Volcano Lovers

Opening Sunday 20 Mar 4 - 7 pm

“The Volcano Lover” is the title of a Susan Sontag novel about an obsessive collector. He sells his finds only so he has money to collect more objects (much like the artist needs to sell work in order to buy supplies with which to make more work).  Over time, collections become archives. An archive acts as a keeper of memories and a marker of time but also as a record of obsession. Archives link us to history and can also be inherently colonialist ; their creation exists as an act of labor and care, but also ownership and control. A studio practice can exist as a living archive: a collection of decisions, processes, failures, and experiments that maps the actions of a person and lays bare our obsessions.

Volcano Lovers includes the work of TSA GVL members matthew anthony batty, Tiffany Calvert, Emmanuelle Chammah, April Dauscha, Rachel de Cuba, Suzanne Dittenber, Lindsey Smith Gustave, Kevin Kao, Susan Klein, Makeda Lewis, Hirona Matsuda, Kelsey Sheaffer, Brooks Harris Stevens, Rachel Lin Weaver, Luke Whitlatch and Frontviews members Despina Flessa, Kathrin Köster, and Alana Lake (in collaboration with Francesco Langer).

This exhibition is part of a larger series of exhibitions in Berlin that nurture communication between cultures and explore the dialogue, creativity, invention, and cultural impact that defines artist-run spaces. The Berlin spaces will subsequently exhibit their member work in the USA at their partner TSA space in 2023. 

The title for the first part of the exchange, when the American artists exhibit in Berlin, is Meanwhile, We Are Here. This title emerged from the organizers’ discussions around the present moment as well as the importance of connection and community. Throughout 2019 and 2020, we have had to reckon with the realities of loss, isolation, nationalism, and individualism. As a result, we decided to focus this exhibition exchange on connection, memory, and visions for the future. We thought about two signifiers: the time capsule and the wormhole. The time capsule represents archives, selection, hidden histories to be revealed at a later time, future relics. Like the time capsule, the wormhole connects points in time, simultaneous occurrences, and differing realities. Both are time machines, capable of compressing the past, present, and future. The title also relates to functioning as an artist during times of upheaval; we persevere in making work, our practices become entwined with events in the wider world. Each TSA site has the freedom to interpret the theme of Meanwhile, We Are Here in any way they wish.  

Artists:
matthew anthony batty is a transdisciplinary artist from New Orleans, Louisiana and South Florida. They received a BFA in Studio Art at Flagler College in St. Augustine, FL and their MFA in Studio Art at Indiana University. matthew most recently was commissioned by the New Orleans Film Festival to create an installation for the festival which was funded in part by the Andy Warhol Foundation. batty has participated in numerous artist-in-residence programs like Hambidge Center for Creative Arts, Black Vulture Project, The Weight of Mountains, and the Center for Rural Engagement. batty also explores curatorial work as an extension of their art practice. They have curated exhibitions at Spalding University, as well as curated experimental venues such as The Breezeway Gallery, The Fuller Projects. matthew anthony batty is currently a member of the national artist collective and network Tiger Strikes Asteroid.  

(Emma)nuelle Chammah is a sculptor and designer based in Atlanta, GA. She earned a Master of Architecture I from Tulane University in 2007. Her early wearable artworks were exhibited and performed in New Orleans, LA and Brooklyn, NY. In 2010, she completed a Digital Sculpture Residency at the School of Visual Arts in NYC, and went on to work in New York and California for agencies in architecture, art fabrication, theater and fashion. While building her art practice and working in the cultural arts, she developed expertise in creative placemaking and community art. Currently, Emma continues her radical use of fabric in many forms including wearables, tapestries and sculptures. She completed residencies at The Hambidge Center, GA and the Penland School of Craft in Penland, NC. Her work has been shown at the Oceanside Museum of Art, the Atlanta Contemporary, MINT Atlanta and the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia. Forthcoming in 2022, her wearable pieces will be shown at the Mint Museum in Charlotte, NC for the “Coined in the South” exhibit and she will be preparing new work for a solo exhibition at MINT in Atlanta. She is currently an Artist-in-Residence in the Atlanta Contemporary's Studio Artist Program.

Born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky, April Dauscha received her BFA in fashion design at the International Academy of Design and Technology and her MFA in fiber from Virginia Commonwealth University. April is on the board of directors for the Surface Design Association (SDA) and is one of the founding members of Tiger Strikes Asteroid Greenville (TSA GVL). She has been represented by Page Bond Gallery in Richmond, Virginia and has recently exhibited as part of the Uneasy Beauty: Discomfort in Contemporary Adornment exhibition at the Fuller Craft Museum and as part of the, Adornment: Beauty in Excess at the Walton Arts Center. Her work has also been featured on art blogs such as Beautiful Decay, Ignant and Issue No.206. She is currently spearheading a brand-new fiber arts program as instructor and area head at the Fine Arts Center in Greenville, South Carolina.

Rachel de Cuba is an interdisciplinary artist raised in Sebastian, FL. She received her BFA in Studio Art at Flagler College in 2013 and her MFA in Digital Art at Indiana University in 2019. She received recognition for her thesis work with Grant awards from Indiana University. In 2019 she was invited to create new media artworks for the New Orleans Film Festival with support from the Andy Warhol Foundation. de Cuba’s work has been shown nationwide and was recently selected to exhibit in 701 Center for Contemporary Art’s 2021 South Carolina Biennial in Columbia, South Carolina. Her mixed media work has also been selected for publication in New American Paintings Southern 2022 Edition. Rachel de Cuba is currently a Co-Director of Tiger Strikes Asteroid Greenville and the Provost Pathways Fellow in Art at Clemson University.

Suzanne Dittenber’s work has been shown across the United States at Florida State University, Michigan State University, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, the Wiregrass Museum of Art, Mana Contemporary and Blue Mountain Gallery and internationally at the Chiba Museum Art in Chiba, Japan and the CICA Museum in Gyeonggi-do, Korea. She has been awarded artist residency grants at the Vermont Studio Center, MICA’s Alfred and Trafford Klots Residency in Brittany, France, and the Heliker LaHotan Foundation Residency on Cranberry Island, Maine. Dittenber received her BFA from Columbus College of Art and Design, her MFA in Painting from the University of New Hampshire, and has completed studies at the New York Studio School and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts. She was born in Charleston, South Carolina, grew up in Columbus, Ohio and currently lives in Asheville, North Carolina where she is an Assistant Professor of Painting at UNC Asheville.

Despina Flessa (b. 1986, Athens) is a visual artist based in Athens. In her work the limits of drawing and sculpting mediums are tested to their extremes, exploring notions of the ephemeral, the ruinable and the indestructible. Her installations consist of enigmatic objects that look like archaeological finds sourced from the past or perhaps the very near or distant future. Solo exhibitions include: Substratum, Zoumboulakis Galleries, Athens and Float, Pop/off/art Gallery, Moscow. Selected group exhibitions include: Open-ended Zoumboulakis Galleries, Eidyllia Οdos, Technopolis City of Athens, Supernature, The Others Art Fair Turin, Despina Flessa, Thorsten A. Kasper, Stelios Karamanolis, HAUNT Berlin, When the trees have numbers, HAUNT Berlin, The State of Emergency Has Become the Rule, CAN Gallery Athens, Overview Effect: Encountering the Cosmos, MOMus Experimental Center for the Arts in Thessaloniki, Still Here Tomorrow Stavros Niarchos Foundation in Athens, International Women's Day 2017 Exhibition,UNESCO Salle des Pas Perdus & Espaces Miro in Paris, Heliogabalus, 5th Moscow International Biennale for Young Art. She has been awarded with the 1st ARTWORKS SNF Stavros Niarchos Foundation Artist Fellowship Program. Received a MFA Master in Fine Arts at MET Athens School of Fine Arts and also studied at the Painting Department of Edinburgh College of Art and BFA Athens School of Fine Arts. Since 2020 she is an active member of the Frontviews collective in Berlin.


Lindsay Smith Gustave lives and works in Greenville, SC. Gustave received a BFA with Honors in printmaking and a Master's in Art History, both from the University of Denver. A multidisciplinary artist, she frequently utilizes objects found or inherited from family (i.e. beads, vessels, and figurines) and explores connections with those common objects to preserve relationships with family and depict the intergenerational lineage of inherited traits like trauma, mental illness, beliefs in social institutions, cultural constructs, and norms. Reproductions of specific moments, vague memories, or stories infuse them with meaning by challenging the division between memory and immediate experience. Gustave has worked at the Denver Art Museum, Clyfford Still Museum, and David B. Smith Gallery. She has exhibited work at Alto Gallery, Georgia Art Space, Leon, and Union Hall. Gustave has been featured as a Colorado Creative in Denver's Westword and DARIA Art Magazine.

Born and raised in California, Kevin Kao is a sculptor working in a figurative context. Having exhibited in more than 50 exhibitions nationally, his work has been shown and featured in several galleries and publications. He has received many awards and recognitions, including the Warren MacKenzie Advancement Grant presented by the Northern Clay Center. He has earned a B.S. in Biology - Ecology, Evolution, and Animal Behavior from the University of California, San Diego; and an M.F.A. in Studio Art - Ceramics, from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Kao currently resides in Greenville, SC and is an Assistant Professor of Art at Furman University.
                          
Susan Klein is an artist and curator living in Charleston, SC. Recent exhibitions include Call/Response at the University of Southern Maine and inclusion in the 2021 South Carolina Biennial. Klein is a 2020-2021 recipient of a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant. Other awards include a Hambidge Center Residency, Wassaic Project Residency (NY) and residency at the International Studio and Curatorial Program (Brooklyn), a full fellowship to the Vermont Studio Center, an Ox-bow Artist-in-Residence Summer Fellowship, an Otis College of Art and Design Summer Residency, and residency at Arteles Creative Research Center (Finland). Klein received her MFA in 2004 from University of Oregon, a BFA in 2001 from University of New Hampshire, and studied art at NYU from 1997-99. She is an Associate Professor of Art at College of Charleston and is co-director of Tiger Strikes Asteroid Greenville, an artist-run gallery.

Kathrin Köster is an artist living in Berlin. Studied fine arts at the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK). 2010 Master student degree with Lothar Baumgarten and master student award of the president of the UdK and prize of the Schulz-Stübner Foundation for painting. 2011 Participation in the Goldrausch Künstlerinnenprojekt. 2012 Working scholarship from the Stiftung Kunstfonds. Since 2012 member of the frontviews collective. Several residencies abroad (including six-month DAAD travel grant to New York City with Triangle Arts Association studio fellowship 2013, three-month residency at meetfactory Prague 2014 and 2021 residency A.T.E.N.A. in Sète, France (Résidence d' Artistes Femmes Européennes). 2017 Finalist of the Karl Schmidt Rottluff Scholarship and publication support of the Stiftung Kunstfonds. Scholarship of the Senate Department for Culture and Europe 2020.

Makeda Lewis  is an artist and program coordinator living and working out of Atlanta. She creates contour drawings and multimedia pieces that explore varying tenets of human connection. Her published coloring book, Avie's Dreams, covers some recurrent themes, such as the life-death-life cycle, love, intergenerational relationships and forms in nature. Alongside her artistic practice, she is focused on engaging the public with art and art history in interesting and nuanced ways. This is the main focus of her programming work--to learn and share information and build appreciation in a way that is impactful and transcends the barriers many have to approaching art.

Hirona Matsuda is a transdisciplinary artist who repurposes natural and manufactured materials to create immersive environments.  Her work aims to evoke a felt experience of a specific time or to create a direct dialog with her surroundings in a contemplative, inquisitive way.
Hirona grew up in Charlotte, NC and studied sculpture and anthropology at the College of Charleston.  She has exhibited throughout South Carolina and frequently collaborates with other artists and arts organizations.  Most recently she installed a series of eco artworks during a residency at Pine Meadow Ranch in Sisters, OR and in 2020 made a site specific piece for Redux Contemporary Art in Charleston, SC.   
                   
Kelsey Sheaffer is an artist and educator in rural South Carolina, where she works as the Creative Technologies Librarian at Clemson University. She also directs the Adobe Digital Studio and the Cooper Makerspace at Clemson. She received her BA in Art from Davidson College and her MFA in Kinetic Imaging from Virginia Commonwealth University. Her work investigates contemporary and historical interdisciplinary creative spaces and the pedagogy of line, sound, media, and movement. Kelsey is also a member of Tiger Strikes Asteroid Greenville, which is an artist-run gallery space focused on the southeast.

Brooks Harris Stevens is an artist and Professor living in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. She received her BFA in Fibers from Savannah College of Art and Design and an MFA in Textiles/Fibers from East Carolina University, School of Art and Design. Brooks is an interdisciplinary artist who focuses on creating work that reflects our human experiences that are deeply rooted in textiles and fibers. Her creative practice focuses on the mending of cloth, land and architecture inspired by a myriad of cultural observations. She has lectured on textiles practices in Europe, Asia and the U.S. while exhibiting work in solo, group, and juried exhibitions nationally and internationally. Recently, Brooks had a solo exhibition, Mending Gold: Weight of Change, at the Robert Hillestad Textile Gallery at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln and work included in Out of Bounds Out of Space an international juried exhibition at the Center of Contemporary Art, Loveland, CO. Brooks has also been included in the 2019 invitational Biennial Fiberart Fair at the Hangaram Museum in Seoul, South Korea, as well as Guns: Loaded Conversations a traveling exhibition featured at the San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles, and the New England Quilt Museum in Lowell, Massachusetts.  Harris Stevens maintains a dedicated artistic career working to expand her studio practice and approaches to making while reflecting on the changes and many challenges we face in the United States.  

Rachel Lin Weaver is a transdisciplinary artist whose works span video, installation, sound, social practice, and performance. Recent artworks explore memory, collisions of the human and nonhuman, Indigenous knowledge sovereignty, and landscapes and people in flux. Weaver’s creative interests relate directly to queer and non-binary embodiment, and an upbringing in wilderness areas and remote communities in poverty. They find many useful metaphors in the natural world. They hold an MFA from Indiana University Bloomington, and a BA from Berea College. Currently, Weaver  serves as the Program Director for Cinema Reset, the XR, new and emerging media program of the New Orleans Film Festival. Weaver lives and works in the mountains of Appalachia, where they are an Assistant Professor and Director of the MFA in Creative Technologies at the School of Visual Arts at Virginia Tech.

Luke Whitlatch is a painter living in Asheville North Carolina. He was born and raised in Casper Wyoming. He then moved to Los Angeles California where he received his Bachelors of Fine Art degree in painting and art theory from the Otis College of Art and Design. He is currently represented by the Tracey Morgan Gallery in Asheville North Carolina. Whitlatch’s work has been shown at the Richard Heller Gallery the Rivington Arms Gallery as well as many other spaces around the United States. 
 

Frontviews at HAUNT
Kluckstraße 23 A / yard
D - 10785 Berlin
Free Entrance

Public Transport
Bus Linie M48 or M85 from Potsdamer Platz/ Busstop
Lützowstr./Potsdamer Str. and a 4 minute walk // U-Bahn
Kurfürstenstraße Linie U1 and U3 and a 6 minute walk // M29 Busstop Gedenkstätte Dt. Widerstand and a 2 minute walk.

Web / Social Media
www.frontviews.de
www.hauntberlin.de
IG @frontviews_berlin, @haunt_berlin

Volcano Lovers is part of the 5 x 5 Tiger Strike Asteroid Festival:
https://www.tigerstrikesasteroid.com/tagged/5x5haunt
https://www.tigerstrikesasteroid.com/tagged/5x5
https://www.tigerstrikesasteroid.com/page/4

! Please feel invited to visit all venues of the Festival !