Jimmy Robert
is the 2009 laureate of the
Follow Fluxus–After Fluxus grant!
ll NKV
nassauischer kunstverein wiesbaden
wilhelmstr 15
65185 wiesbaden
germany
info [at] kunstverein-wiesbaden.de
The Follow Fluxus – After Fluxus 2009 grant for young contemporary art called by the State Capital of Wiesbaden and the NKV Nassauischer kunstverein Wiesbaden doted with 10.000 Euro goes to Jimmy Robert.
Follow Fluxus – After Fluxus /
Follow Fluxus – After Fluxus supports young international artists whose work suggests ideas inherent to the Fluxus art movement in order to keep the art current alive. The establishment of the grant was inspired by the “Fluxus Festival of Very New Music” which took place in Wiesbaden in 1962. This Fluxus event provided the first real broad impact for the new art movement and started off what is now seen as the first international movement operating in a global network.
The endowment of 10,000 Euro is provided annually for a residency in Wiesbaden from June through August. Living quarters and studio space is provided by NKV during this time. The work stipend concludes with an exhibition of the artist’s created work in the following year between September and May and includes a publication. The grant holder should reside predominantly in Wiesbaden for the duration of the grant period.
Jimmy Robert /
Jimmy Roberts (born 1975 in Guadeloupe) creates photographs, collages, objects, performances and films that focus on process and transition. While analyzing the relationship between image and object, he concentrates formally on the issue of the point at which a two-dimensional surface ceases to be an image and begins to expand both within our imagination and in reality into something similar to a three-dimensional object.
Jimmy Roberts’ playful and yet profound transgression and progression of genres, the way he overlaps two- and three dimensional structures that permeate the most diverse forms of media, and his critical approach to the performative elements inherent even in the differing look and feel of collages – all these were qualities that prompted the jury to award Jimmy Roberts the 2009 Follow Fluxus scholarship bestowed by the Nassau Kunstverein and Wiesbaden as State Capital of Hessen.
Each of his images displays an object that is then developed into a spatial sculpture. Here, Roberts systematically explores its relationship to the human body. In his performance, inspired by Yoko Ono’s CUT PIECE, he quite literally translates the action of touch and being touched into action, including both himself and the viewer(s). As Jimmy Roberts interprets the action, his upper body is not covered with clothes but gradually surrounded with duct tape. With each piece of tape the audience pulls off him, the artist successively exposes himself while losing pieces that quite literally and figuratively he has been stuck with. At the same time, each stripped-off strip of tape describes sequences of the press reviews of Ono’s performance 1966 in London.
“He transforms the principle of collage and decollage with wit, precision, elegance and the opportunities afforded by a contemporary visual idiom, NKV director Elke Gruhn explains, “this convinced the jury to elect him as the second Follow Fluxus – After Fluxus laureate of the NKV and the State Capital of Wiesbaden”.
This is the area where the jury believes he advances George Maciunas’ ideas. Vital for the jury’s decision was not that Roberts sees himself the way the Fluxus movement historically viewed itself, but rather that he created artworks in the vital spirit of Fluxus that refuse to be strictly pigeonholed.
The Jury 2009 /
/ Kevin Clark, Artist, New York
/ Michael Berger, Collection Berger, Wiesbaden
/ Alice Koegel, Curator for Contemporary Art at the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Suttgart and Curator of “STATES OF FLUX” 2007 at Tate Modern London
/ Rita Thies, Head of Cultural Department of the City of Wiesbaden
/ Elke Gruhn, Director and Curator of NKV, Wiesbaden
Former Laureates:
2008 / Emily Wardill
ll\ NKV nassauischer kunstverein wiesbaden
wilhelmstr 15
65185 wiesbaden
germany
info@kunstverein-wiesbaden.de
press contact /
/ presse@kunstverein-wiesbaden.de
