Artist Talk
Normcore Artist Talk with Sasha Appelhoff and Lena von Goedeke

Wed, 10/23/2019
American University Katzen Arts Center

Transformer and the American University Department of Art present an artist talk with Berlin artists Sascha Appelhoff & Lena von Goedeke moderated by von Andy Holtin, Associate Professor, Department of Art, American University.

NORMCORE is part of Transformer’s 2019 artistic partnership with Germany, taking place with support from the Wunderbar Together Year of German-American Friendship, and is presented in conjunction with Transformer's 16th Annual Silent Auction & Benefit Party, whose Diplomatic Chair this year is the German Ambassador Emily Haber. In addition to the back-to-back NORMCORE exhibition and normcore storefront installation at Transformer this fall, visiting German artists Sascha Appelhoff & Lena von Goedeke have curated a special selection of works by fellow emerging German artists to be featured in this year's auction, taking place October 26, 2019 at the GWU/Corcoran School of the Arts & Design.

Lena von Goedeke was born in Germany (1983) and graduated from Kunstakademie Duesseldorf and Kunstakademie Muenster in 2012. Her body of work consists of a wide variety of techniques and materials, as her main focus lies on the visualization of abstract scientific phenomena in a sensual and aesthetic way. Every chosen material or technique carries the problem and solution of a scientific issue in them, so her work often consists of only one matter dealing with its own properties. While her fragile and delicate handmade papercuts show the possibilities of describing a surface, a space or volume via digital imagery - polygon wireframes - her sculptures and installations are mainly site specific, often subtle, sometimes nearly invisible. Lena von Goedeke's work has been awarded several times and could be seen in Museum shows in Germany last year. She is being represented by Galerie m, Bochum and Bernhard Knaus Fine Art, Frankfurt.

Sascha Appelhoff (*1987, Germany) studied Fine Art at Kunstakademie Muenster and graduated with distinction. While he started as a painter, he developed a passion for the possibilities of silkscreen printing and digital imagery, which he understands as a natural extension of painting, just in a virtual world. He is crossing the line between reality and a virtual world constantly in the process of conceiving his wall prints or installations. A main topic is the never-ending potential of recycling imagery through print, fail and error. The process of the becoming of a shape, the planning, modeling, logistics and material properties are as important as the product itself. Sascha Appelhoff has exhibited in various art spaces through Germany and is running the independent art space HilbertRaum in Berlin.

Andy Holtin received his MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University’s Sculpture and Exended Media program. His work uses technological systems to create perfomative objects and interactive installations, incorporating an exploratory range of materials and processes. Holtin currently works as half of the collaborative duo CausalityLabs, pursuing projects that explore mechanism as metaphor for human experience and perception. His work has been exhibited internationally at locations including Galerie35, Berlin, Germany; Museo Antropologico y de Arte Contemporaneo, Ecuador; Museo Universitario Arte Contemporaneo, Mexico City; Planetario Alfa Science and Culture Museum, Mexico; and nationally at museums, galleries, and universities from New York to Portland to Florida. Holtin teaches all levels of Sculpture, addressing traditional media as well as installation formats, kinetic and interactive systems, and digital audio and video.

Co-Sponsored by AU Department of Art