By Ear 

In music, playing by ear is a term for performing a piece from memory and intuition rather than from a proper score. By Ear takes inspiration from this concept and uses it as a model for collaboration between visual artists from Berlin and Los Angeles/New York. Delayed for almost two years, the exhibition at Tiger Strikes Asteroid Gallery will showcase works created by Berlin based artists following concepts from LA/NYC based artists in the orbit of Tiger Strikes Asteroid. Each artist in the exhibition has made a new artwork based solely on audio descriptions of an existing artwork created by artists from the other city. It is an exercise in interpretation and imagination and willfully limited communication in an age defined by fluid and constant contact. It is a way for artists to be generous with their ideas, diminish their ego and try to harmonize with a fellow artist from another culture.

This project has been generously supported by the Checkpoint Charlie Foundation.

By Ear: (part 1) @ TSA LA, 1206 Maple Ave #523, Los Angeles, CA

Work by: Thilo Droste, Juliane Duda, Nathalie Grenzhaeuser, Harriet Gross, Gabriele Kuenne, Matthias Moravek, Enrico Niemann, Maja Rohwetter

Concepts by: Johanna Braun, Vanessa Chow, Vita eruhimovitz, Jacob Feige, Laura Greengold, Kirstin Lamb, Michael Niemetz, Liz Nurenberg, Kari Reardon, Jackie Rines & Chris Ulivo

By Ear: (Teil 2) @ Axel Obiger, Brunnenstraße 29, 10119 Berlin

Work by: Johanna Braun, Vanessa Chow, Vita Eruhimovitz, Jacob Feige, Laura Greengold, Kirstin Lamb, Michael Niemetz, Liz Nurenberg, Kari Reardon, Jackie Rines & Chris Ulivo

Concepts by: Thilo Droste, Juliane Duda, Nathalie Grenzhaeuser, Harriet Gross, Gabriele Kuenne, Matthias Moravek, Enrico Niemann, Maja Rohwetter

Artist Bios

Christopher Ulivo
christopherulivo.com
@christopherulivo

(b.1977, Brooklyn, NY, USA) lives and works in Ventura, California. He is an artist, educator and member of Tiger Strikes Asteroid Los Angeles. Ulivo received a BFA from the Tyler School of Art, Temple University, and an MFA from Rhode Island School of Design. His work, mostly egg tempera paintings, imagine the confluences and collisions of fate, myth, personal lineage and the unintended consequences of unlimited wish fulfillment. The resulting paintings are visually dense and darkly humorous. In the course of his career, he has both exhibited and organized shows across the United States and Europe including: The Benkai Museum,Athens, Felix Art Fair, Los Angeles, the RISD Museum, Susan Inglett Gallery, NY, SPRING/BREAK NY & LA, the Brooklyn Academy of Music and the Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara as well as some pretty questionable places.

Kirstin E. Lamb
Providence, RI and Pawtucket, RI
kirstinlamb.squarespace.com
@kirstin.lamb

Kirstin is a painter living in Providence, Rhode Island and working in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Kirstin studied painting at the Rhode Island School of Design, graduating with an MFA in 2005, and she received her AB in Visual Art and Literatures in English from Brown Univeristy in 2001. Kirstin’s work has been shown in venues across the country and abroad, recently showing at the Spring Break Art Fair in NY, Periphery Space at Paper Nautilus in Providence, RI, the Wassaic Project in Amenia, NY, the Fruitlands Museum in Harvard, MA and Providence College Galleries in Providence, RI, among others. She has attended residencies at the Atlantic Center for the Arts, Vermont Studio Center, Bunker Projects, the Wassaic Project, the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, The Ora Lerman Trust Soaring Gardens Artist Residency, and the Sam and Adele Golden Foundation. Kirstin recently completed a two-year contract curator position at The Yard, Williamsburg, a coworking space in Brooklyn that hosts solo and group shows quarterly, and has begun planning online and new curatorial projects in New England. Kirstin gratefully acknowledges the role that her 2020 Rhode Island State Council for the Arts grant has played in her newest work. Her work is in the collections of Fidelity Investments, Boston, MA, the Fruitlands Museum, Harvard, MA, and Providence College, Providence, RI, among others.

Liz Nurenberg
liznurenberg.com
@liznurenberg

Liz Nurenberg (b. 1978) is a Los Angeles based artist. She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Grand Valley State University (2003) and a Master of Fine Arts from Claremont Graduate University (2010.) Liz is an Associate Professor in the Foundation department at Otis College of Art and Design. She is a member of Tiger Strikes Asteroid Los Angeles. Liz was awarded a fellowship to Ox-Bow School of Art and Artist Residency, a Helen B. Dooley Fellowship at Claremont Graduate University, and received a California Community Foundation Emerging Artist Grant. She has exhibited her work nationally and internationally at such venues as the Holter Museum (Helena, Montana), Pasadena Armory Center for the Arts (Pasadena, CA), Elephant Art Space (Los Angeles, CA), HilbertRaum Gallery (Berlin, Germany), and the Torrance Art Museum.

Jacob Feige
jacobfeige.com
@jacobfeige

​​Jacob Feige is a visual artist working primarily in painting. He has exhibited his work in solo exhibitions at Rule Gallery, Marfa and Denver, David Richard Gallery, New York, Lombard Freid Projects, New York, and Movement, Worcester, UK. Other exhibitions have been held at Wasserman Projects, Detroit, Chambers Fine Art, Beijing, Watergate Gallery, Seoul, the John H Baker Gallery, West Chester University, and the Brooklyn Academy of Music, among other venues. Reviews of his work have appeared in Artforum, Freize, The New Yorker, and Art in America. The Phaidon Press anthology of contemporary abstract painting, Painting Abstraction, edited by Bob Nickas, includes a section on his work. In 2011 he co-founded Title Magazine, an online publication of art criticism, essays, and artists projects in Philadelphia, co-editing the publication through 2016. In 2018 he was artist-in-residence at the Princeton Cyprus Expedition, Polis Chrysochous, Cyprus. He received his undergraduate degree in visual art and the humanities from Carnegie Mellon University and an MFA in painting from the Cranbrook Academy of Art. He is currently Associate Professor of Art at Stockton University, New Jersey.

Kari Reardon
karireardon.com
@ohhhshute

Kari Reardon is a Los Angeles based artist originally from Minneapolis Minnesota. She received her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and completed her MFA in 2012 from the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts). Since 2016 she has been an active member of the artist-run exhibition space Tiger Strikes Asteroid, Los Angeles.

Kari is also an educator and teaches a wide range of sculpture courses at California State University Northridge, her favorite being bronze and aluminum casting. A recipient of numerous grants, residencies and fellowship, she has shown her works throughout the US and internationally, including at the Getty Villa, Torrance Art Museum, Fellows of Contemporary Art Gallery, Elephant Art Space (all in Los Angeles, CA), HilbertRaum Gallery (Berlin, Germany), and One mess gallery (Vienna Austria). Her larger-scale sculptures can be seen at the Skokie Northshore Sculpture park in IL, Josephine Sculpture Park in KY as well as in Gigondas, France.

Vita Eruhimovitz
vitaeruhimovitz.com
@vita_eruhimovitz

Vita Eruhimovitz was born in Ukraine, grew up in Israel and currently lives and works in Los Angeles. Vita holds a BFA from Shenkar College (2012) and an MFA from Washington University in Saint Louis (2015). Vita’s background in science and technology inspires and informs her practice. Her work has been shown nationally and internationally, including at the Mildred Lane Kemper Museum, the Contemporary Art Museum in Saint Louis, Museum of Design Holon in Israel, Brattleboro Museum in Vermont, and at the San Diego Art Institute Museum. Her work has also been shown with Walter Wickiser gallery, Denise Bibro gallery, the Chashama Art Space, Black and White gallery, The Governors Island Art Fair in NYC, Wonzimer gallery in Los Angeles, and more. Vita has been awarded artist in residence at Vermont Studio Center, Herzliya Artist Residence, Israel, Trestle Art Space, NYC, Playa, OR, and more.

Erin Harmon
erinharmon.com
@erinjoyharmon

Erin Harmon was raised in the suburbs of Southern California where natural desert is sated by hundreds of miles of aqueducts to produce obsessively groomed lawns. After graduating from San Diego State University with a BA in Studio Art, she received her MFA in Painting from Rhode Island School of Design. Erin currently lives in fertile Tennessee where kudzu and coal sludge can swallow everything in their path. She has exhibited her work nationally in both group and solo exhibitions at venues including Field Projects, NY; Sarah Doyle Gallery, Providence RI; Atlanta Artists Center & Gallery, Atlanta GA; the Brooks Museum of Art, Memphis, TN; and the Attleboro Arts Museum, Attleboro, MA and LAUNCH Gallery, LA. Erin has been invited to produce commissions for organizations including Ballet Memphis, The Women’s Foundation of Greater Memphis, and the Memphis in May International Festival. Currently she holds the James F. Ruffin Chair of Art at Rhodes College and a founding member of Tiger Strikes Asteroid Los Angeles. While not a gardener in the traditional sense, Harmon cultivates seeds of interest with a variety of influences. Her observed environment, bonsai trees, mid-century modern design, classic Disney movies, 1970’s psychedelic black-light posters, Baroque theaters, and science fiction all influence her work.

Jackie Rines
jackierines.com
@jackierines

Jackie Rines is a Los Angeles-based artist who primarily works in clay at a large scale. Her recent work addresses status symbols and power dynamics through the use of humor, opulence, and various genres of home décor that span from McMansions and Dictator Style to home goods readily available at outlet malls. Prior to attending UCLA for her MFA, Rines lived in Detroit. She has been awarded a Jerome Fellowship at the Northern Clay Center in Minneapolis and has been a resident at Henry Street Settlement in New York City.

Vanessa Chow
vanessachowstudio.com
@vanessachowstudio

Vanessa Chow was born in Hong Kong and currently lives and works in Los Angeles. She received her M.F.A. from the Rhode Island School of Design. Vanessa makes work that is low tech, human scale. Her subject matter is usually inspired by the hundred of hours spent looking and being in the Pacific Ocean. She is interested in things that are profoundly handmade and things that are sustainable to the environment. Exploring the element of play is a common theme in her work. She has exhibited in spaces like the Armory Center for the Arts, LAM Gallery, Steve Turner Gallery among others in Los Angeles as well as venues in New York City and Hong Kong.

Laura Greengold
lauragreengold.com
@lauragreengold

(B.1976, New Haven CT, USA) lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. Greengold works with oil, marble dust, animal skin, and pigments to document the often taken for granted shared human experience of the dream world. Realizing we spend nearly half our lives in the dream state, Greengold uses her memory of this nightly passage as the wellspring for her work. Greengold received her MFA from Yale University in 2000, and a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1998. Her most recent solo exhibition was at Monya Rowe Gallery, NYC. Greengold’s past work includes a series of paintings that attempt time-travel, painted for her grandmother to see in her youth. This series of paintings: ‘Spooky Action at a Distance’, will be exhibited in Sol Lewitt’s Connecticut designed Synagogue, Rodfe Zedek in the Fall of 2022. Greengold received the Alice Kimble English Traveling Fellowship, from Yale University and the Vermont Studio Center Fellowship. Greengold has exhibited her work nationally in both group and solo exhibitions at venues including SRO Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, Elga Wimmer Gallery, New York and 33 Bond Gallery, New York.

Matthias Moravek
matthiasmoravek.de
@matthias_moravek

When nature becomes form. Matthias Moravek’s paintings, drawings and sculptures are an intensive and playful analysis of content, form and colour, exploring the wide range between abstraction and figuration. In his recent works he draws inspiration from natural phenomena such as forests, jungles, clouds and vulcanos and their cultural perception. 

Matthias Moravek (*1976 in Muehlacker, Germany) studied painting at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Karlsruhe and then moved to Berlin where he graduated from the University of Arts (UdK). He has since received grants and scholarships that have provided him with opportunities to work and exhibit in Berlin, Ahrenshoop (Germany), Istanbul, Saint-Louis (Senegal) and Los Angeles. His works have been part of many national and international group and solo exhibitions in galleries and museums and can be found in numerous private collections. Matthias Moravek lives and works in Berlin.

Solo exhibitions (selection): „Revue Tropique“, Galerie Greulich, Frankfurt/Main, 2022, „Prospect Park“, Axel Obiger, Berlin, 2021, „Menagerie“, Galerie Greulich, Frankfurt/Main, 2020, „Carte Blanche“, Axel Obiger, Berlin, 2019, „Perceptions and Sensations“, Galeri Miz, Istanbul, 2014 // Group exhibitions (selection): „Wildnis“, Städtische Galerie Lichtenberg, Berlin 2020„Co/Lab“, TAM Torrance Art Museum, 2018, „Interdisciplinary“, Galeri Miz, Istanbul, 2014, „Jetzt“, Galerie Anja Knoess, Cologne, 2015

Thilo Droste
thilodroste.de
@thilo.droste

Thilo Droste (b. 1977) lives and works in Berlin. His works often follow an intense examination of existing situations and conditions, themes and different contexts. The conceptual works show thoughtfulness and sensuality also in the choice of medium and material. Even the truth has to bend in its claim to truth, honestly and persistently he questions the ordinary with subtle resistance, not with a grand revolutionary gesture. He counters the complexity of the content process with a humorous lightness of execution. Wit, refined simplicity and technical skill characterize the appearance of his work.

His life path has all the set pieces (residencies, exhibitions in museums and galleries, and purchases from international collections) of a serious artist‘s career.

Juliane Duda

Juliane Duda (1967 *in Ost-Berlin), visual artist, lives and works in Berlin. Her works can be found in public and private collections. Since 2019 she is co-operator of Axel Obiger-Raum für zeitgenössische Kunst // Exhibitions: Solo/Duo at Weltecho, Chemnitz; Galerie Christa Burger, München; IPC E Gallery, Sarajevo; Galerie Fiebach&Minninger, Köln; Deutschlandhaus, Berlin; Gallery Rhodes+Mann, London; Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, Berlin; Goethe-Institut, Moskau. Group at Kunstverein Ruhr, Essen; Biennale Halberstadt, Mokpo Art Center, Korea; Polnische Biennale, Stettin; Museum Festung Rosenberg, Kronach; Neue Galerie mobil, Dachau; Schloss Gottorf, Schleswig; Höhler Biennale, Gera; Haus der Kunst, München; Walkmühle, Wiesbaden; Kunsthalle Villa Kobe, Halle; Overbeck-Gesellschaft, Lübeck; ICA, London; Museum Ostdeutsche Galerie, Regensburg; Akademie der Künste, Berlin; Plattform der BerlinBienale; P.S.1, New York. // Scholarships, awards: Recherchestipendium Peter Moennig Foundation, Stipendium Künstlerhaus Schloss Wiepersdorf, Bridge Watch-Stipendium der Stiftung Corymbo, Stipendium Künstlerhaus Schöppingen, Marion Ermer Preis, Auslandsstipendium für Moskau des Senats von Berlin.

Gabriele Künne
gabrielekuenne.de

Gabriele Künne lives and works in Berlin. She is a member of Axel Obiger since 2012.

In her work abstract form-and sign systems play a basic role. Objects and sculptures are building an associative system.Over the last 10 years ceramics played a increasing role as a material for sculptural work. She received numerous grants and prizes and her work is found in many public and private collections.

From 1991-98 she studies at the HdK Berlin Fine Art and received the masters degree in 1998. Since then, her work is shown in project spaces, institutions and galleries in Germany, Poland, Sweden and Switzerland.

Solo shows: 2020 shifted through, Axel Obiger, Berlin / 2019 Naturtalent, Kunstverein Neukölln, Berlin / 2017 Gabriele Künne - Installation, object, painting, Kunstverein Neustadt/Wstr./ Paradoxie des Haufens, Museum Rockenhausen.

Group shows: 2020 Amorph, Galerie im Saalbau, Kulturamt Neukölln / 2019 Almost Sparkling, B-LA-Connect, Axel Obiger Berlin / 2020 Paper on Paper, paper gallery Manchester, GB / 2018 CO/LAB, Torrance Art Museum / Import Export, Produzentengalerie Dresden

Maja Rohwetter
majarohwetter.de

Maja Rohwetter develops her work in the media transfer of collage, painting and computer graphics. In her idiosyncratic pictorial spaces, familiar and unfamiliar forms and different painterly and digital levels of representation intertwine.

She researches in the field of a contemporary visual language that incorporates visual experiences in virtuality and reality in equal measure.

Maja Rohwetter (*1970) grew up in Bünde/Westphalia. She has lived and worked in Berlin since 1993. She is one of the artist runnig “Axel Obiger” project space since 2011. After studies in Philosophy, Art and Romance Studies at the University of Osnabrück, she studied Fine Arts at the Berlin University of the Arts from 1993 to 1999 and at the Royal College of Fine Arts, Stockholm (Kungliga Konsthögskolan) in 1997. After her master’s degree in 1998 at the HdK Berlin, she passed her First State Examination in 1999.

After the Second State Examination in Fine Arts in 2005, she worked as a freelance artist in Berlin. Travel and residency scholarships have taken her to Sweden and Finland.

She recieved several grants and her artistic work is shown in institutions and galleries in Germany, Finland, Austria and Sweden. In addition to her painting, she teaches media design and media theory.

Soloshows (selected): 2020 voir dire, Axel Obiger. Berlin/ 2019 “soft facts”, Domeij Gallery, Stockholm, S/2016 „„thread“ (with Isabel Kerkermeier), Axel Obiger, Berlin, Germany / „PARCOURS“, Domeij Gallery, Stockholm, Sweden/ 2013 „the delicate balance of terror“, (with Knut Eckstein) Galerie Axel Obiger, Berlin, Germany / „extrawelt“, Galerie Kunst2, Heidelberg, Germany/ 2011 „Space Oddity“, Stene Projects, Stockholm, Sweden

Groupshows (selected) ; 2021„Pop Up“, Haus Kunst Mitte, Berlin, D / 2020 „amorph“, Saalbau Neukölln Berlin, D/ „Schwarz + Weiß“, Künstlerinnen des VdBK 18 67 Käthe Kollwitz Museum, Berlin, D/ 2019 „Halbschatten 02“, Kunstverein Neukölln Berlin, D/„Inner Landscapes“, HilbertRaum, Berlin,,D

Harriet Groß
harrietgross.com
@harriet.r.gross

Harriet Groß is a Berlin based visual artist working in the field of drawing and installation. For her work she has awarded numerous grants by Senat for Culture and Europe ( 2022, 2015), Stiftung Kunstfond Bonn (2020), RCA London(1998),European Heritage Days,Kiev, Ukraine(1987). Harriet shows her work national and internationally in often site specific installations: Käthe Kollwitz Museum Berlin (2021), Haus des Rundfunks Berlin, (2021), Kunstverein Würzburg (2020), Haus am Kleistpark (2020), Guardini Galerie Berlin (2022;2020;2019), Gallery of Deutsche Werkstätten Hellerau (2018), CoLab III, Torrance Art Museum, Los Angeles, USA (2018), Vincenz Sala Berlin (2019;2016), Chateau Chapel Weimar (2017), Japanese German Center Berlin (2014), Deutsches Klingenmuseum Solingen (2013), CGM Metz, France (2010), Mina Dresden Gallery, San Francisco, USA (2008), Galerie Manes, Prague, Czechia; Saarländische Galerie Berlin (2007), CGAC, Santiago de Compostela, Spain (2003). Her work is part of numerous private and public collections including Kupferstich Kabinett and Graphic Design Collection Staatliche Museen Berlin, Herzogin Anna Amalia Bibliothek Weimar, Centro Galego de Arte Contemporanea Santiago de Compostela, Spain. She received her Master of Visual Art at Hochschule der Künste Berlin and a Degree of Medicine at the Freie Universität Berlin. Harriet is a co-founder of Axel Obiger