January 17 to February 22, 2014

United Colors: Salome Ghazanfari and Felix Oehmann

 

Cruise & Callas starts the new year with a double exhibition: Salome Ghazanfari, born 1982, shows wall works, and Felix Oehmann, born 1985, shows sculptures. We asked the artists a few questions.

 

 

Where do you find the material for your work?


Salome: I find my material mainly outside, on the streets. That‘s why I‘m interested in the aesthetics of billboards and posters. They are the non-hierarchical and simplified form of written and imagery language. My shots are pop, flat and formally move on the surface - they use a generally comprehensible form and they concentrate complexity. I deliberately expose myself to real experiences, because the authenticity, in which I’m interested, is only produced by direct contact and in risking real closeness. My works aren’t photographs in the classical sense, but evidence of realities that I experienced in realtime. Formally, I bring this experience back into the space by bringing the works plastically on the wall.

                   
   

Felix: I prefer materials that are fragile and soft and then try to gain the greatest possible transparency in the construction. In risking the collapse of the sculpture’s upright posture I celebrate loss and disappearance. At this point, a formal and narrative loop emerges, which is similar to a chorus and which gives autonomy to the sculpture. I think a successful chorus is a high form of communication. It’s possible for the chorus to act as a big embrace and to reduce distance. In it, desire and overcoming desire lie close together. This is a timeless power.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What is important for you when doing a work?     


Salome: It‘s important for me that my work becomes an institution in society that creates affiliation. By positioning a burning barrel in Görlitzer Park for example, I try to liberate energy - the barrel becomes some kind of social barrel, a plinth for real outsiders. I provide objects and persons with a language, an image, which depicts their essence from my perspective. My work shall create an awareness and an insight, growing to a love machine. In this sense, I take Michael Jacksons legacy seriously when he says: „Heal the world, make it a better place“.

 

 

 

             

Felix: I’m interested in a high dichotomy. I produce artificial distances. At the sculptures own place I want to raise the question, how it can overcome these distances. Sculpture is the place of collision: between here and there, world and individual, history and presence. It is the place of transferring energy between the individual and another and has, to actually offer this opportunity, to be in itself full of energy as high as possible. That’s why rapidity, directness and a sense of being improvised are important for me. Clear signs like hearts, lips, numbers or smileys function as a remedy to abolish distance. They exist independent of a context, are generally comprehensible and enable an encounter between me, sculpture and viewer on the same level.

 

 

You work for years autarkic side by side: What connects you both and the title “United Colors”?


Salome: Felix and me are showing no restraint, jumping into the world without an airbag.  And anything with friction gets caught at the end. For me, United Colors means freedom, affiliation and communication. If everything melts together, all the appealing disappears. Insofar: Promote Diversity!              

Felix: United Colors sounds generously positive, facing future optimistically. Salome and me unites our search for extremes and our dedication for the special. We share a similar risk to surrender us to the things happening and to give this back in its full intensity!