February 2017

Electronic musician Stefan Goldmann splits his time between performing in techno clubs and applying techno's formal language to wider contexts, ranging from intricate site-specific encounters to large-scale music theater and performance works. While at Villa Aurora, Stefan is working on a performance within LACMA's 'Renaissance and Reformation' exhibition, coming up on February 4th.  
 
To read and hear more about Stefan's work, check out his website www.stefangoldmann.com

Haegue Yang is a South Korean artist based in Berlin and Seoul.
Primarily making complex sensorial installations, sculptures and video, Yang translates her subjective reflections of specific historical or contemporary figures and concrete, domestic phenomena into a meticulous language of formalistic abstraction.

Her works are often complex installations and arrangements combining elaborate, even handicraft techniques with industrially manufactured and commercially available products.

Yang has shown her work in major international exhibitions including La Biennale de Montréal, "The Grand Balcony" (2016), the 12th Sharjah Biennial (2015), the 9th Taipei Biennal (2014), dOCUMENTA (13) in Kassel (2012) and the 53rd Venice Biennale (2009) as the South Korean representative.

Her recent solo exhibitions were held at the Hamburger Kunsthalle (2016), Serralves Museum in Porto (2016), the Centre Pompidou in Paris (2016), Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing (2015) and Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art in Seoul (2015).

Yang will present her practice at Villa Aurora by means of her numerous publications and artist books, which are mirror images of her prolific oeuvre in diverse languages, often accompanied with essays by prominent writers, curators, and designers.

Bertrand Flanet lives and works in Frankfurt am Main. He studied Art History at Marc Bloch University, Strasbourg, France. Since 2012 he is part of the Douglas Gordon's Filmklasse at the Städelschule, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
Recent exhibitions include: Jakarta Biennale 2015, Jakarta, Indonesia; Cosmic Disturbance, Gallery Schmidt&Handrup, Cologne, Germany, 2015; 24/7, IFFR Rotterdam, Netherlands, 2015; SUNdogs, Gallery Parisa Kind, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, 2014; Ma(r)king Territories, Haus für Elektronische Künste, Basel, Switzerland, 2013; 2488, Langage Plus, Alma, Canada, 2013; Jeunes Premiers, Aubette, Strasbourg, France, 2012; Yet what not say what happened?, Kunstverein Freiburg, Germany, 2012; Moments - A History of Performance in 10 acts, ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany.
In 2014 he has been awarded with the Lichter Art Award, Frankfurt am Main and the Gold Cube at the 2014 Kasseler Dokfest.

During his one-month stay at Villa Aurora, he will do research on cryonic technology.
Flanet is looking for ties between James Bedford, the first man to be set into a cryonic state, and Walt Disney who was rumored to  want to be cryogenically preserved, but was not.    

Niklas Goldbach, born in Witten, Germany, lives and works in Berlin. After studying Sociology at Bielefeld University and "Photography and Video" at the Unversity of Applied Sciences Bielefeld, he was awarded with a "Meisterschüler" degree at the University of the Arts Berlin in 2005. In 2005 he received the Fulbright Grant New York and majored in the MFA program of Hunter College, New York City in 2006.

Niklas Goldbach received several sholarships and has presented his video installations and photographic works in numerous solo shows and group exhibitions in venues such as the Museum der Moderne, Salzburg, Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid, Mori-Art Museum, Tokyo, Neuer Berliner Kunstverein n.bk., Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Cornerhouse, Manchester, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taichung, Centre Pompidou, Paris, 21st Century Minsheng Art Museum, Shanghai, Berlinische Galerie Museum for Contemporary Art Berlin and the Short Film Festival Oberhausen. - www.niklasgoldbach.de

Born in Stockholm Carolina Hellsgård studied at the University of the Arts in Berlin as well as at Cal Arts' Graduate Film Directing Program. Her debut feature, WANJA had its world premiere at the 2015 Berlin International Film Festival where it was nominated for Best First Feature Film. The film was shown at numerous international film festivals including Sao Paulo, Montreal, Gothenburg and Austin Filmfestival. WANJA was awarded Best Debut Film at the Biberacher Filmfestspiele and Best Script at Valletta Filmfestival, Malta. It was released theatrically in Germany in 2016. At Villa Aurora Carolina Hellsgård will work on the screenplay for a science fiction drama based on the current world situation. - www.hellsgard.com

Michael Roth is an art historian from Berlin. He started his scientific and his museum career as assistant curator in Stuttgart and as Curator for art and history at the Museum in Ulm where he organised exhibitions on South-German art and art-history of different species as sculpture, painting, stained-glass-painting, objects of art and prints and drawings from the late middle ages, up to the early classicism. In addition he organised shows on art and artists from the 20th century in the tradition of the Ulm school of design. Today, as senior curator of German Art at the Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, he focuses on the field of German drawings, illumination and prints up to 1800. In this field, he organised exhibitions and edited catalogue-raisonnées on works of Georg Flegel, Albrecht Dürer, Matthias Grünewald. He realised an exhibition on the script as Image, calligraphy and the art of writing from the early middle-ages up to 1800. Currently he works on a project related to the exhibition "Renaissance and Reformation. German Art In the Age of Dürer and Cranach" at the LACMA.