Emerging Artist Award 2007
DaimlerChrysler Financial Services – Emerging Artist Award 2007Ill.: Polygonal Facets, 2007 by Marty McElveen and Dharmesh Patel
Emerging Artist Award exhibition with the award recipients 2007 Marty McElveen and Dharmesh Patel
as well as nine other emerging artists of the Cranbrook Academy of Art:
Matt Alexander (3D Design), Suk Jin Choi (Ceramics), John Falley (Metalsmithing), Amy Elizabeth Feigley (Sculpture), Katie Hinton (Painting), Jung Min Lee (Printmaking), Tommy Reynolds (Photography), Alexander Tochilovsky (2D Design) and Nancy VanDevender (Fiber).
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“Technological progress has subordinated craftsmanship to industrial monotony and degraded our man-made environment to a state of apathy. Our works begin where human understanding and the human body ‘fail’ and look to technology for assistance. Digital technology enables us to take an entirely new approach to the way we perceive, create, and ultimately experience space.”
— Dharmesh Patel / Marty McElveen –
DaimlerChrysler Financial Services is honored to present the winners of this years Emerging Artist Award: Dharmesh Patel and Marty McElveen. The winners of the 2007 award were honored for their collaborative project “Systematic Surface”. The project consists of three architectural objects pavilions – entitled as “Bench”, “Passage Way”, and “Polygonal Facets”. “The special combination of creative design, skilled craftsmanship, and technology is clearly evident in the works of these two artists,” says Jürgen Walker, Chairman of the Board of Management of DaimlerChrysler Financial Services, concerning the jury’s choice of Patel and McElveen for the award. “Their approach to architecture as well as their technical construction process are marked by tremendous innovative power.”
The award winners — Patel and McElveen are driven by their belief in the creative process, the power of craftsmanship, and the creative potential of experiments. Their focus is on the merging of craftsmanship and technology. The object is always the thing observed. The two architects share the idea of the re-individualization of design through individualized production processes and innovative manufacturing techniques. In this way, they present themselves and their philosophy as a contrast and an alternative to monotony and mass production. Their use of the available technological possibilities shapes the spirit of their time and vice versa. Dharmesh Patel, who was born in Gujrat, India, and grew up in New Jersey, U.S., and Marty McElveen, an American who grew up in southern Louisiana — have been working on architectural and design projects for several years.
“Systematic Surface” is placed in a section of the Cranbrook grounds, a 316-acre area designed by the Finnish architect Eliel Saarinen in 1920. As time passed, numerous buildings designed by Dan Hoffman, Steven Holl, Rafael Moneo, Peter Rose, Tod Williams, and Billie Tsien were added to the site. The pavilions created by Marty McElveen and Dharmesh Patel pay homage to Saarinen’s overall design. Saarinen’s master plan structured the area by means of visual axes that draw the visitor’s attention to the beauty of nature and the gardens located on the grounds. McElveen and Patel picked up on this concept, as their pavilions are placed several hundred meters apart and invite the observer to linger. They also direct one’s view to the beautiful vistas. The three locations are interconnected, thus creating a network throughout the site.
The Emerging Artist Award, which is being presented this year for the third time, is a result of the long partnership between DaimlerChrysler Financial Services and the renowned Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.
The vision of the Emerging Artist Award is to introduce promising young artists to an international public and to support them as they take their first steps toward a successful career. It gives talented artists the opportunity to enter into dialogue with fellow artists in Berlin and thus further develop their creative capacity. The award comprises a public exhibition at DaimlerChrysler Financial Services and a scholarship for their stay in Berlin.
Also on show at the Emerging Artist Award exhibition will be the works of nine other Cranbrook graduates who were nominated for the award:
Matt Alexander (3D Design), Suk Jin Choi (Ceramics), John Falley (Metalsmithing), Amy Elizabeth Feigley (Sculpture), Katie Hinton (Painting), Jung Min Lee (Printmaking), Tommy Reynolds (Photography), Alexander Tochilovsky (2D Design) and Nancy VanDevender (Fiber).
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October 5 – 14, 2007, daily from 10am to 6pm, Free admission
DaimlerChrysler Financial Services
Potsdamer Platz
Eichhornstraße 3
10875 Berlin
Germany
