NATHALIE DJURBERG & HANS BERG – PINO PASCALI AWARD IN 2012

The 15th edition of the Pino Pascali Award opens in Polignano a Mare (Bari) on Friday 7th December 2012 at 7 pm.

Nathalie Djurberg received the Silver Lion at the 2009 Venice Biennale as best young artist from President Napolitano’s hands. She is the winner of the 2012 Pino Pascali Award together with Hans Berg musician and composer to whom the Pino Pascali Museum will dedicate an exhibition in one of its rooms.

The commission, which includes Rosalba Branà, director of the Foundation Pino Pascali Museum, Roberto Lacarbonara, independent journalist and curator, and Mariapaola Spinelli, independent curator, has justified the choice as follows:

“Entering Nathalie Djurberg‘s territory is like crossing the threshold of our own subconscious. Eros and Thanatos chase each other, taboos are visually explored in a perfect synchrony between images and Hans Berg‘s music. She has created tales for adults, in the dramatic tension between humour and horror, perversion and psychosis, which represents the allegoric context in which the young Swedish artist reveals the collective dynamics of our time, the obsessive rhythms of our actions, our difficulties in establishing a serene balance between man and nature”.

The commission is also in charge of the exhibition which will retrace Nathalie’s production and will document the famous clay animation, films realised using stop motion videos that tell about visionary narrations in which the main roles are played by puppets made of clay and plasticine. Among the works exhibited are also video installations, environmental reconstructions that place the viewer at the centre of the narrative process, and some sculptures made of plasticine and mixed techniques that the artist dedicates to filmmaking.

The most recurrent subjects in Djuberg’s works are hybrid creatures, plastic inventions that represent the human and animal world with their wild and provocative expressions. Within this microcosmos, the music produced by Hans Berg communicates the same message but at a different level while also enhancing dramatization.

Nathalie Djurberg has chosen to exhibit some works which she considers significant in her career by selecting a number of video-installations, sculptures and films realised between 2007 and 2011, coming from the Prada Foundation and the Giò Marconi Gallery in Milan.

Speeches by:
The mayor and President of the Pino Pascali Foundation, Domenico Vitto;
Counsellor for Mediterranean Culture and Tourism in the Apulia Region, Silvia Godelli;
Professor Christine Farese Sperken, University of Bari, member of the board of directors of the Foundation;
Counsellor for Culture in the Municipality of Polignano a Mare, Marilena Abbatepaolo.

Biography
Nathalie Djurberg (1978, Lysekil, Sweden; lives and works in Berlin), winner of the Silver Lion at the 2009 Venice Biennale as best young artist. She studied at Malmö Art Academy and at Hovedskous Art School in Göteborg.

Personal exhibitions: Pino Pascali Award Polignano a Mare, 2012; New Museum, New York, 2012; Röda Sten Art Centre, Göteborg, 2012; Camden Arts Centre London, 2011; Walker Art Center Minneapolis, 2011; Kestnergesellschaft, Hannover, 2009; Centre Pompidou, Paris, 2009; Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum 2008,USA; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, 2008; Prada Foundation, Milan, 2008; Zach Feuer Gallery, New York, 2006; Giò Marconi Gallery , Milan, 2005; Konstföreningen AURA, Lund, Sweden, 2002.

Collective exhibitions: Francis Bacon and the existential condition of contemporary art, CCC Strozzina, Florence 2012; Gaze & Lust. Sexuality in Contemporary Art, Bergen Kunstmuseum, Sweden, 2012; Hybrid, Genetics of the Forms of art , Contemporary Art Pavilion, Milan, 2011; La poupée de cire, la poupée de son, Migros Museum Zurich, 2010; Fare Mondi / Making Worlds, 53rd Venice Biennale 2009; Worlds on Video, CCC Strozzina Firenze, 2009; After Nature, The New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, 2009; The Shapes of Space, Guggenheim Museum New York, 2008; Into Me/Out of Me, MACRO Rome, 2007; Enclosed. Contemporary Media Art Screening, British Museum, London, 2006.

Hans Berg (1978 Rättvik, Sweden, lives and works in Berlin). He is a composer and a producer of electronic music. Self-taught musician, he started playing the drums in rock and punk bands when he was fourteen years of age. One year later, after buying his first synthesizer and sampler he started making electronic music. On top of his numerous live concerts, Berg also has a very wide discography with Record Labels such as Kant Recordings, Productions Tsunami, and others. He met Nathalie Djurberg in Berlin in 2004 and since then he has composed the music for all her films and installations. He has performed in galleries and museums all over the world.

Recent Discography: Jan Tenner, Whatever EP, Fullbarr, 2011 (Remix); Enzyme Black, ME2U, Enzyme Black 2010 (Remix); To Mu EP, Kant Recordings 2010; Wood & Stone EP, Kant Recordings 2009.