IKONO & ARTCONNECT BERLIN Video Spotlight Series 2013

#1 Open Call for sculpture artists! | #2 Open Call for Photographers! | #3 Open Call for Painters! |
#4 Open Call for Installation Artists!

#4 Open Call for Installation Artists!

DEADLINE: 8 July 2013

ikono invites Berlin based artists to take part in a year-long series of open calls, held in collaboration with Artconnect Berlin, to promote the visibility of the arts on a local and international scale.

Every other month in 2013, ikono and Artconnect Berlin will encourage submissions of artworks from local artists. Two artworks will be selected from each open call and presented on our local and international media platforms throughout the following months. Each call will focus on a specific artistic medium as a criterion for submission: sculpture, photography, painting, installation and drawing.

We are really happy with the results of our first three open calls for sculpture artists, photographers and Painters! We are now ready to move on to the next one: until July 8th, we are searching for submissions from installation artists working and living in Berlin. There is no specific theme, but please remember that our media platforms are family friendly, so, in general, we don’t accept nudity, gore or other adult content.

Details about presentation of selected work:

The two artworks selected from each call will be showcased in two unique films produced by ikono. The videos will be broadcasted on our HDTV channels ikonoTV (Germany) and ikonoMENASA (Middle East, Northern Africa and Southern Asia). They will also be presented on Artconnect’s and ikono’s blogs, alongside with in-depth interviews with the featured artists and conducted by Artconnect Berlin. At the end of 2013, ikono will produce a short retrospective film highlighting all selected works to conclude the series.

The entire collection of open call interviews and films will remain available as an archive on Artconnect Berlin’s and ikono’s websites for general public access.

How to submit:

You will need an artist’s profile on Artconnect Berlin’s website, which is free and easy to create under www.artconnectberlin.com. Feel free to upload as many files as you want, as this is a great tool to connect with other artists in your area and share your art!

For the #4 Open Call for Installation artists, you should submit one artwork documented through still images or video. As a general rule, we ask you for up to five images (Max size per image: 1MB). Upon acceptance you will be required to upload a full quality version of the artwork along with full credit information. However, if you want to submit more than 5 images, feel free to contact us at the e-mail address below. To submit a video, please upload it or provide a link to your video on an active URL in the submission section indicated below. Your video must be viewable to the public. (Example: Blip.tv, Vimeo, YouTube, Custom URL). Videos of High Definition (HD) are preferred for previewing and screening purposes.

You must include the following production information in your submission: applicant’s name, country of origin, contact, link to your website (if you have one), link to your Artconnect Berlin profile, a small bio, a short description of your work.

The artworks must be your property and you must own the full copyrights of it. This applies to all visual and written content.

If you have all the information mentioned above, you are now ready to submit!

We are really looking forward to seeing your installations! Good luck!

Please send any further questions to: opencall@ikono.org

#3 Open Call for Painters!

We officially closed the submission period for this call.

We would like to thank all those who participated and we encourage you to keep sending us your art as we are always looking for new artists to highlight!

Stay tuned! It’s all happening: we can’t wait to have the next films and interviews to share with you all.

#2 Open Call for Photographers!

Meet the two winners of the #2 Open Call for Photographers: Emiliano Fernández and Oliver Parzer!

Emiliano Fernández was born in La Plata, Argentina, and studied Forestry and Fine Arts at the National University of La Plata in Buenos Aires. Later on he attended the Argentinian School of Photography, where he really pursued his passion for Photography. His works have been exhibit in Argentina, Australia, Colombia and Germany. Between 2008 and 2011 he travelled practically everywhere: New Zealand, Australia, India, Burma, Thailand, Singapore, Morocco, Spain, Portugal and eventually Germany, where he currently lives and works. His most recent work “The Links” has been included in the collection of the Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut in Berlin. Ikono is happy to present you his series “Family Portraits”. More about him in this interview.

Oliver Parzer studied photography in Melbourne, then returned to Germany and now captures his delicate impressions of the capital. His work is dreamy and meditative enough to have captured our attention immediately. His silent and scenic Berlin documentation ‘surrounded by nothing but our own imagination’ is the series we are happy to present you. Read more about his work in this interview with our media partner Artconnect Berlin.

#1 Open Call for Sculpture Artists!

With great pleasure we are now announcing the first two winners of the #1 Open Call for Sculptors: Elizabeth Delfs and Steffen Kasperavicius!

Elizabeth Delfs is an Australian artist based in Berlin, who chooses light, delicate and flexible materials for her wonderful sculptures. “Whether shaped around a human body as sculptural garments, or hanging like fragile natural organisms from a ceiling, her pieces maintain a certain architectural structure which plays with materials and colors, almost turning them into living organisms” writes Teresa Iannotta from Artconnect after having interviewed the artist. Feel free to continue reading the interview here.  The work she is presenting us is “Revolution Series VI”, conceived with the body as the intersection between architecture and fashion: The sculptures’ shapes are loosely based on elements of the body such as the curvature of the spine supporting the core of the body during movement, or the skeletal structure of the rib cage protecting the lungs. You can find further detailed information about her fascinating art on her website.

Steffen Kasperavicius is a German artist who works with sculpture, installation, sound, video and found objects. The sculptures “Array (Wheel)” and “Array (Cascade)” (take a look at the images and video below), are both made of euro-pool pallets. As you can read in the interview by Ed Mc Aliece from Artconnect, “…pieces by Steffen can either be the result of laborious planning and high technical demands, or simple contextual gestures, completed in minutes. In this way, Steffen is able to underscore the tension arising between a successful, completed work and  a ‘failed’ piece; his work questions the necessity of the realised object, the expectations of the viewer, and the perspectives offered by art historical timelines”. Find out more about him and his incredibly diverse art on his website.