1+1

Artists:

Cai Dongdong (b. 1978, Tianshui, Gansu) began his career as a portrait photographer in the People’s Liberation Army, which became his formal training in photography. After returning to Beijing, he opened his own studio and developed a distinctive style using archival and found photography combined with installation. Cai transforms photographs into “photo-sculptures” by integrating objects like mirrors and arrows, drawing on Duchamp’s Dadaist influence. His recent solo exhibitions include Obstacles at Villa Heike, Berlin (2023) and Miss the Target at Light Society, Beijing (2023). Group exhibitions include Working on History at Staatliche Museen Zu Berlin (2017) and Évidences du réel at Musée d’art de Pully, Switzerland (2017).

Yuzheng Cheng was born in 1977 in Suzhou, China. He studied Fine Arts at the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK) from 2001 to 2006, where he earned a Meisterschüler degree under Karl Horst Hödicke. He currently lives and works in Berlin, Germany. Selected solo exhibitions include “Words of Art” (with Ce Jian) at Yell Space in Shanghai (2019), “Studio” at Migrant Bird Space in Beijing (2018), and “A Historic Studio of A Drunk Genius” (open studio project) in Berlin (2017). He also exhibited “Transeuropa” (with Ce Jian) at Whiteconcepts, Berlin (2017). In group exhibitions, Cheng has participated in “Brave New Work – Schöne neue Arbeitswelten” in Berlin (2023), “From Body to Dream” at Braverman Gallery in Tel Aviv (2023), “The Situation is Excellent” at GLUE, Berlin (2022), and “FAS” at Rongyi Art Museum in Shanghai (2019), among others.

Daniela Comani was born in Bologna, Italy; lives and works in Berlin. She studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna and at the University of Fine Arts in Berlin, where she graduated in 1993. The multimedia work of Daniela Comani engages in a dialogue about history, gender, language, and identity. Using photography, text, and installation, she works with both manipulated and appropriated media images and the performance of self. Using “gendering” as an artistic strategy, Comani challenges stereotypes, history, identity, and the interpretation of language. Her series are frequently published as artist books, and function as art pieces that she conceives and designs, often becoming an element within her installations. Her books have been published with Revolver-Archiv für aktuelle Kunst, Corraini Edizioni, Edition Patrick Frey, Archive Books, Humboldt Books, Monroe Books, and Danilo Montanari Editore, among others. Comani’s work is included in the public collections of Museum Folkwang, Essen; Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf; Kupferstichkabinett of the Berlin State Museums; UniCredit Art Collection, Milan; Farnesina Contemporary Art Collection, Rome; Museo d’Arte Moderna, Bologna; Musée Les Abattoirs, Toulouse; Museum on the Seam, Jerusalem; Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, Los Angeles; and Watson Library, The Met, New York City.

Dieter Detzner was born 1970 in Aalen. He studied at the Hochschule der Künste Berlin and currently lives and works in Berlin. His works has been exhibited in ZKM Karlsruhe, Kunstverein Bielefeld, Beijing Today Art Museum, Pingshan Art Museum, A4 Art Museum Chengdu and other public museums. He also has exhibited in many galleries as Anahita Sadighi, NEU, Nourbakhsch, Truelzsch, Max Hetzler, as well as Gourvennec Ogor Marseille, Lucile Corty Paris and Madder 139 London.

Yutao Gao was born in Hunan in 1988. He currently lives and works in Shanghai. Yutao received his postgraduate degree from the Academy of Fine Arts in Düsseldorf, Germany in 2019, where he was awarded the title of Honorary Master-Student by Professor Katharina Fritch. His work touches on memory, time and everyday objects and is based on his interests in photography, installation, video and works on paper. He tries to explore in his work how to replace the banal functionality of routine with a poetic artistic approach. He combines and re-arranges the mundane again. In a completely unexpected way he brings the everyday familiar things back to life, giving them a new relationship and a new vein. Gao Yutao’s works have been exhibited in important art institutions in China and European: including Hangar Art Center, Belgium; K21 Art Museum, Düsseldorf; Museum Folkwang, Essen; Kunstmuseum Solingen; Grand Palais, Paris; and JiuShi Art Museum, Shanghai etc. In 2023, Top20 Chinese Contemporary Photography, In 2022, he was selected in the Prize photo brussels festival 06th . In year 2019 he was nominated of 73rd Internationale Bergische Kunstausstellung at the Museum Solingen and 2016 was nominated for Three Shadows Photography Award at Three Shadows Photography Art Centre Beijing.

Grapebattleships is an artist duo founded in late 2022 by two Chinese artists based in Berlin. The name “Grapebattleships” reflects their creative process, characterized by a struggle for artistic dominance on the canvas. This confrontational approach imbues their works with a distinctive tension, where contradictions and oppositions form the central theme of their art. The duo engages with contemporary social issues, often reflecting on them from their own perspective. They draw on phenomena from pop culture to pose questions—such as the rapid integration of artificial intelligence into daily life or the nature of social structures and relationships, which they often approach with a touch of humor. Rooted in classical painting, their works redefine imagery through creative reimagining. The result is abstract puzzle-like pieces that bear little resemblance to the original source, yet vividly capture the essence of modern life. This approach offers viewers new visual and emotional experiences.

Birgit Hölmer studied Visual Communication at Fachhochschule Münster (1990–1995) and Fine Arts at the Academy of Fine Arts Münster under Timm Ulrichs (1995–2000). Since 2002, she has lived and worked in Berlin, and from 2017 to 2019, she held a teaching assignment in Drawing at the University of the Arts Berlin (UDK). Hölmer has received several prestigious awards and grants, including a publication grant from the Art Fund Bonn (2024), residencies at the Plan B Artist Studio in Greece (2023) and the Goethe-Institut in Sofia (2022), and a work grant from the Art Fund Bonn (2019). Other notable achievements include scholarships from the Senate Department for Culture in Berlin and the State of NRW, as well as a 1st prize for public art in Bergkamen (2001). Since 2015, Hölmer has been creating cut interventions in public spaces in Berlin and across Europe. Her work has been exhibited widely across Europe, and her pieces are part of the Artothek collection of the German Bundestag.

Suah Im (b. 1988, South Korea) is based in Berlin and Stuttgart. She studied Media Art at the Berlin University of the Arts and Fine Arts at the Stuttgart State Academy of Art and Design. Her works across multimedia platforms, including installations, drawing, performance, and video. Her practice reflects on identity, transformation, and the dynamic interactions between beings and external forces, drawing on intercultural experiences and the principles of Daoism. By integrating traditional approaches with modern technology, including coding, her work examines resilience, adaptability, and the emergence of diversity within constrained systems. She has received numerous awards, including the Visual Artist Grant 2024 from the Arts Foundation Baden-Württemberg and the UdK Berlin Art Award Nomination 2023. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including: Frischzelle 31, Kunstmuseum Stuttgart, 2024–2025; Entropy, EIGEN+ART Lab, Berlin, 2023; Smooth Criminal, SOMA Art Space, Berlin, 2023; Spotlight on South Korea, POSITIONS Berlin Art Fair, 2024; Höhe x Breite x Tiefe, EIGEN+ART Leipzig, 2024; MORE STRANGE THINGS, Silent Green Kulturquartier, Berlin, 2024.

Jonathan Joosten is an artist based in Berlin. His practice explores the intersections of the present and the paths shaped by history, focusing on how “modernity” inevitably intertwines with past narratives. Drawing from everyday life, biographical details, and cultural references, their work transforms recognizable elements—such as office furniture, film titles, or wallpaper—into abstract forms that evoke collective memory and shifting values. By blending these familiar materials into their surroundings, Joosten challenges the boundaries between art and context, inviting complex interpretations of space and time. His work has been seen at many exhibitions, including: TRADING POSTmodernity (Berlin); Kunstraum Potsdamer Straße / Gallery WE; The Spirit Of (Berlin); Lothar Wolleh Raum / Berlin Art Week; Unreal Estate (Bucharest) Suprainfinit Gallery; Works for me (Berlin) Studio Christian Jankowski; Folge #07 (Pilot) (Duo) (Berlin) Kirchberger & Wiegner Rohde / Ortstermin 23; Entropy Pop-Up (Paris) Lieu Idéal and so on.

Liao Wenfeng, born in 1984 in Jiangxi Province, China, currently lives and works in Berlin, Germany. He completed his postgraduate M.A. course in Art in Context at the Berlin University of the Arts from 2013 to 2016, after studying in the Department of Experimental Art at the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou from 2002 to 2006. Liao’s solo exhibitions include “Not Flower, Nor Non-Flower” at Inna Art Space in Hangzhou, China, in 2023, “light, light” (a duo show with Bignia Wehrli) at Lechbinska Gallery in Zürich, Switzerland, in 2022, and “Water without A Glass” (a duo show with Yi Lian) at Inna Art Space in 2019. He also held solo exhibitions such as “Eyes Moving A Pencil” at Inna Art Space in Hangzhou in 2018, and “Handing” at Big Whale Space in Berlin in 2016. Liao’s solo projects include “When Potato Speaks” at Kunstkästen Schaffhausen in Switzerland in 2024, “Small Paths” at Videokunst.ch in Bern, Switzerland, in 2018, “17ZWEI”, a public art project at Hardbrücke in Zürich in 2013, and “1467+” at the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research in Zurich in 2010.

Luka Naujoks (*1998) is based in Berlin. Her artistic work focuses on photography. With her own logical understanding, she traces the expanding and limiting conditions of this medium by integrating painterly and installation aspects. Since 2021, she has been studying painting and graphics in the class of Prof. Michael Riedel at the Academy of Fine Arts in Leipzig since 2021, following her studies in photography there from 2019 to 2021. Recent exhibitions include You say I have unlimited potential. I disagree, Zilberman Gallery, Berlin, 2024; There is no future like no future, Rinde am Rhein, Düsseldorf, 2024; If not friends why friendshaped, Spoiler, Berlin, 2024; UNINVOLVED JUNCTIONS, Culterim Gallery, Berlin, 2023; PLUS, Plus, Leipzig, 2023; Preis der Nordwestkunst, Kunsthalle Wilhelmshaven, 2023; Oh, ich hab dir gar nicht zugehört, Plast, Leipzig, 2022; Blur, Frappant Galerie, Hamburg, 2022; Hyperlink, Culterim Gallery, Berlin, 2022 and No Sex with Robots, Kunsthalle am Hamburger Platz, Berlin, 2022.

Anne Neukamp (born 1976, Düsseldorf, Germany) lives and works in Berlin. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including at the Leopold-Hoesch-Museum, Düren; Gregor Podnar Gallery, Berlin and Vienna; Galerie Greta Meert, Brussels; Ludwig Museum, Budapest; KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin; Marlborough Gallery, New York; Wilhelm-Hack-Museum, Ludwigshafen; University of the Arts, Philadelphia; Oldenburger Kunstverein; the 5th Prague Biennale; and many other venues. Since 2022, she has been a Professor of Painting at the HfBK Dresden.

Enrico Niemann (*1978 in Bad Saarow, Germany) studied Fine Arts at the Bauhaus University Weimar from 2001 to 2007. His artistic work explores the transition between surface and space. Through experimental process painting, he creates objects whose topographic color fields either expand into space or evoke it.

Lucas Odahara (b. 1989 São Paulo) is an artist based in Berlin, working with a variety of media including ceramic glaze painting, public installation, collage and writing. His work addresses the impulse of self-recognition within structures that are ultimately restrictive, while proposing a notion of a manifold self composed from multiple histories and geographies. Nationality, language, history, race and gender are some of the places he encounters this friction between identification and disidentification. In 2022, he was awarded with the Berlin Art Prize and in 2024 he was a resident at the Jan van Eyck Academy in the Netherlands. His work has been seen at many exhibitions, including: Neue Berliner Kunsverein (n.b.k.), Berlin (2024); David Peter Francis gallery, New York (2024); Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin (2023); TaxisPalais Kunsthalle Tirol, Austria (2023); Kleinplastik Triennial Fellbach (2022); OPENART Biennial, Sweden (2022); Cultural Center of Belgrade (2022); Berlinische Galerie (2021); Bärenzwinger, Berlin (2021); Kunstverein Grafschaft Bentheim (2020); Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture, Karachi, Pakistan (2019); Schwules Museum, Berlin (2017); Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen (2016); Weserburg Bremen (2015) and Künstlerhaus Bremen (2015).

Jens Schubert, born in 1983 in the Erzgebirge region of Germany, currently lives and works in Berlin and Halle/Saale. From 2004 to 2011, he studied Painting and Graphics under Prof. Annette Schröter at the Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig, where he completed his masterclass studies. Since 2022, he has been the director of the Workshop for Artistic Printmaking in the Art/Education program at Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design in Halle/Saale and teaches drawing and printmaking at various adult education centers in Berlin. Schubert has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions in cities such as Leipzig, Frankfurt am Main, Berlin, Dresden, New York, Budapest, Leeuwarden, and Vienna. He has received several awards and grants, including the Marion Ermer Prize and a studio grant from the city of Munich. His works are part of significant public collections, including the Museum of Fine Arts Leipzig and the Deutsche Bundesbank.

Mu Tian (b. China 1985) lives and works in Shanghai. Tian Mu’s practice spans painting, sculpture, installation and video, with advanced technological methods of production and commodity forms. He probes the limits between the human body, the material world, and spirituality. His works capture social groups and events of different cultural backgrounds and try to create body aesthetics by switching mediums between painting and sculpture to bring about physical and spiritual cognition from human relationships through stories that integrate the body into the intuitive perception, from the intimacy of the body perception to explore how we see things and the unforeseen vulnerabilities. His recent solo/group exhibitions include Half The Sand, CHI K11 Art Museum, Shanghai (2023), Vagus Nerve, All Club, Shanghai (2023), LAPSUS CALAMI, Marlborough Gallery, London (2023), An extraordinary adventure, Gallery Rosenfeld, London (2022), When and Only When, the Strong Wind Rolled up the Surge, Aranya Art Center, Qinhuangdao (2021), SURE INN, 2020 Yokohama Triennale, Yokohama (2020).

Rexy Tseng (b. 1986, Taipei) is a visual artist who primarily works in painting and installation. He received a BFA from Carnegie Mellon University in 2009; he withdrew from MFA at UCLA in 2012; and he withdrew from MFA at University of Oxford in 2017. Between degrees, Tseng worked as a software engineer. Tseng’s practice derives from the dark humor and unrequited desires found within contemporary conditions. Exuding a sense of disarray and absurdity, Tseng’s work presents the bruised optimism of his time. He addresses the inherent flaws of techno-capitalism, material culture, and unresolved past. Tseng has exhibited in Armenia, Belgium, China, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, Russia, South Korea, Taiwan, the U.K., and the U.S. He has received awards and recognition from Allegro Prize, Charlottenborg Foundation, Li Chun-Shan Foundation, Taipei Art Awards, Tomorrow Sculpture Awards, and others. Tseng has participated in artist residencies internationally, including Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Boghossian Foundation, Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (Korea), Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, and more.

Bignia Wehrli, born in Switzerland, is an artist based in Berlin and Sternenberg (Switzerland). She studied art at the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts, at the École des Beaux-Arts Paris and at the China Academy of Art Hangzhou (China). Bignia Wehrli’s work translates actions and spatial movements into signs using specially developed instruments. Her work has been shown internationally in exhibitions including in 2024 her solo show «A way, any way», Inna Art Space, Hangzhou, in 2022 «Being Theoria: The 4th Hangzhou Triennial of Fiber Art», Zhejiang Art Museum, Hangzhou, «Forming Comunities: Berliner Wege», Kindl – Zentrum für zeitgenössische Kunst, Berlin, in 2020 «Magia Naturalis», Sariev Gallery, Plovdiv (Bulgaria) and in 2018 her solo show «Den Horizont in der Hand halten» at Kunsthalle Winterthur.

Ye Jiang, born in 1990 in Shaanxi, graduated from the Central Academy of Fine Arts and the Pratt Institute in New York. He currently lives and works in Beijing. His work explores the relationship between painting language, social experience, and other artistic media. His works have been exhibited at venues such as Hive Center for Contemporary Art, Today Art Museum, Minsheng Art Museum, China Art Museum, Central Academy of Fine Arts Museum, among others.

Kaitong Zhang (b. 1991, Hebei, China) works and lives in Berlin (Germany), Athens, and Beijing. Since 2018, he has been studying Free Art at Kunsthochschule Kassel under Prof. Andrea Büttner and Prof. Dierk Schmidt. He previously studied Graphic Design at the University of North China Science and Technology, graduating in 2014. His solo exhibition Abstraction took place at Projektraum Grains, Cologne, in 2022. His work has been featured in group exhibitions such as UKRARUine at Daumenlutscher Gallery, Berlin (2023), What Art Can Do? at C-Space, Berlin (2022), and Stateless Existence at Lan Space, Beijing (2019).

Yiy (Xiaoyue) Zhang was born in 1990 in Shaanxi, China. She currently lives and works in Berlin, Germany. She graduated from Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing with Bachelor degree (2013) and then studied at Ecole nationale superieure des beaux-arts de Paris (France), Akademie der Bildenden Kunste Munich (Germany), and from Düsseldorf Kunstakadmie (Germany) with Meisterschulerin (Prof. Gregor Schneider) in 2019. “Show a simple thing, tell a story, hide the story”. Yiy Zhang’s works demonstrate profound humanistic concerns with a calm and dignified gesture, and her reflections on the current era and history. She won the Hogan lovells art price 1th price in 2019. Her recent project includes: K21 Museum( 2020, Dusseldorf, Germany), “Dhaka live artbiennale” (2019, Dhaka, Bangladesh), “Ithaka” (2018, Montepulciano, Italia), “The shell” (2018, Bilpin, Australia), “Kultur Nacht” (2018, Monchengladbach, Germany).