Project Description

Markus Karstieß and Eva Schmidt collaborated on a Research Fellowship focused on Robert Smithson’s 1968 work Asphalt Lump and his related work made in the Rhine-Ruhr region of Germany in 1968/1969. The research included site visits and research on Smithson's exhibition practice, for example for Mirror Displacement: Indoors (formerly referred to as Dead Tree) in the exhibition Prospect 69.

Biography

Markus Karstieß is an artist and curator. He graduated from Kunstakademie Düsseldorf in 1998 as Meisterschüler with Jannis Kounellis. From 2008 - 2012 he was co-director of Kunstverein Schwerte (with C. Freudenberger) and has curated several exhibitions (including Thomas Schütte, Moondog, Norbert Prangenberg, Robert Smithson and Claudio Abate among others). His own sculptural practice is based on ceramic matter, including performance, film and print media. His work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in Germany, Belgium, Italy, Rumania, Netherlands, UK and the USA. From 2014 - 2017 he was Guest-Professor at Akademie der Bildenden Künste München and since 2017 he is Professor for Fine Art Ceramics at the Institute for Ceramic and Glass Art (IKKG), University of Applied Sciences Koblenz. He lives and works in Düsseldorf, Germany. www.karstiess.com

Eva Schmidt is an art theorist and curator. From 2004 to 2019, she was head of the Museum für Gegenwartskunst in Siegen. After her studies in art history and media studies in Heidelberg, Osnabrück, and Hamburg (dissertation on Robert Smithson), she was a curatorial assistant at the LWL-Museum in Münster, from 1990 to 1992, and subsequently was Director of the Gesellschaft für Aktuelle Kunst in Bremen. She has curated numerous exhibitions regarding contemporary art, as well as monographic shows (including, Robert Smithson, Cy Twombly, Charlotte Posenenske, Sigmar Polke, Takako Saito, and Victor Burgin), and thematic exhibitions (including, Dear Aby Warburg, Remembering Landscape, and The Dream of the Library). In 2000, she was (with Kai Voeckler) editor of the German translation of the writings of Robert Smithson. www.schmidt-eva-kuratorin.de