulu, Mexico City, Mexico; La Loge, Brussels, Belgium; Philipp Pflug Contemporary, Frankfurt, Germany; P420, Bologna, Italy; Josh Lilley, London; Arnolfini, Bristol, UK. Newby currently lives and works between Auckland, New Zealand and Brooklyn, USA.

Eduardo Guerra and Miguel Ferrão Murias Centeno

Musa Paradisiaca, Intestino-cobra [Intestine-snake], 2013, Murias Centeno

Musa paradisiaca is a dialogue-based artistic project by Eduardo Guerra and Miguel Ferrão. Founded in 2010 on temporary partnerships with individual and collective entities of varying competence, Musa paradisiaca assumes different formats, while always maintaining a discursive and participatory reference. Their work has been presented at various exhibitions, such as “Man with really soft hands” at Galeria Múrias Centeno, Lisbon (2017), “Alma-Bluco” at CRAC Alsace, Altkirch (2015) and “Machinesʼaudition” at Kunsthalle Lissabon (2014). Their recent performances include “The Intimate Knowledge of Things” at Haus der Kulturen der Welt (2017), “Canteen—Machine” at Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art, Porto (2015), “How to catch a fugitive” at Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon (2013) and “Impossible tasks [The Servant of the Cenacle]” at Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2013).

Rosa Aiello Vavassori

Rosa Aiello, The Demagogue, 2016, Vavassori

Rosa Aiello (b.1987 Hamilton, Canada) works most often with text and video. She lives in Frankfurt, where she is currently studying at the Staedelschule with Peter Fischli. Recent exhibitions include solo shows at OUTPOST, Norwich, at Eli Ping Frances Perkins, New York, and a two-person show at KW, Berlin. Her work has been exhibited at Catherine Bastide, Brussels; De Vleeshal, Middleburg; The Whitney Museum, and Sculp- tureCenter, New York. She is part of the fiction collective Pure Fyction, which began at Staedeslchule with science fiction writer Mark Von Schlegell. Her writings have most recently been published in the Pure Fyction publications Dysfiction II and III, and with Triple Canopy. She holds degrees in literature and theory from McGill University and Oxford University.