Takuji Kogo, John Miller
Open to All Ages and Ethnicities.
June 9 – July 31, 2015
Opening: Friday, June 5, 7pm
The exhibition Open to All Ages and Ethnicities at Neuer Berliner Kunstverein presents six new songs by Robot, a virtual band founded by Kogo and Miller in 2003. The songs and music videos by Robot use various personal ads as text sources. Robot’s music is fully synthetic, both the vocals and the instrumentation are produced electronically. Takuji Kogo works as a solo artist as well as in cooperation under the title *Candy Factory Projects. The platform is mobile and performs in various institutions, organizes curatorial projects, exhibitions, internet-projects and publications. Since 2007, *Candy Factory Projects host the Kitakyushu Biennial and have cooperated with Federico Baronello, Mike Bode, Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries, Charles Lim Yi Yong, Keiichi Miyagawa and John Miller. John Miller became known to a wider audience in the 1990s. The artist plated found objects, sculptures, mannequins and mirrors with a thick pastose, brown coat of paint. In recent years, gold leaf succeeded as the ubiquitous surface of his works. Miller consistently works in series, in which distinctive marks of artistic production models, formal aesthetic constructs and mental proliferations of prevailing value systems are colliding. Post-conceptual strategies and minimalist aesthetics are at the same time caricatured, monopolized and undermined.
Takuji Kogo (b. 1965 in Japan, lives in Fukuoka, Japan). Participation in exhibitions and projects: New Museum, New York (2013); Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography (2009); The Nam June Paik Art Center, Yongin (2009); 1st Kitakyushu Biennial (Director, 2007); The Museum of Modern Art, New York (2007); The Rooseum, Malmö (2005); Singapore Art Museum (2004); Media City Seoul (2004); Färgfabriken, Stockholm (2004); Akiyoshidai International Art Village (2003); Yokohama Triennale (2001).
John Miller (b. 1954 in Cleveland, USA, lives in New York and Berlin). Solo exhibitions (selection): Kubus, Wien (with Richard Hoeck, 2013); Museum Ludwig, Cologne (2011); Kunsthalle Zurich (2009); Cabinet des Estampes at Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Geneva (2004); The Morris and Helen Belkin Gallery, University of British Columbia, Vancouver (with Mike Kelley, 2000); Le Magasin, Centre National d’Art Contemporain de Grenoble; Kunstverein Hamburg (1999).