Media Release VISUAL ARTS, page 8, THE WEST AUSTRALIAN, Jan 25/2006
Seeing the light PIP CHRISTMASS
Austrian-born, Perth based artist Bello Benischauer has travelled the globe, from South America and Africa to Iran and Pakistan. But his exhibition, Collection, an overview of his two-dimensional work, brings together paintings inspired primarily by the light, landscapes, skylines and beaches of WA.
Collection contains 20 pieces from five series of works. Coloured Shadows was inspired by his memories of the play of colour and light on the beaches of Broome, while the visually stark simplicity of his Unbleached Dream series explores the power of dreams and the mythical archetypes that exist across cultures. Jazz Only is a series of lino cuts based on drawings created in one of Vienna’s best-known jazz clubs, while his Observation series explores the Western obsession with surface appearance.
A blacksmith and welder by trade, Benischauer left Austria to travel the world in the early 1990s, eventually settling in Perth to study fine art. Describing himself as a cross-form artist, Benischauer’s work ranges over oil painting, digital art and experimental video, social art projects and installations.
He has exhibited regularly since the late 90s, not only in Australia but across Europe and the United States. With fellow artist and partner Elisabeth Eitelberger he set up ART IN PROCESS in 2001, an ongoing collaborative project that explores the relationship between humanity, technology and the natural environment through a synthesis of various art practices.
Benischauer’s wanderlust has inspired an ongoing concern with the effects of globalisation and the relationship between First and Third World cultures, particularly the ways in which cultures, identities and borders can dissolve into one another.
On a more local level, the interaction between individuals and city spaces is the focus of Benischauer’s Temporary Contemporary, an “interactive” city studio opening on St Georges Terrace from next Wednesday. Temporary Contemporary will give CBD-dwellers a first-hand insight into the meaning of ART IN PROCESS with plans for active painting sessions, a gallery space, forums and a digital lounge.
The studio’s ongoing projects will revolve around a cluster of themes. What does individual identity mean in an era of globalisation? Can a single inhabitant have a cultural consciousness in anonymous city spaces, where business generally takes precedence over art?
“The studio will be a space for getting into an open dialogue with the public”, Benischauer says. “It’s designed to reach people around their businesses and get them involved in my work.”
The Gazette, October 18, 2005
A free look at pair’s pet project
BEACONSFIELD artists Bello Benischauer and Elisabeth Eitelberger’s 48_minute experimental film Project X Six transformations of life will be shown free at Cinema Paradiso in Northbridge this Sunday from 10am.
It was a feature at Barbes in Brooklyn in the US in April as part of the Glass Eye Series. The couple will open their studio to the public on November 12 and 13 as part of the state wide Artopia Living Artists WA festival.
Bello said visitors to the 2 Prowse Street premises would be able to view a sculpture garden, digital video installations, paintings and other artworks….
Artopia is presented by Living Artists WA, a partnership of artsource, Fremantle Arts Centre and The Association of Western Australian Art Galleries and is supported by the State of Western Australia through ArtsWA in association with the Lotteries Commission. Tel: 08 9335 8366 Postal address: PO Box 999, Fremantle, WA 6959
Heralds the very first celebration of Living Artists in Western Australia. 2005
artopia will span an entire month devoted to showcasing the work of over 1000 unique and talented West Australian artists. The public will be able to experience their skills first hand in over 150 venues statewide. The inaugural Living Artists month is a time to visit artists≠ studios, attend artists’ talks, tour corporate and public art collections or take an art walk. artopia venues will range from Kununurra to Esperance and include wineries, public spaces, shops, studios, corporate offices and schools as well as the more traditional homes of art collections, galleries. A multiplicity of visual art will be represented; sculpture, glass-making, textiles, jewellery, painting printmaking, new media, even live art and a great deal more! This is the perfect opportunity to enter the usually private world of the artist and learn how works of art are created. As well there will be opportunities for public participation in the creative process at some events. This enormous exercise in promoting visual artists living and working in Western Australia has been made possible by generous grants from Arts WA and the Lotteries Commission which means that all events, shows and exhibitions will be totally FREE OF CHARGE. Look out for the guide in September with details of city and suburban activities. ‘Art maps’ will be included for districts and regional areas so the public can make the most of trips across the State. There will also be a special Sunday Times guide to artopia published on 9th October.
FREMANTLE GAZETTE/artScene– April 5-11,2005
Project X looks behind the masks By KAREN OAKLEY
BEACONSFIELD artists Bello Benischauer and Elisabeth Eitelberger’s 48-minute experimental film Project X Six Transformations of Life screened at performance space Barbes, in Brooklyn, US, on April 2 as part of the Glass Eye series. The couple came out from Austria about two years ago. They have a six-month-old baby boy, Elias. Bensichauer said the video took nine months to make and its star, Eitelberger, was pregnant during the filming. Locations included Spearwood metal recycle plant, a Hamilton Hill car wreckers yard, the interiour of old South Fremantle power station, Leighton Beach, Perth and salt lakes near Karlgoorlie. Eitelberger plays the character Blind Queen, but says it is no conventional role. She improvised using masks, costumes and object theatre techniques. “It is about a woman on the fringe of western society who is trying to fit in, maybe,” she said. “There are six acts, each docum
ents a stage of her life with transformations, shown in the changing of masks.” Benischauer said the inspiration for the artwork was his life philosophy. Project X premiered at Museum of New Art, in Detroit, US, in February. “It was screened in a loop-format over two weeks as part of an exhibition so many people saw it,” he said. Benischauer said digital art had a strong following in the US and was catching on in parts of Europe and Australia.
SAN FRANCISCO PERFORMANCE CINEMA SYMPOSIUM 2003
ART TAKES DIGITAL PATH. An artist’s performance DVD embraces nature and the modern world
…CAPTURING MODERN MOMENTS…by Scott Walker
bello benischauer’s art explores how people interact with nature and the modern world. Picture: Martin Kennealey, The GAZETTE 9/2003
THE GAZETTE, Tuesday, October 7, 2003
Beaconsfield artist Bello Benischauer used up-to-the-minute technology to make a performance DVD that was exhibited in the US last month.
The DVD, DIGITAL TRILOGY, was displayed at the San Francisco Performance Cinema Symposium, which featured digital and computer works by artists from around the world. Mr Benischauer was the sole Australian artist featured at the event. He said the work, filmed entirely in WA, was inspired by nature and urban settings. “In WA you can go to a shopping centre like Garden City, but there are also very remote places – the nature is very strong here,” he said. “The DVD is about how people interact with nature and the modern world.” He said one of the strong points about DVD art was that people could take it home and keep it forever, rather than just seeing it once in a gallery. Mr Benischauer, who migrated to Australia from Austria 10 years ago, also paints and writes books. He describes himself as a “cross-form” artist who likes to work with a variety of materials in different art forms. In February this year, he and his partner had an exhibition in the Moores Building in Fremantle, where he displayed three of his film animations. He has published three books in German, including a lyric and prose book through Africa. “I like to set new points of view in my work by using different media”, he said. “I think my work is an ongoing process which will never be finished at all.”
Künstler stellt DVD in San Francisco vor
LANGENLOUIS/ Als einziger Vertreter aus dem deutschsprachigen Raum und seiner Wahlheimat Australien ist Ende des Monats der Langenloiser Bello Benischauer beim San Francisco Performance Cinema Symposium vertreten. Er stellt dort seine neue Kunst-DVD DIGITAL TRILOGY vor. Drei Ebenen repräsentieren dabei eine Geschichte über die Blickveränderung auf Dinge unserer Gesellschaft, die Natur und das Leben im allgemeinen. Der Film konzentriert sich auf schnelle und langsame Bewegungen im ständigen Wechsel des Blickfeldes und im Trennen von Natur und Mensch. Während eines Heimataufenthaltes im vorigen Herbst hat Benischauer eine Kunst-DVD im Ursin Haus vorgestellt.
NÖN, September 2003
PRESS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Announcing: The San Francisco Performance Cinema Symposium Date: 27 September 2003, starting at noon, running into late evening. Location: Dimension7 video gallery, 150 Folsom Street, San Francisco, CA Recent innovations in computer software and performance gains in hardware are now permitting the development of a truly performative cinema. Today, we can see this distinctive new art form growing quickly and this symposium will aid in the formative theory of this new cinematic art – complete with mind-bending performances by leading artists in the field. On Saturday, September 27th starting at noon, historians, theorists, and performers from all over the world will be attending this historic event, including: Kit Clayton, Christina McPhee, criticalartware, Gregor White, Greg Bowman of Scratch Cinema, the amazing Phoebe Legere , Bello Benischauer , Stefan-G, the award winning Lynn Kirby, Sunit Parketh, Shirley Shor, Fred Collopy, and many others. A full list follows. An afternoon of presentations and a panel discussion, will be followed by an evening of extra-ordinary performances, installations, and a reception. Requested admission is $5 (all day) or $10 (evening only) and free after 11pm, but all are invited to attend this event at dimension 7, 150 Folsom street, San Francisco.
City of Fremantle
(…) signs of existence will present a challenging experience for audiences and show case the use of complementary new media/audio visual presentations and traditional painting and sculptural art forms. signs of existence will be presented as an associated visual arts event with Perth International Festival (…)
André Lipscombe, Curator City of Fremantle Art Collection and Moores Building Contemporary Art Gallery Coordinator, December 2002
Art film in focus
(…) After exhibiting and working in Austria and around Australia for the past two years, Beaconsfield couple bello benischauer and elisabeth m. eitelberger open their first exhibition in Fremantle (…)
A highlight of the collaborative exhibition will be the presentation of an animated film from the pair´s Art-DVD, which was filmed in Australia and produced in Austria. Providing a new idea on how to present and package digital art, 30 copies of the DVD will be made available for sale (…)
THE GAZETTE, Fremantle Community Paper, Jan 21-27, 2003
Signs of Existence
An exhibition of works by bello benischauer and elisabeth m. eitelberger presenting digital art pieces juxtaposed with traditional art forms in painting and mixed media installation. The exhibition deals with issues relevant to the unique struggle between human beings and the physical (natural) world.
OUTinPERTH, 1 Feb 2003
MEDIA RELEASE for IMMEDIATE RELEASE
The Moores Building Contemporary Art Gallery
A collaborative exhibition of Mixed-media and Multi-media provides evidence of the complex relationships which emerge from the simplest ideas. Since 2000, artists bello benischauer & elisabeth m. eitelberger have worked together on arts projects in Austria and Australia. signs of existence is their first exhibition in Fremantle. Much of their work focuses on questions about the relationship between people and the physical world in exploration of various themes in painting, mixed media and multimedia installation. These different art forms are brought together to create a world inspired by dreams ands reality and to inspire audiences to contemplate nature. The artists suggest that -each mark is unique, but shares a common longing: to leave proof of existence and in some way ensure that we are immortalised…
signs of existence: Mixed and Multi-media by ART in PROCESS: bello benischauer & elisabeth m. eitelberger.
Opening-Event: 6pm Friday 31 January for 7.30 pm performance event.
PERFORMANCE: Is a regular special event at the opening of their exhibitions involving presentation of an animated film from their Art-DVD produced in Austria 2002.
Opening 6pm Friday 31 January, continuing until Sunday February 9, 2003. Ground Floor Galleries hours, 10 am – 5 pm daily. The Moores Building Contemporary Art Gallery is managed by the City of Fremantle, and is located at 46 Henry Street Fremantle 6160.
… about the last exhibitions Maybe It´s Only Imagine in Austria, July and September 2002
(out of an article in an Austrian Art Magazine)
Maybe It’s Only Imagine: Tradition und Avantgarde
(…) Beide arbeiten seit zwei Jahren gemeinsam an mehreren Projekten auf der Suche nach der neu gewonnenen Zeit einer Vereinigung von Kunst aus Tradition und Avantgarde (…) Eine junge Künstlerin und ein junger Künstler stehen stellvertretend für eine Generation, die im Aufbruch ist, die sich weder alten Traditionen noch neuen Wegen verschließt, die keiner künstlerischen Ideologie verpflichtet ist
und gegen alle Klischees zu Felde zieht (…) In ihrem Gesamtkunstwerk geht es um die Polarität von männlichem und weiblichem Wesen, um die Wahrnehmung von Strukturen der Natur und ihre Umsetzung in Kunst (…) Ziel ist es, den Blick auf Phänomene diesseits und jenseits konventioneller Schranken zu richten. Natur und Kunst: Das ist die wesentliche Auseinandersetzung in diesem ein-
drucksvollen Vorhaben. Albrecht Dürers Worte sind uns im Gedächtnis: Wahrhaftig steckt die Kunst
in der Natur, man muss sie nur herausreißen (…)
G.R., OÖ Kulturbericht, 09/2002