Lars Koepsel

Lars Koepsel

1964

1982

1985 - 1988

1998 - 2001

born in Bingen / Rhein , Germany

Studies of Arthistory University Mainz

Apprenticeship as Gilder and Churchrstorer

Studies of Philosophy LMUniversity Munich

lives in Munich / Germany

selected Exhibitions and Performances

2021

2020

2019


2018



2015

2014

2013

S H E L T E R, Apartment of Art / AoA, Munich, Solo, Catalogue

Wieder + Wieder, DG Kunstraum Deutsche Gesellschaft für christliche Kunst, München

ICOMEFROMABEAUTIFULPLACE, Artionale 2019, Kirche St.Lukas, München

VECTOR Munich, Kunstverein München, hrsg. v. Birthe Blauth und Peter Gregorio

Am Anfang war das Wort Am; Galerie Renate Bender, München

Labyrinth konkret...mit Nebenwegen; Museum im Kulturspeicher; Würzburg

Video screening, Limbo Rolle, Limbo Lichtspiele by M+M , Museum Villa Stuck ,München

Webarten; Neue Galerie; Dachau

Exercises of Emptiness; VT Artsalon; Taipei; Taiwan; Solo

Neuland; apartment der kunst, Munich

founding of „apartment of art“

2012

The Killerrabbitranchrodeo 1, Nationalgalerie Berlin

The Killerrabbitranchrodeo 2, Studio Norrmann, Biberbach

2010

iAart at ITPark , with Vernon Ah Kee, Taipei Taiwan

2008

Sweeties, IT-Park Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan

2007

Rainbow Soldier Liquid Heart / The Aesthetics of Traveling in contemporary Photography, Tiroler Künstlerschaft, Innsbruck, Austria

2006

Pingtung Peninsula Art, “The golden people”, Artist in Residence, Kenting, Taiwan

2003/04

Neue Galerie Dachau / Germany, Solo,

Künstlerhaus, Wien (with Eliane Huber) / Austria

2002

Neuer Kunstverein, Regensburg / Germany

2001

Zen-Camera, Queensland College of Art; Brisbane / Australia; Solo

„Insomnia“, Video experimental, Uluru, Australia

2000

Moon event/Kurt Johannessen, Bergen Museum of Art/European City of Culture 2000, Norway

„The second generation“, Da-An Park Taipei / Taiwan , Solo

„lai“, Public Art Project, Song Zhuang, Peking, Solo

1999

„lai“ (COME),Public Art Project, DEoA- Foundation ; Taipei / Taiwan, Solo ; Catalogue

1998

„Consistence“, Hohenkammer Castle (with Li - Mei Shie),Hohenkammer., Germany

„Moon“, Performance, New Garden City, Taipei / Taiwan, Solo

1997

„MOON - PROJECT“, Artist in residence, The Bamboo Curtain Studio,Taipei / Taiwan

„Moon“, Performance, Danshui River, Taipei / Taiwan, Solo

„COME“, Public Art Project, Art Association Ebersberg / Germany, Solo

1996

„open reduction to red“, Public Art Exhibition, Installation,Dingolfing / Germany, Group, Catalogue

1994

„PANGÄA - PANTHALASSA“ with Li-Mei Shie, Hohenkammer / Germany, Catalogue


Review

Cristina Sanchez-Kozyreva

Obsessive itching; Lars Koepsel at VT Artsalon, Taipei; Pipeline Art Magazine Honkong Issue 45; 2014

Chia-Hsuan Wu

Racism and Identity – IAART at ITPark; Artitude N12; 09.2010; ITPark Taipei 2010

Heinz Schütz

The head and its halfs; in Catalogue Videoportraits and Texts, Neue Gallerie Dachau;

Copy books; in Catalogue Videoportraits and Texts, Neue Gallerie Dachau; Dachau 2003/04

Peter Volkwein

Art Steps out of the Museum; in Catalogue of Project Lai; DEoA; Taipei Juli 1999

Sun LI-Chuan

Trees“ - Cohesion and Radiation; in Catalogue Project Lai, Dimension Endowment of Art; Taipei July 1999

Ways between Nature and Aesthetics; in Taipei Pictorial 6/99

Huang Hei-Ming

Lars Koepsel, Intimate but Silent Viewing and Dialogue Alternative Creative Form and Thought in

Environmental Art; Catalogue of Project Lai, DimensionEndowment of Art;Taipei/Taiwan and Cans Art Magazine 6/99

Idelette van

Papendorp

Talking trees and the need for art; China News 22.5.1999

Felix Schoeber

The one who dances with the moon; China News 21.9.1997

Web TV Taipei

30´ Documentation of KOMM-Project(COME) at Da-An Park Taipei Mai 1999, www.etat.com


Collections

Bavarian State Library, Munich, Germany

Collection of Aareal Bank, Wiesbaden, Germany

Lyrik Cabinett, Munich, Germany


Artist Statement

- Exercises of Emptiness - VTartsalon Taipei 30.08.- 28.09.2014

For more than 20 years I am almost every year in Taiwan. Either for family reasons and mostly to meet friends or work here. Sometimes I think I'm more Taiwanese than German, or, nevertheless, at least in the meantime a mental mixed product.

I say this in full seriousness. One thing is definitely the art which I discovered here. Especially the influence of abstract Chinese calligraphy on my work is as important as my occupation with philosophy during my studies in Munich.

What do I make?

I write! Better said: I copy entire books by handwriting. Since 15 years. From first up to the last word.

I selects those books out of the fund ,which are of interest beyond historical moments. Philosophic texts from Plato to Wittgenstein to Tschuang-Tse or Lau-Tse. I write line by line, layer by layer. Non-linear, one over the other, but with each layer the sheet is rotated 90°. So slowly an unreadable text fabric arises. Often it takes a few months to finish a work . The copied book becomes a structure of depositions. A text whose meaning disappears by writing becomes a embodied drawing, a picture which has absorbed the meaning of the text but contains also the content of the text.

Books become pictures!

The mural:

The extension of the text pictures to the text on the wall in the form of a slogan may be surprised first, but I wanted to incorporate the audience in the origin process of the work.

The slogan "The true friend of art is freedom" refers to a 200 year old text by Schiller, in which he demands the aesthetic state. Schiller's text was written in the days when the French Revolution was preparing to spread over Germany and the monarchy tried to secure their status quo.

I would like to ask the audience to participate and to scratch the slogan of the wall during the exhibition. The resulting abrasion and dust is collected daily in jewelry vessels which are placed on the walls of the gallery. Thus the time of the exhibition is part of the creation process which is completed by the end of the exhibition.

The writing disappears from the wall, the contents essence, remains in the vessels.

The videos:

ZEN Camera is a conglomerate of 11 looped analog videos from 2000-2001. This work is based on the assumption that certain everyday sequences, if they are extremely slowed down, or how I did here, split up in single images with help of the remote control ,brings irritating perceptions ,which we usually ignore in normal everyday life. It's just too fast. Thus the viewer is able to look behind surfaces which would otherwise remain closed.

"Game Over" is a 19' short film with soundtrack by Roman Pawollek about the game of life, which was created in 2004 for the Künstlerhaus Vienna.


co(op)llaboration - iaart at IT Park

Two man exhibition by Vernon Ah Kee and Lars Koepsel

21 August ~ 18 September, 2010

co(op)llaboration came about where Lars was describing to me his dismay at the proliferation in neo-Nazi symbols and codes across Germany and international since the fall of the Berlin Wall. I gave my thoughts on the new insidious uses of the Australian Flag, particularly the Southern Cross star constellation, since the 2005 Cronulla Beach race-riots in Sydney. We could see where the two ideas intersected and knew that we would be able to make something.

After talking a lot and developing some conceptual frameworks around the different ways that racism codifies itself and how culture, nationalist and ethnic, informs racism and racist expression, we eventually began our project last year (2009) over Christmas and New Year in Brisbane, Australia. We were very much aware that our own particular cultural/nationalist/racial identities were already intertwined in our working relationship and we believed that it is the ‘identity’ nature of the work that strengthens and anchors it.

co(op)llaboration is an installation comprising video and photographic essay. The over-arching theme is the codifying of racism, specifically the spread and increase in neo-Nazi codes and symbols in Europe post-the Wall, and the spread and increase the use of the Australian national flag and the Southern Cross star constellation post-the Cronulla riots. What draws together the two seemingly disparate ideas in co(op)llaboration is images of identity in caricature roles, and the use of paraphernalia gathered readily and easily from the most common sources – beach shops, tourist shops, supermarkets. We enjoyed the fact that the ‘red, black and yellow’ colours of the German flag resonate with Aboriginal people in Australia being the colours of the Aboriginal national flag.

Vernon Ah Kee, Lars Koepsel 2010

Artist background statement: Vernon Ah Kee, Lars Koepsel and ‘iaart’

Lars and I have known each other for about 10 years. We are good friends. We struck up our friendship in Brisbane, Australia some years ago. We seemed to get on well from the first meeting and although about the same age, I think it is because we are both naturally curious about and interested in other's thinking and ideas. We have always achieved an easy dialogue when we speak. What also links us is the fact that both of us, independent from each other and in different formal ways , are working with text as a medium of our artistic expression.

A lot of our conversation is spent in discussion around ‘race’ and ‘identity’. In 2010 it was Lars who came up with the term/name/philosophy for what we did/do/want to do – iaart: ‘international artists against racism team’. I liked it immediately, as I did the title for our show ‘co(op)llaboration’, which Lars had provided after a long period of us both coming up empty.

Artist Profiles: Vernon Ah Kee

Vernon Ah Kee is an Australian artist living and based in Brisbane, Australia. Vernon is Aboriginal, originally from the rainforest region in north Queensland, Australia. He exhibits widely in Australia and internationally and is particularly known for his large-scale portrait drawings of his family and the text works that provide for his incisive commentary on race and identity. Two major installations by Vernon were included in the 16th Biennale of Sydney and Vernon was an official participant for Australia at the 53rd Venice Biennale in 2009. co(op)llaboration - iaart at ITPark with Lars Koepsel is his first time exhibiting in Taiwan.

Artist Profile: Lars Koepsel

Lars Koepsel is a German artist living and based in Munich, Germany. Married to fellow artist and art therapist Li-Mei Shie from Taiwan, Lars has had several exhibitions in Taiwan the most important his 1999 solo exhibition "LAI" at Dimension Endowment of Art Foundation, an environmental installation traversing the length of DA AN Park. Lars and Li-Mei have a son who has only ever known life in Munich in a ‘unified’ Germany where Lars feels that racism is still a big if largely hidden issue. It is in this context that Lars sees much of his art practice – navigating his son through his relationship with Taiwanese culture and history and the complex identity specifics of German history and culture.

By Vernon Ah Kee and Lars Koepsel

A few explanations about the racist and neo-Nazi-codes which iaart ( international artists against racism team) used for this exhibition:

14 or 14 words: -“we must secure the existence of our race and the future for white children”; created by a widely known American racist

100% : - one hundred percent Aryan

CI :- Christian identity; a white racist organization with strong influence in merican politics but also international

B&H: - Blood and Honour; a worldwide fascist, violent skinhead and neo-Nazi network (forbidden in Germany)

WPWW: - White Pride World Wide-; used by all kind of white racists internationally

88: stands for two times the 8th character in the alphabet; means “Heil Hitler”: (forbidden in Germany)

H8: - readable as Hate; but also as HH which again means Heil Hitler

2330: - postcode of Cronulla, which is a district of Sydney ,where 2005 about 5000 white Australians racists caused riots specially against Arab or Middle eastern people; mostly used as tattoo

168:1:- code for the Oklahoma bomb massacre where Timothy McVeigh a white fascist killed 168 people, he (1) was later killed through death penalty

Sons of the southern cross: Australian white racist organization

MAX H8: read as “Maximum Hate” or Maximum Heil Hitler”; racist Fashion Label

Masterrace: Fashion Label with mostly ”white Aryan” customers

2YT4U: read as “ too white for you”

All this codes are find in form of small prints on clothing, tatoos, graffiti, stickers and much more in daily life.



Statement for Project "Come"; Dimension Endowment of Art; DA-AN Park Taipei; 1999


COME


Chronolgy


When I danced the word KOMM (Come) during a performance a new dimension was created for me as a result of the strange physical experience of word dancing. So I began to experiment further with the word KOMM inscribing it on several different things I had at hand: books, computers, chairs, leaves, stones etc., even people. But at this point the work always seemed to die before it developed.
Especially the inscriptions on people which, surprisingly, very clearly and obviously negated the original intention and intuition. The people seemed condemned to silence, to an involuntary isolation.
It was at this point that I inscribed the first tree, and suddenly I had found a medium that seemed to have been waiting for a long time to have utterance. Here I was acting only as a translator. The trees, with their special direct connection to their environment, and through the power of their symbolism, embodied all that I had searched during the different phases of the work, and all that I had failed to find until that moment.

Transformation and Transitoriness


The work COME represents a non-commercial form of art and emancipation from the traditional everlasting materiality in the fine arts. In the sense of its transitoriness, its lasting power, in considerable part, comes from its temporary existance and its dematerialization, bringing a transformation from a visual conceivable (and in this sense also real material) to a mental, spiritual plane. When the work is present in a mental form it has become an intellectual, spiritual resource, and as such, a basic substance for further transformation and growth. The work as a whole thus incorporates personal responses and implies a dimension of openness. Umberto Eco established the term "open artwork". -Open- defines a contemplative relationship between the work and the recipient/interpreter. "The poetics of an open artwork aim at producing an act of conscious freedom in the interpreter. It wants him or her to become an active center of a network of relations.(-)"
"Openness itself means the production of something new, something which is no longer under the control of the author, bot now derives from the interpreter/recipient; it is open for further interpretation. Thus the public becomes an actor. "The openness becomes an instrument of revolutionary pedagogy."

Crossculture


COME is visualized as a global inter-cultural project. After Germany and Taiwan it will hopefully be realized in different countries. The execution will always involve a lingual equivalent to COME (germ. KOMM; chin. ) in the area´s native language. "Each signsystem (language) no matter what restricted collective it is based on, can in principle, always be deciphered, and thus converted into other signsystems (other languages). Consequently there is a universal logic of signsystems, a potential uniform language of languages." The application of the native language provides direct unencoded access and connection to the work for the people who are encountering it often only by chance during their everyday lives.
Language is an essential element of COME. Language is communication and information; through language identification takes place. Language is also an invitation to interaction. Interaction here not only refers to direct engagement in an artwork (participation) but also the possibility of interpretation and identification through the contextually produced re-acting-space. Communication is achieved through language (information) as well as through various possible points of identification (environment - humanity - social context; one as a part of all; etc.). The effect is no longer limited to aethetics and no longer bounded.

Transmission and Infiltration


The Second Generation


"The second genaration" is the logical continuation of COME. It is conceived as a solidary utopia. If we understand the COME-trees as evolutionary mutations adapted to radically changed modern living conditions, so I see myself in this context as a supporter of a solidary utopia, as an agent of an anarchic idea of infiltration. Through the cultivation of the seeds of the COME-trees "The Second Generation" continues on the physical and material level the work of COME. The trees of the second generation function as transmitter-carriers (even as carriers of a determinate genetic code) are responsible for the further evolutionary survival of the mutation as a subversive element. The infiltration thereby executed, becomes, over generations, a symbolic and also a concrete carrier of a slowly expanding intercultural utopia.


Lars Koepsel