Transart Advisor, Kim Schoen, Awarded Edith Russ Haus für Medienkunst 2019 Grant

Kim Schoen, Video still from Baragouin, work-in-progress, 2019

Grants for Media Art of the Foundation of Lower Saxony at the Edith-Russ-Haus 2019

Having explored the topics of nonsense and repetition over the last ten years, Kim Schoen will mark a turning point in her practice with the experimental installation Baragouin (named after a French term for unintelligible jargon). With this work, the artist gives voice to objects, specifically copies of sculptures ranging in origin from Buddhist through rococo and neoclassical to modernist, that she found in a (now closed) commercial showroom in Los Angeles. Working with the assumption that commerce creates a lingua franca, her proposal is to mount a ’nonsense opera’ with this cast of sculptures.

Made in collaboration with an art historian and a voice talent who can imitate the sounds of languages from around the world, Baragouin will present the sculptures all appearing to “speak” in voices relating to their originals’ provenance. These commercial replicas together with the echoes of languages hold up a grotesque mirror to museology.

The grants

The Edith-Russ-Haus for Media Art has awarded three six-months work grants for 2019. 436 artists from all over the world have applied for the grants.The grants of 10.000 Euro are sponsored by Stiftung Niedersachsen. Stiftung Niedersachsen sponsors the grants at Edith-Russ-Haus for Media Art continually since 2001. Many of the works developed in Oldenburg have been shown in international exhibitions and have been awarded various prizes. With their support Stiftung Niedersachsen intends to encourage one of the leading sites for media art in Germany, in its highly qualitative profiling to make art creation possible and to create international networks as well as local cooperations.