Born 1962 in Heidelberg, Germany. Lives in Berlin, DE and Stockholm, SE.
Felix Gmelin’s Ambiguous Gestures is a complex commentary on 1960s Vienna Actionism, a movement that, according to one of its adepts, sought to “overcome painting on canvas through staging the process of its destruction”. One of the results of this intention was that the human body often replaced the canvas as a base for painting. Like many of Gmelin’s previous works, which incorporate historic and political dimensions, archive material is a vital source and is often presented in the form of installations with a complexity in both style and concept. The work shown in the exhibition contains references to his father’s profession; for instance, he reuses a film made by his father in the mid-eighties, which, in turn, refers to the said Vienna Actionists. This socio-political commentary is recycled by Gmelin and presented together with a few highly tactile paintings on thin polyester foil and stills from the equally tactile film.
Education
1983–1988 Royal University College of Fine Arts, Stockholm, SE
Selected bibliography
James Meyer: “The Return of the Sixties in Contemporary Art and Criticism”. In Okwui Enwezor, Terry Smith and Nancy Condee, eds. Modernity and Contemporaneity: Animonies of Art and Culture after the 20th Century, Duke University Press, Durham 2009
Inke Arns and Gaby Horn, eds.: History will repeat itself. Strategies of Re-enactment in contemporary (media) art and performance, Hartware MedienKunstVerein and KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Revolver – Archiv für aktuelle Kunst, Frankfurt am Main 2007
Robert Stasinski, ed., Göran Christenson, Daniel Birnbaum, David Rimanelli and Ronald Jones, Felix Gmelin: The Aging Revolution, Malmö Konstmuseum, Malmö/Portikus, Frankfurt am Main, 2005
Annika Öhrner, ed., Jörgen Gassilewski: Felix Gmelin, Art Vandals, Rikstutsällningar/Swedish Travelling Exhibitions, Stockholm 1996
www.felixgmelin.com