Bonner Kunstverein is pleased to announce two new solo exhibitions by Robert Brambora and Stefani Glauber, recipients of the 2018 Peter Mertes Stipendium. Using traditional media and materials, Robert Brambora’s painting and ceramic sculpture reflect on the conditions of the advanced, neoliberal social system and its effects on the individual. Brambora's large-format text collages merge fragments of information on housing market, real estate speculation and evaluation with personal comments from online forums to create a complex pictorial space. These will be presented alongside a series of silhouette-like and anonymous representations of heads that reveal surreal landscapes and evade contextualization in time or space. Both series are accompanied by an installation - a reference to a private living space of a troubled existence. Stefani Glauber's exhibition continues the artist's interest in transfering processes from analog to digital. Her site-specific installation is based on theoretical reflections on the 'electronic nose', a technical system for measuring odour molecules. By expressing the absurd desire to create a ’scent mirror‘, an object that reproduces the artist's own natural scent as it changes in real time, Glauber invites us to consider the benefits and risks of digital replication and archiving of scent as well as the human sense of smell. In doing so, her installation assembles research material, large-format drawings and objects that refer to the multilayered social and cultural implications of smell.
Established in 1985, the Peter Mertes Stipendium awards 12,000 Euros annually and is one of the most renowned opportunities for young artists in the German Rhineland. Previous recipients include Monika Baer (1998), Matti Braun (1999), Thea Djordjadze (2001), Carsten Höller (1995), Friedrich Kunath (2001), Gregor Schneider (1996), and Gert and Uwe Tobias (2004). Robert Brambora and Stefani Glauber were awarded the 2018 stipendium by a jury comprising Professor Anne-Marie Bonnet (University of Bonn and Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees, Bonner Kunstverein), Anna Gritz (Curator Kunst-Werke Berlin), Kyla McDonald (Interim Director, Bonner Kunstverein) and Frances Scholz (Artist, Düsseldorf, Peter Mertes recipient 1993).
This year’s exhibition is generously supported by the Peter Mertes Wine Company and Kunststiftung NRW.
Robert Brambora (b. 1984, Halle) completed his studies in the class of Rebecca Warren at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf in 2015. His work has been exhibited at Neuer Essener Kunstverein (2018) and Kunstverein Wiesen (2016). He lives and works in Berlin and Cologne. Stefani Glauber (b. 1991, Munich) completed her studies at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne in 2018. Her work has been exhibited at Hartware MedienKunstVerein, Dortmund, Kunsthalle Düsseldorf (2018) and Bundeskunsthalle, Bonn (2017). She lives and works in Cologne.
