Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa — Mies van der Rohe-Stipendium 2017

Two Flamingos Copulating on a Tin Roof

Sun, Feb 19, 2017–Sun, Aug 27, 2017

Kaiser Wilhelm Museum

The sixteenth recipient of the Mies van der Rohe award is the young Guatemalan artist Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa (*b. 1978 in Guatemala City). With his first solo show in a German institute, here at the Haus Esters museum, he delivers new impulses to the tradition of the site-specific installation that has brought international acclaim to the Mies van der Rohe houses since the 1960s.

In the exhibition Two Flamingos Copulating on a Tin Roof the artist amalgamates elements from popular European beliefs, theories of holistic medicine, and natural phenomena to produce a fictional story that takes place in the rooms of Haus Esters. With that the visitors are plunged with all their senses into a colored scenario that recalls domestic care and the physicality that goes with it. Using sculptures in a variety of materials, together with everyday objects, Ramírez-Figueroa plays with our perceptions until no more boundaries are distinguishable between dream and reality.

Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa’s artistic approach is rather personal and political. Identity, body, and the history of culture and architecture are essential to the so-called transcultural artist. He enlists popular practices from South American folklore, mythology and magic, but also questions a universal, globalized high culture. His installations express his very own stagy narrative.

The Mies van der Rohe Award from the city of Krefeld was inaugurated in 1979 to support young, promising artists, and has already been presented to Juan Muñoz, Stan Douglas, and Dominique Gonzales-Foerster, among others. The proposal committee for this year’s award consisted of Jessica Morgan (Dia Art Foundation, New York), Laurence Sillars (Baltic Center for Contemporary Art, Gateshead) and Nicolaus Schafhausen (Kunsthalle Wien). The decision on the sixteenth winner of the award was reached by the jury consisting of Katia Baudin (Kunstmuseen Krefeld), Bart de Baere (Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst, Antwerp), Helen Hirsch (Kunstmuseum Thun), Dr Sylvia Martin (Kunstmuseen Krefeld) and Holger Otten (Ludwig Forum, Aachen). The exhibition will be accompanied by a publication.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a publication.
Guest Curator: Dorothee Mosters