Art Sonje Center will be presenting a Curator & Artist Talk program with artists Florian Hecker and Adrian Villar Rojas and curator Nikolaus Hirsch. This program will take place in conjunction with the REAL DMZ PROJECT 2014.   Sunjung Kim, artistic director and curator of the REAL DMZ PROJECT 2014, and Nikolaus Hirsch, guest curator of the project’s 2014 and 2015 edition, have invited German artist Florian Hecker and Argentinian artist Adrián Villar Rojas, who are in the process of conceiving new works for this year’s REAL DMZ PROJECT exhibition.   One of the most exciting artists to have emerged in recent years, Villar Rojas is renowned for his large-scale installations. He tests the limits of site-specific sculpture to create an apparently fossilized world of ruins and nature that plays with the concepts of history and the future and forms that reappear and reconfigure themselves over time.   Based on his studies on acoustics and psycholinguistics, Florian Hecker has slowly emerged as one of the main protagonists of the field of sound art. His installations shift and vary depending on the listener, both in terms of an individual’s physical location and his or her personal biases and ideologies. As a starting point, Hecker’s investigations are rooted in the fact that listening is driven by a desire for understanding—via associations—and how what we hear is eventually and inevitably slotted into known categories.   The talk program will take place during the artists’ initial visit to the Demilitarized Zone border area near Cheorwon, South Korea. There, they will investigate the spatial, historic, and natural environment of a unique landscape. Based on their experiences at the DMZ, Florian Hecker and Adrián Villar Rojas will be discussing with Nikolaus Hirsch how they plan their approach to their artistic contribution to this year’s exhibition. Likewise, the artist talk program will provide an opportunity for the two artists and the curator to reexamine the fundamental concepts of their works and to ponder different responses and reactions to the Korean Demilitarized Zone.

Nikolaus Hirsch (born 1964, Germany) is a Frankfurt-based architect, teacher, and curator. He was the director of the Städelschule Academy of Fine Arts and of the Portikus Kunsthalle in Frankfurt (2010–2013) and previously taught at the Architectural Association in London (2000–2005), the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia (2006), and the Institute of Applied Theater Studies at Gießen University (2003/2004). His architectural work includes the award-winning Dresden Synagogue (2001), the unitednationsplaza (with Anton Vidokle, 2006/07), the European Kunsthalle (2005–), the Cybermohalla Hub in Delhi (2008–12), and currently a studio building at Rirkrit Tiravanija’s “The Land” in Thailand. Hirsch has curated ErsatzStadt: Representations of the Urban at the Volksbühne (Berlin, 2005), Cultural Agencies (Istanbul, 2009/10), I knOw yoU (Dublin, 2013), as well as numerous exhibitions at the Portikus, and most recently the Folly project for the Gwangju Biennale (2013). He is the author of the books On Boundaries (2007), Track 17 (2009), Institution Building (2009), Cybermohalla Hub (2012), and co-editor (with Markus Miessen) of the Critical Spatial Practice series published by Sternberg Press. 

Florian Hecker (born 1975, Germany) lives in Kissing, Germany, and Edinburgh, UK. His most recent work C.D. – (A Script for Synthesis) has been presented in the Peter B. Lewis Theater, at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, as part of Performa 13 (2013) and Affordance, a three-channel synthetic sound piece as part of Soundings: A Contemporary Score (2013) at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Recent exhibitions and performances include Sadie Coles HQ, London (2012); MD72, Berlin (2012); Lumiar Cité, Lisbon (2012); Documenta 13, Kassel (2012); Nouveau Festival, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (2012); MIT Saarinen Chapel, Cambridge, MA (2011); Push & Pull (2011), Tate Modern; MMK, Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt am Main (2010); IKON Gallery, Birmingham (2010); and Chisenhale Gallery, London (2010). He has an extensive discography with over 25 releases, including: Articulação (2014), Editions Mego, Vienna; Chimerization (2012), Editions Mego, Vienna; Triadex Muse Trecks (2012), nbk, Berlin; Speculative Solution (2011), Editions Mego, Vienna, 3 Track 12” (2010), Editions Mego, Vienna; NEU CD (2010), Galerie Neu, Berlin; Acid in the Style of David Tudor (2009), Editions Mego, Vienna.

Adrián Villar Rojas (born 1980, Argentina) lives and works in Rosario, Argentina. Recent solo exhibitions include Los Teatros de Saturno (2014), kurimanzutto, Mexico City; Films Before Revolution (2013), Museum Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich; Today We Reboot the Planet (2013), Serpentine Galleries, London; The Work of the Ocean (2013), Foundation 11 Lijnen, Oudenburg, Belgium, and Poems For Earthlings (2011), Jardin des Tuileries, Paris. Villar Rojas also represented Argentina in the 54th Venice Biennial (2011). His most recent international group exhibitions include the EXPO 1 (2013), MoMA PS1, New York; the 9th Shanghai Biennale (2012); Documenta 13 (2012), Kassel and Kabul, The New Museum Triennial (2012), New York, and the Istanbul Biennial (2011). His 2013 film, Lo que el fuego me trajo (What the Fire Brought Me) was screened at the Locarno International Film Festival 2013.