Opening: 20th January, 7 PM
Greeting: Prof. Dr. Doris Klee, board NAK
Introduction: Maurice Funken, director NAK
Afterwards: Music & drinks

 

NAK Neuer Aachener Kunstverein will commence the year 2018 with the exhibition Jan Hoeft / Xavier Mary. This will be the first exhibition curated by newly appointed artistic director Maurice Funken and present two complimentary but albeit diametral positions.

In their artistic practice both artists put social as well as socio-cultural phenomena up for discussion. At this juncture Jan Hoeft brings into focus subcultural aspects of society, set against a political charged background. The artist accurately investigates structures, mechanism and aesthetic codes of these scenes and further adapts them for his artworks. For NAK Hoeft will realize a new series of works as one space-filling installation, using technology of the computer tuning scene, combined with visual elements and hence transferring them into the art world. Furthermore Hoeft will leave behind the exhibition space of the Kunstverein to stage a subtle intervention in the public space of the surrounding park.

In contrast, Xavier Mary intuitively uses the specifications of social thresholds and throws his glance at the aesthetics of reinterpreted materials. Mary’s artworks presented in the exhibition have taken the title Dancefloor of Emergency. On the one hand the sculptures by the Belgium artist refer to an excessive, subcultural nightlife and then again they refer to their archaic industrial-mechanical origins. In his works Mary broaches the issue of socio-economic problems of a present-day affluent society, at the same time crafting an almost modern fable about fading dreams and virtues in the afterglow of the bygone industrial era. Within the exhibition a process-driven dialogue between the pieces of Jan Hoeft and Xavier Mary emerges, in the end involving the visitor as well.

Jan Hoeft (*1981 in Blankenburg) studied at Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste Karlsruhe and at Kunsthochschule für Medien Köln. He lives and works in Cologne.

Xavier Mary (*1983 in Lìege) studied at Ecole de recherche graphique in Brussels. He lives and works in Brussels.

Accompanying program

Jan Hoeft will have an artist talk with freelance curator Jari Ortwig at NAK on the 1st of March 2018, 7 pm. On this occasion, Hoeft will furthermore present his Jahresgabe.

 

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