Press Kit (August 30th/31st, 2012) - Goldmann Public Relations ...

NEWTOPIA: The State of Human Rights
Contemporary Arts Exhibition in Mechelen and Brussels
01.09. – 10.12.2012
Speech Matters, Danish Pavilion, 54 th Venice Biennale (2011); Seeing is
believing, KW, Berlin (2011); Tasteful Pictures, The J. Paul Getty Museum,
Los Angeles (2010); elles@centrepompidou.fr, Centre Georges Pompidou,
Paris (2009); Bienale Cuve, OK Center for Contemporary Art, Linz (2009);
Manifesto Marathon, Manifestos for the 21st Century, Serpentine Gallery
Pavillion, Serpentine Gallery, London (2008). www.tarynsimon.com
TRAVIS SOMERVILLE was born in 1963 in Atlanta, USA. He lives and
works in San Francisco, USA.
Travis Somerville’s work aims to remind us of the racial discrimination, the
oppression of minorities and violence that occurred historically in the United
States and still is going on today. He confronts the viewer with complex and
unresolved issues, such as prejudice, racism, the conditions of migrant
workers and the treatment of Muslims in post 9/11 America. Somerville was
born in Atlanta, Georgia to white civil rights activists and grew up in the
1960s and '70s in the Southern United States. His liberal upbringing in the
‘Dixieland’ formed the ideas he expresses in his art. He often uses ‘black’
imagery and references to the civil rights movement to reflect the racial
issues and stereotypes that became ingrained in the public consciousness
as he grew up. At the same time, his practice simultaneously tries to
reconcile the artist’s own personal struggle with his Southern Christian
upbringing and the overt tumultuous racial politics of then with the mixed
messaging backlash of now.
Recent solo exhibitions include: Places I've Never Been, San Francisco Arts
Commission Gallery, San Francisco (2011); Dedicated to the proposition...,
Ben Maltz Gallery, Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles (2009).
Recent group exhibitions include: Reconsidering Regionalism: Prints
Inspired by the South 1951-2011, Jule Collins Smith Museum of Auburn
University, Auburn (2011); Art Shack, Laguna Art Museum, Laguna
Beach (2010); Altered States: The Collection in Context, Gatehouse Gallery
at the di Rosa Reserve, Napa (2010); Lincoln: Man, Myth, and Memory, The
Amistad Center for Art & Culture, Hartford (2009); Portraying Lincoln,
Madden Arts Center, Decatur (2008); Martin Luther King Jr: Life, Times,
and Legacy, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford (2007).
SIMON STARLING was born in 1967 in Epsom, United Kingdom. He lives
and works in Copenhagen, Denmark.
The processes involved in transforming one object or substance into
another lie at the core of Simon Starling’s practice. He makes objects,
installations and devises pilgrimage-like journeys that draw out an array of
ideas about nature, technology and economics. Starling describes his work
as ‘the physical manifestation of a thought process’, revealing hidden
histories and relationships and very often highlights the labour expended to
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