Deborah Schamoni

Flaka Haliti’s (*1982 in Prishtina, Kosovo, lives in Munich), artistic practice includes mixed media, sculpture and spatial installation with a decidedly site-specific approach. Appropriation and Re-arrangement are continuous lines in her works, whereby new aesthetic patterns are created. Flaka Haliti not only emphasizes altered perceptions on a visual level, but also in conceptual methods through political reflections. These involve geopolitical preoccupations with national borders or with the dispositions of associations such as the UN or the European Union. Importantly, her works steadily confront the visual language of identity construction and go beyond using gender and national attributions for its interpretation.

Jo Penca (*1988, Augsburg, lives in Munich) completed his art education in 2015 at the Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main under Professor Judith Hopf. Along with drawing and gouache, Jo Penca’s work includes performance, video, and sculptures, whereby he addresses queer perspectives in collaborative contexts. Penca’s work frequently expresses his strong interest in the natural sciences, which he contextualises with references to popular culture. In his exhibition, sympathy for the 6-legged (17.03. – 05.05.2018) at Deborah Schamoni, Penca presented gouache and sculptures of human figures in costume, each of which represented an “insect of the year” - an initiative that sought to bring these relatively unpopular and increasingly threatened groups of animals closer to the public eye. In a visual symbiosis of zoo-logical characteristics and personified traits, the assembled insects from the years 1999 to 2018 are depicted as ambivalent guests at an imaginary gala.

Tobias Spichtig (*1982, Switzerland, lives in Berlin) The artistic practice of Tobias Spichtig extends from painting to sculptural works up to theatrical performances. The motifs of his large-format paintings – mostly vinyl prints and oil on unprimed canvas – are often reminiscent of popular cultural codes from the 1990s as well as of transformed icons from recent art history. His works thereby oppose a clear categorization of media and content, but rather employ the aesthetic strategies of the artist’s own network, which is deeply rooted in the contemporary art, music and fashion scene.