Karin Andersen's symbionts invade Albissola Marina's Jorn House Museum

From July 3 to August 22, 2021, the Jorn House Museum in Albissola Marina (Savona) will host a solo exhibition by German artist Karin Andersen (Burghausen, 1966) entitled Symbjornts, curated by Luca Bochicchio, Stella Cattaneo and Daniele Panucci. It is a site-specific art project, created by the artist specifically for the museum and its spaces: the garden, rooms, natural and architectural environments. Danish artist Asger Jorn’s house continues to inspire contemporary artists and guide them into ever new reflections.Andersen, reasoning about the origin of Jorn’s house in the foothills of Albissola Marina, wonders about the biological concept of mutualistic symbiosis and thus arrives at hypothesizing the villa as the result of the interaction of two organisms, Asger Jorn and Albissola, living together drawing mutual benefit.

In the artist’s imagination, Casa Jorn is an astonishing mutant that originated through the interaction (creative, daring and at the same time respectful) of the Dane with the social fabric of Albissola, as occurs in the archetypal association between mushroom and seaweed, the constituent principle of lichens. Similarly, the symbiotic sculptures created by the artist (plastic figures of various sizes made with mixed techniques and salvaged materials) will come into contact with Jorn’s total artwork, with the aim of elaborating its themes and reflections, oscillating between mimesis and prosthesis, leaving room for randomness and spontaneity as in the poetics of the Danish master. Karin Andersen worked on the sculptures in her Bologna studio after careful consideration of the site and several site surveys. The sculptures will be partly finished at Casa Jorn in the days leading up to the exhibition opening, during a short residency during which the artist will hold workshops open to the public and organized by the Friends of Casa Jorn. These mutant creatures, born from hybridization with the mythological and informal beings modeled by Jorn in his garden overlooking the sea, are named Symbjornt: fantastic materialization of the symbiotic process between Jorn and Albissola.

Karin Andersen, who was born in Burghausen, Germany in 1966 and graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna in 1990, is a visual artist and video maker. Her works, made in a variety of media, have been exhibited internationally in such spaces as Haus der Kunst, München; Galleria d’Arte Moderna, Bologna; Museo Ca’ D’Oro and Ca’ Foscari Cultural Flow Zone, Venice; Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, San Marino; MUU Gallery, Helsinki; Marina Gisich Gallery, St. Petersburg; Artists Space, New York and is represented by Traffic Gallery, Bergamo; Guidi & Schoen, Genoa; and Cannaviello, Milan. In 2005 she was the winner of the Maretti Prize. Since the same year she has extended her artistic research in the field of moving images. Her video art works have been selected for exhibitions, online reviews and international festivals and have been included several editions of the Videoart Yearbook - Annuario della Videoarte Italiana. Stranger, a video of hers made together with artist and musician Christian Rainer, has been awarded at festivals such as Videofreccia (Molinella) and Oblique (Pau, France). Karin has conceived images and stage animations for theatrical performances such as Poligraf, directed by Massimiliano Briarava, Bologna, 2009 and Angelus Novissimus, directed by Alain Béhar, Montpellier, 2014. She has been invited, as a lecturer, to numerous conventions and conferences and has published texts in art and science journals. She is the author, with Roberto Marchesini, of Animal Appeal, a study of theriomorphism (Hybris, 2003).

Image: Karin Andersen, Korist (2021)

Karin Andersen's symbionts invade Albissola Marina's Jorn House Museum

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