Kunst Museum Bonn: Nico Randel & Camillo Grewe. That a longing awakens in me | 07.06.-09.07.2023

Kunst Museum Bonn presents the exhibition “Dass in mir eine Sehnsucht erwacht” by the artists Nico Randel and Camillo Grewe from 7 June 2023. Nico Randel’s work is characterised by personal stories and comments, which he translates into scripts, stage designs, storyboards, lettering and performances. His typefaces in particular seem like the artist’s verbatim moods. The black slogans and comments on a white background testify to Randel’s artistic directness and the humour with which he confronts the issues of our society.

Fig. above: Nico Randel & Camillo Grewe, Alles im Lot 2022, Filmstill. Credits die Künstler

Together with the Cologne artist Camillo Grewe, Nico Randel used the Goldstein Galerie in Frankfurt a. M. as a studio in September 2022 and dedicated himself to the overarching theme of “About Working”. As part of the residency at the Goldstein studio, the video diary “Alles im Lot” was created, in which both artists reflect on the theme of “work” in film.

The installation entitled “Dass in mir eine Sehnsucht erwacht” (2021) is also the result of an artistic exchange between Nico Randel and Camillo Grewe. At the centre of the work is a long-term project by Nico Randel in which he uses different approaches to work on a story about a father-son relationship.

“In the exhibition by Camillo and me, you see a kind of storyboard made of papier-mâché models. It’s for an animated film about humans and lions that I will create in the future. It’s about a story where a lion son is looking for his father.”

Nico Randel

Randel translated the story as a script, an audio book, in paintings and drawings as well as sculptural models in which he depicts the story’s settings in papier-mâché. He then arranges the models on shelves in his studio. Based on the studio situation, Camillo Grewe has developed a room within a room that replicates this situation. Randel’s papier-mâché models are thus presented as a storyboard in a walk-in installation.

Nico Randel (* 1987) is an artist at Kunsthaus KATI8, an art space with studios, a project room and a gallery with a coffee bar. Artistic and cultural processes take place there with the aim of improving the living conditions of the artists in the studio community in the Gasellschaft.

The studio community currently consists of 24 artists with disabilities. They receive assistance in the production and presentation of their works. The aim is to develop their own and free artistic expression. The spectrum of the studio community ranges from drawing, painting, sculpture, design and performance to video art.

WHERE?

Kunstmuseum Bonn
Helmut-Kohl-Allee 2
53113 Bonn

WHEN?

Exhibition dates: Wednesday, 7 June – Sunday, 9 July 2023