ARNDT Berlin is delighted to present two solo positions by the Philippino artist Jigger Cruz and the US American  artist Amir Nikravan at this years' "abc - art berlin contemporary" 2014.

September 18 - September 21, 2014 | 12 am - 7 pm

ARNDT Berlin is proud to announce the participation of auspicious young artist Jigger Cruz in this years edition of abc ART BERLIN CONTEMPORARY 2014.

Jigger Cruz (Philippines, 1984) creates assemblages of recognizable objects and obscure shapes which interlace, envelope and unfurl within one another. Simultaneously tempered and fueled by scientific-based inspired titles, elements such as satellite disks, bicycle wheels, coiling striped horns and sprays of particles are within these shuffling vortexes of the nonsensical. The focus, aided by a fairly subdued palette, turns to configuration which leads the lingering visual experience into its stormy yet measured rocking.

Before he started exhibiting again in the middle of 2011, Jigger Cruz decided to stop painting for a year.  He felt frustrated at his lack of commercial success. Jigger came back with a vengeance.  These days, Manila’s art collectors can’t get enough of his pieces, paintings he once described as “wasak na talaga” or deconstructions.  He enjoyed the idea of vandalizing images he carefully reconstructed from old masters’ paintings, defacing his own work with globs of pigment squeezed directly from the tube, even running some spray paint over them as his final flourish.

Selected Solo Exhibition 
2013  Depth Circus, West Gallery, Quezon City, Philippines
2012  Glitch Habitation, Primae Noctis, Lugano, Switzerland
         Spatial Soother, West Gallery, Quezon City, Philippines 
         Birth Of The Party Bantam Paintings, Secret Fresh, San Juan City, Philippines
2011  Dead End, West Gallery, Quezon City, Philippines  
         Anti-Depressants On Paper, Crucible Gallery, Mandaluyong City, Philippines
2009  Constructing Deconstruction, Tala Gallery, Quezon City, Philippines
2008  Swing, Blanc Art Space, Makati City, Philippines

Selected Group Exhibition   
2013
Abstrakt, Michael Haas / CFA Berlin, Germany
Milan Art Fair, Primo Marella, Milan, Italy
Bologna Art Fair, Primo Marella Gallery, Italy
Abstraction, Lost and Found, Taksu, Singapore
Surface Default, Light And Space Contemporary, Manila, Philippines

PRESS
Jigger Cruz Superstar | ART Explainer | May, 2014
KÜNSTLERFÜHRER BERLIN JIGGER CRUZ | ART Berlin| September, 2014

The second artist Amir Nikravan (California, 1983) presented and curated by ARNDT Berlin together with Amir Shariat in this years abc ART BERLIN CONTEMPORARY 2014 lives and works in Los Angeles, California.

Looking at works from Amir Nikravan might provoke a calm feeling. This results from the balanced construction, the immanent composure and the evident depth. The works show the deliberate process of the artist creating these works.  He applies elementary materials such as asphalt, cement, color, stone to a rough surface – the beginning of a careful, contemplative procedure.

Process is central to Nikravan’s practice. The artist transforms his works from paintings to a sculptural relief, to indexical photographic positives, and back to paintings that present themselves as sculpturally flat objects. It all begins with a choice of basic building materials. Through his working model, Nikravan uses multiple mediums to activate historical and philosophical touchstones of objecthood. His works evince the gaps between image and experience, making explicit the disconnect between sight and touch, absence and presence, desire and possession. The viewer is asked to reconcile the displacement of object, author and labor, with the asynchronous temporality of the image; that which looks as if it was not made but has just arrived. Materials are built up in layers until a temporary sculpture emerges. Fabric is then applied through a vacuform process so that a three-dimensional shape remains imprinted on the surface. Indeed, the textile will forever depict the imperfections of the original materials; subsequent layers of spray paint produce a positive form once the air is removed. This unusual process is notable in the sense that a void is created which, through a common chemical reaction, is forever crystallized into a new object that documents the existence of a sculpture that we will never see. Once the fabric is mounted and stretched, the initial roughness is transformed into a perfectly rendered image of an imperfect surface — opposites that now cohabit a state of stable harmony.

The artist declares to be interested in the mono-ha movement. He gets inspired by this group of artists of the 20th century who follow thoughts of the land art movement, fluxus and conceptual art.

Solo Exhibitions
2014 (Forthcoming), Various Small Fires, Hollywood, CA
2012 Gemini, Pepin Moore, Los Angeles, CA
2011 Internal, Contemporary Arts Center, Irvine, CA
2010 Thresholds, Rosamund Felsen Gallery, Santa Monica, CA

Please click here for further information about Amir Nikravan

We are looking forward to see you there!
If you have any further questions, please contact Lisa Polten (lisa@arndtberlin.com).