Inertia
Artists’ biographies
Fokke & Sukke (NL)
John Reid (1968), Bastiaan Geleijnse (1967) & Jean-Marc van Tol (1967).
The cartoon figures of a duck and a canary comment in the daily national newspaper NRC (www.nrc.nl) on politics and culture of the Netherlands. Fokke & Sukke is one of the most known cartoons of the Netherlands. The makers were awarded with the Dutch Cartoon Prize. Dutch specialist in Russian literature Hans Boland together with Alexei Purin chief editor of the St. Petersburg Literary magazine ‘Zvezda’ translated cartoon texts of ‘Fokke & Sukke’ into Russian.
Voebe de Gruyter (NL)
Voebe de Gruyter (1960) attended the Rijksacademy in Amsterdam, and she now lives and works in Brussels, and is a senior teacher in drawing at the Rietveld Art Academy in Amsterdam.
De Gruyter has had major exhibitions at gallery Van Gelder in Amsterdam, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam (1995), the Drawing Center in New York (2004), Museum of Modern Art Arnhem (2005).
Irene Janze (NL)
Irene Janze (1956) studied Geology (1974-1982) and Philosophy of Social Politics (1986-1992) at the University of Amsterdam. From 1993-1998 she studied at the Gerrit Rietveld Art Academy in Amsterdam. In 1995 she studied performance and installation at the Chigago School of the Arts Institute.
On her ideas on scale, time and movement in public space she gave lectures for the Dutch Association for Aesthetics, which are published in the scholarly Journal of Aesthetics of the Netherlands 2004.
Sands Murray-Wassink (NL)
Murray-Wassink (1974) grew up in Topeka, Kansas, USA, he emigrated to the Netherlands in 1994 to study at hte Rietveld Art Academy. Before he studied at the Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, New York, U.S.A (1992-1994). He was an artist at the renowned Ateliers of Amsterdam (1995-1996). As a performer he participated in many shows on identity, feminism, masculinity and queer art, such as:
‘Double Trouble: Carolee Schneemann and Sands Murray-Wassink’ at Cokkie Snoei Gallery, "BOYS: Zur Konstruktion von Maennlichkeiten’ in the Shedhalle, Zurich, Switzerland (2002) and ‘Same-Different: On Identity, Integrity, and Sexual Politics’, curated by Frederikke Hansen, hosted by Aurora Dediu, Galeria Noua, Bucharest, Romania (2003).
Pavel Pepperstein (RU)
Pavel Pepperstein (1966 Moscow) co-founded in 1987 the group of ‘Inspection Medical Hermeneutics’ for developing a critical approach to the influence of the West in Russia. These artists intentionally cut themselves off from the outside world in order to preserve a subcultural form of art.
Pepperstein studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague (1985-1987. He participated in numerous international exhibitions such as Berlin-Moskau 1950-2000 at the Martin Gropius Bau in Berlin, 2003 - 26th Sao Paulo Biennial 2004 - Angels of History; Moscow Conceptualism and its Influence at the MuHKA in Antwerp, 2005.
In 2006 Pepperstein published 2 novels of short stories:
‘Swastika & Pentagon’ and ‘War Stories’, both with illustrations by himself and by Ivan Razumov (Ad Marginem publishers, Moscow). For ‘War Stories’ Pepperstein was on the shortlist for the Andrei Beli price 2006 for Russian Literature.
Kerim Ragimov (RU)
Kerim Ragimov (1970) graduated at the Roerich School of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg in 1989. Since 1994 he works on series of paintings, based on photos, among these the Human Project series, which was exhibited at the Tirana Biennial of 2001, at the MuHKA in Antwerp as part of the show ‘Horizons of Reality’, 2003, and at the recent Moscow Biennale of 2005. He will show his Metro series, paintings of the public space surrounding the underground buildings of St. Petersburg, which haven’t been exhibited yet.
Ivan Razumov (RU)
Ivan Razumov works and lives in Moscow. His drawings have been exhibited at the Academy of Russian Arts, Moscow, the New Academy of Fine Arts St. Petersburg, and in the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, during Kabinet in 1997.
Razumov is renowned for his illustrations accompanying publications of Pushkin, Mayakovsky, Basho and Sei-Shenagon. Razumov made illustrations for Pepperstein’s novels ‘Swastika & Pentagon’ and ‘War Stories’ (Ad Marginem publishers, Moscow 2006).
Joulia Strauss (RU)
Joulia Strauss was born in Leningrad in 1974 and studied at the so-called ‘New Academy of Fine Arts’, St. Petersburg with Timur Novikov. Since 1995 she lives and works in Berlin, where she graduated in 2000 at the Hochschule der Künste under Georg Baselitz. Since 2000 she is lecturer at The German Film School, Berlin
Straussova first became known for her 12 Caesars of the Techno-Empire project (1998): sculptural portraits of Berlin DJ's as ancient Greek gods, Roman emperors and Prussian royalty. Her exhibitions, amongst others, have been at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Ostend Museum of Modern Art, Guggenheim Museum, Berlin and Martin Gropius Bau ("Berlin-Moskau, Moskau-Berlin" (2003).
Currently she is working with sonologist Martin Carlé on the project: ENIAC NOMOI, which is a ‘history of Being through the poetic output of the first computer guided by sound, dance and sculpture, using the Pergamon Altar as its stage design.
Albert van Westing (NL)
Albert van Westing (1960) studied at the Jan van Eyck Academy in Maastricht, the Netherlands. He lives and works in Amsterdam and has had major solo- and group exhibitions, amongst others at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam (1995, 1996, 1998, 1999, 2003), Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam (2002), Canal de Isabel II -Madrid (2000), European Central Bank, Frankfurt (2002) -Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul, Korea (2003) - Villa Massimo, Rome (2004) - Atelier Josefa Sudka, Prague (2006).
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Literary Translators
Hans Boland (RU)
Hans Boland, born in Jakarta in 1951; cum laude Slavic languages in 1974; PhD on Anna Akhmatova in 1983. Boland translated 12 oeuvres of poets from Russian into Dutch, amongst others of Pushkin and Akhmatova. He published a monography on Pushkin ('Russische zon', Bas Lubberhuizen, 1999), a history of St. Petersburg ('Sint-Petersburg onderhuids', Atheneum - Polak & Van Gennep, 2003). Boland has lived for 7 years in Russia, for 5 years he was professor at the University of St. Petersburg. Boland will translate the cartoons of Fokke & Sukke together with Alexei Purin, and he will be present at th symposium as simultaneous translator.
Alexei Purin (RU)
Alexei Purin is a poet, essayist and literary critic. Since 1989 he is the chief editor of the renowned Petersburg literary magazin Zvezda (‘The Star’). He publishes in the main national Russian literary magazines. Poems of Purin have been translated into English, Italian, Polish and Dutch. Purin was in 1997 a special guest of Poetry International in Rotterdam.
Inertia St. Petersburg 2006