A New Prescription for Insomnia

HORSEANDPONY Fine Arts
presents
A New Prescription for Insomnia
Curated by GeoVanna Gonzalez

Opening 30 April, 18h

Nation-rejecting state-founders, alienated in their own habitat, a group of artists map a hazy and half-awake condition. Some are seen as vogue cultists, others are known as prominent gene-splicers, populating their zones with morphing, pollution-riddled beings – visitors from an unknown future art. Some are scavengers, bending tools out of ore and bone, salvaging their own beginnings. One is a colonist, plundering precious objects to fill the cube. All are driven by different instincts but all are part of a singular impulse – to survive.

Obsessed with objects but rejecting value, they attempt to transmogrify forms rather than shape substance. Finding new shapes and visions that mirror our familiar cities and shores – shimmering in urban dust-haze, a second away from blackout as a trawler’s anchor cuts through the transatlantic fiber-optic cable.

More than anything, A New Prescription For Insomnia is a state of mind. A series of tactics for making the mind stateless. For finding and exploiting what pockets of terra incognita we can on this satellite-drenched planet.

Temporary autonomous zones, Hakim Bey called them.

No one is an island, someone, long ago, almost said.

Every one of us is part of the mainland.

--GeoVanna Gonzalez

Paul Barsch (*1982. Karlsburg) Lives and works in Dresden, Germany. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Dresden in 2008 and in 2010 obtained Studio Grand, Zygote Press, Cleveland, Ohio, USA. His recent exhibitions in 2016 were FSC Battle #4 at future suburban contemporary, Copenhagen; Havenstrasse at Punk Cafe X Info–Punkt, Havenstrasse, Berlin; and New Scenario’s BODY HOLES at the 9th Berlin Biennale.

Adam Chad Brody (*1983, Pennsylvania, US) is a graduate of Tyler School of Art’s Sculpture MFA program and UCLA’s Film, Television, and Digital Media BA program. He has shown work at The Crane Center for Art (Philadelphia), Storefront for Art & Architecture (NYC), Creative Time LIVING AS FORM (NYC), OUTLET (NYC), Bureau of General Services Queer Division (NYC), Panoply Performance Laboratory (NYC), Garris & Hahn (NYC), NEW RELEASE (NYC), Warm Gallery (Brazil), The Kempkinski Archives (Berlin), The Royal Art Academy (Sweden), The Philadelphia Fringe Festival and BAIT (Philadelphia). He has completed residencies at the Lindesberg Museum (Sweden), Elsewhere Arts Collaborative, and the Edward Albee Center in Montauk. His collaborative projects include pop band Potpourri of Pearls and masculinity research/performance project Studio Rossi Brody.

Omsk Social Club (*1985, UK) Lives and works in Berlin, Germany. She obtained her Bachelor degree at The Glasgow School of Art in 2008 and studied at The SAAS-FEE Summer Institute of Art, European Graduate School in 2015. In 2014 she studied at Autocenter Summer Academy with Professor Yngve Holen. She was awarded the 8th ARTWARD Junior Prize, Munich, Germany in 2016.

Julia Colavita is a multi-media artist based in Berlin, Germany. Originally from the U.S. she completed her MFA at the New York Academy of Art in 2010. After spending nine years working and exhibiting in New York, she moved to Berlin in 2014 to continue her practice. Recent exhibitions of her work include Sanstitre, v.3 (Paris, FR), Funkhaus (Berlin, DE), Satellite Art Fair Miami Beach (Miami, USA), Aunt Linda (Berlin, DE), China Millennium Monument Art Museum (Beijing, jgCN), Mindscape Universe (Berlin, DE).

Michele Gabriele lives and works in Milan Italy. He studied at University degree at Academy of Fine Arts of Brera, Milan Italy in 2007. In 2015 he was the finalist for CURA Magazine for the Menabrea Art Prize, Rome Italy. In 2004 he received the first prize for Salon Primo, Museo della Permanente, Milan Italy.

Silas Parry (*1985, Scotland) Lives and works in Scotland. Parry obtained his Bachelor degree at Glasgow international in 2008. In 2016 he was awarded the Hope Scott Trust, Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation, and Edinburgh Emerging Artists Bursary. In 2014 he was awarded the Edinburgh Visual Artists Award.

Zoë Claire Miller (*1984, Boston, Massachusetts) Lives and works in Berlin. Miller studied Philosophy, Anthropology and Romance languages, the University of Heidelberg from 2003 - 2005. In 2010 she obtained her in Arts Diploma from the Art Academy Karlsruhe. She is the founder of the foundation Galerie Europa starting in 2010. She is the co-foundation of Berlin Art Prize, established in 2012 and co-founder of Salon Mutlu, 2014.

Miller Robinson (*born 1992. California) Lives and works in Los Angeles. Robinson received her BFA from Otis College of Art and Design in 2014 and her work has been exhibited in Los Angeles, New York, and Berlin. Her last solo exhibition 29Cu = L3 took place in Los Angeles in September 2016. Most recently, Robinson was included in the group show Ours is a City of Writers at the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery.

Mark Stroemich received his BFA from Concordia University, Montréal, Quebec in 2011. His past solo exhibitions were “Paintings & Photos for Dance (Part 1)”, at Sunset Terrace, Vancouver, British Columbia and “Paintings & Photos for Dance (Part 2)”, at Ashley, Berlin, Germany in 2015. He recently curated “Music Oh Music”, at Kosmetiksalon Babette, Berlin, Germany in 2016. Stroemich has made 50 cassettes of Undercurrents by Moisturize especially for A New Prescription For Insomnia. These will be my first tangible/physical release from Damp and Sloppy records.

Lorenzo Sandoval (*born 1980, Spain) Lives and works in Berlin. Sandoval works in the crossing points of artistic practice, curatorial processes and spatial design. He holds a B.F.A. and is currently writing his thesis for the Masters in Photography, Art and Technology from the UPV (Valencia, Spain). He has exhibited in many venues internationally as well as attending international residencies in Denmark, Spain, Germany, Portugal and Kenya. He received curatorial prizes such as Inéditos 2011, Can Felipa curatorial prize and Nochueras Blanchard curatorial challenge 2012. ‘Deep Surface’ at L’Atelier-ksr and ‘Your Skin Is a Frozen Wave’ at BDP Bür were his last solo shows in Berlin in 2016. He recently won the art prize ‘Generación 2017’ that will be presented in La Casa Encendida (Madrid) in 2017. Since 2015, he runs the fictional institution ‘The Institute for Endotic Research’.

Founded by Carrick Bell and Michael Rocco Ruglio-Misurell in 2013, HORSEANDPONY Fine Arts is an artist-run space with the aim of providing artists, curators, and other project spaces the opportunity to extend or act outside of their existing practices.