Alejandra and Aeron, also known as Bergman and Salinas, are Alejandra Salinas (Spanish: born 1977 in La Rioja) and Aeron Bergman (American: born 1971 in Detroit), artists living in Detroit, Michigan. They are an artist duo producing media, performance, internet, sound and sculptural works and objects in an interdisciplinary, conceptual yet socially engaged practice.
Bergman and Salinas’ work has been exhibited internationally including at the 4th Athens Biennale; [1] the Bergen Assembly Triennial; [2] Steirischer Herbst in Graz; [3] Eastside Projects in Birmingham, [4] UK; Serralves Museum in Porto; ICC Tokyo; DAC in New York; [5] Taipei Fine Art Museum; Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, The Netherlands; Centre Georges-Pompidou [6] and Palais de Tokyo in Paris; IMO and Nikolaj Kunsthal in Copenhagen; [7] Henie Onstad Art Center, Kunstnernes Hus [8] and 0047 [9] in Oslo.
Their video work has been screened at the Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center in New York City; e-flux Berlin; CCA Glasgow and Dundee Contemporary Arts in Scotland; Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit; Museum of Contemporary Art Vojvodina Novi Sad and elsewhere. They have also performed in venues around the world including the Knitting Factory in New York; Overgaden Institute for Contemporary Art in Copenhagen; Museum of Contemporary Art Oslo and MUDAM Luxembourg. [10]
Bergman and Salinas founded the Institute for New Connotative Action (INCA) in Detroit in 2011 and in Seattle in 2013. This artist-run initiative focuses on language as art, particularly emphasizing issues of transformation and translation. As described by Salinas: "the idea was always to frame INCA the 'institute' as a parody that was also sincere in our mission." [11] Bergman and Salinas have curated over 40 exhibitions and events at INCA and have hosted artist's talks, lectures and poetry readings. The artists who have exhibited at INCA include Sondra Perry, Chris Kraus, Henrik Plenge Jakobsen, Cia Rinne, Mikko Kuorinki and Andreas Bunte.
Bergman and Salinas say in Temporary Art Review about their motivation for running INCA: We like working with great people. Also, we want to focus attention on the social life of art rather than the objects themselves. In Spain and South America, the "tertulia" tradition draws attention to the social life of art and literature without institutional regulation. Our motivation was to produce an independent, quasi-institution that would burn itself out before becoming a self-replicating zombie. [12]
In October 2015, INCA was a part of the symposium Alternative Currencies: Tactics for Staying Relevant and Radical that was held at The Galleries at Moore, Philadelphia. The forum gathered independent contemporary art groups and from around America in a collective exploration of what it means to be (and stay) "alternative". [13]
Bergman was a professor at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts in Norway and both Bergman and Salinas were artists in residence at the University of Washington, and were professors and chair at Pacific Northwest College of Art from 2017-2022. [14] [15]
Their 2005 album Be Mine consists of interviews of people talking about love, and the 1999 Children's Record was made by asking people to sing songs they can remember from their childhood. Their early works are among the first experiments with folk and laptop electronic music. This is especially noted in Ruinas Encantadas (winner of an honorary mention in Prix Ars Electronica 2001) and Porto: Folklore Fragments Volume 2. The track Water Jota in 1213442 from the former consists almost entirely of water drop sounds, arranged according to the structure of a folk dance; the artists themselves comment on such concepts that the record "considers the past, while not repeating it." [16]
In 2002 the duo won an Award of Distinction in Digital Music for their audio installation "Revisionland" from the Prix Ars Electronica in Linz, Austria. They have released 12 critically acclaimed full length audio CDs on labels such as Orthlorng Musork, Fat Cat, Tomlab and their own label, Lucky Kitchen. Bergman/Salinas have been commissioned to produce sound works by institutions such as WDR West German radio and Swedish National Radio. Since 2011 Bergman/Salinas have co-directed INCA, an artist-run space and artist in residency in Detroit, USA and in 2013 they opened INCA Seattle. [17]
Bergman and Salinas have shown in solo and group exhibitions in museums and art centers around the world such as the NTT InterCommunication Center (ICC) in Tokyo, Centre Pompidou in Paris, Nikolaj Kunsthal in Copenhagen, Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art in Porto, [18] VanAbbe Museum in Eindhoven, [19] Dumbo Arts Center (DAC) in New York, Kunstnernes Hus, Henie Onstad Art Center and 0047 Gallery in Oslo, Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (CCCB) and Centro de Arte Contemporaneo Santa Monica, both in Barcelona. Wildflowers was shown in the Shrinking Cities exhibition in Detroit MOCAD 2007 and in Gothenburg, Sweden, also 2007, and features interviews with individuals working in grassroots organizations in Detroit. They have recently done performances and installations at U.K.S. art center and Kunstnernes hus art center both in Oslo, Norway. They have also conceived and curated a controversial website at https://web.archive.org/web/20181116075419/http://www.nobelprize.no/, with international artists such as Marjetica Potrc, Michel Auder, Peter Campus, Kenneth Goldsmith, Momus, Sharmila Samant and others.
In addition to their own work, Bergman and Salinas have run the independent audio publisher Lucky Kitchen since 1997. Some of the artists published on Lucky Kitchen are Stephen Vitiello, Tetsu Inoue, Matmos, Joshua Abrams and Liz Payne (from Town and Country) Stephan Mathieu, and Halvorson Pavone.
The Pacific Northwest College of Art (PNCA) is an art school of Willamette University and is located in Portland, Oregon. Established in 1909, the art school grants Bachelor of Fine Arts degrees and graduate degrees including the Master of Fine Arts (MFA) and Master of Arts (MA) degrees. It has an enrollment of about 500 students. The college merged with Willamette University in 2021.
A kunsthalle is a facility that mounts temporary art exhibitions, similar to an art gallery. It is distinct from an art museum by not having a permanent collection.
Jens Hoffmann Mesén is a writer, editor, educator, and exhibition maker. His work has attempted to expand the definition and context of exhibition making. From 2003 to 2007 Hoffmann was director of exhibitions at the Institute of Contemporary Arts London. He is the former director of the CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Art from 2007 to 2016 and deputy director for exhibitions and programs at The Jewish Museum from 2012 to 2017, a role from which he was terminated following an investigation into sexual harassment allegations brought forth by staff members. Hoffmann has held several teaching positions including California College of the Arts, the Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti and Goldsmiths, University of London, as well as others.
Bjørg Lødøen was a Norwegian painter, graphic artist, and composer.
Kunstnernes Hus is an art gallery in Oslo, Norway. It is Norway's largest gallery under the direction of artists, and has served as a major center for exhibits of Norwegian and international contemporary art. It is also a prominent example of Functionalist architecture situated in Wergelandsveien 17, across the Royal palace park.
Jakob Weidemann was a Norwegian artist. Jakob Weidemann is regarded as one of Norway's more important artists of post-war Modernism. Weidemann's work Storfuglen letter (1959) was selected as one of the twelve most important Norwegian artworks by Morgenbladet.
Stahl Stenslie is a Norwegian born artist working with cognition and perception manipulative projects. He has produced and exhibited interactive media artworks including cyberSM (1993), sense:less (1996), Solve et Coagula(1997), The Leap, World Ripple (2008) and The Blind Theatre (2009).
The Kolodzei Art Foundation, Inc. promotes the contemporary art of Russia and Eastern Europe. The Kolodzei Art Foundation often utilizes the artistic resources of the Kolodzei Collection of Russian and Eastern European Art, one of the world's largest private collections, with over 7,000 artworks by over 300 artists from Russia, Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.
Ragnar Kjartansson is a contemporary Icelandic artist who engages multiple artistic mediums throughout his performative practice. His video installations, performances, drawings, and paintings incorporate the history of film, music, visual culture, and literature. His works are connected through their pathos and humor, with each deeply influenced by the comedy and tragedy of classical theater. Kjartansson's use of durational, repetitive performance to harness collective emotion is a hallmark of his practice and recurs throughout his work.
A K Dolven is a Norwegian artist. She works across painting, film, sound, sculpture and interventions in public space.
Akram Zaatari is a filmmaker, photographer, archival artist and curator. In 1997, he co-founded the Arab Image Foundation with photographers Fouad Elkoury, and Samer Mohdad. His work is largely based on collecting, studying and archiving the photographic history of the Arab World.
Den Frie Udstilling is a Danish artists' association, founded in 1891 by artists in protest against the admission requirements for the Kunsthal Charlottenborg. Modeled on the Salon des Refusés, it is Denmark's oldest association of artists. Now located on Copenhagen's Oslo Plads next to Østerport Station, it works as an arts centre, continuing to exhibit works created and selected by contemporary artists rather than those chosen by cultural authorities.
Robert Meyer is a Norwegian art photographer, professor, photo historian, collector, writer and publicist. He is the son of journalist Robert Castberg Meyer and homemaker Edel Nielsen; and brother of the industrial designer Terje Meyer.
Simen Johan is a contemporary artist, photographer and sculptor, living in New York City.
Tauba Auerbach is a visual artist working in many disciplines including painting, artists' books, sculpture and weaving. They live and work in New York.
Abbas Akhavan is a Montreal-based visual artist. His recent work consists of site-specific installations, sculpture, video, and performance, consistently in response to the environment in which the work is created. Akhavan was born in Tehran, Iran in 1977. He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from Concordia University in 2004 and his Master of Fine Arts from the University of British Columbia in 2006. Akhavan's family immigrated to Canada from Iran during the Iran-Iraq war. His work has gained international acclaim, exhibiting in museums, galleries and biennales all over North America, Europe and the Middle East. He is the recipient of the Kunstpreis Berlin (2012), the Abraaj Group Art Prize (2014), and the Sobey Art Award (2015).
Siri Aurdal is a Norwegian painter, graphic designer, and sculptor. She comes from an artistic family with parents textile artist Synnøve Anker Aurdal and painter Leon Aurdal. Ludvig Eikaas was her stepfather from 1959.
Ida Ekblad is a Norwegian artist who works across painting, sculpture, installation and poetry.
Gabo Camnitzer is a Swedish and U.S. artist, pedagogue, and musician.
Ana Jotta is a Portuguese artist born in 1946 in Lisbon.
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