1.9.2006 - 30.9.2006

Martin Brand
Bochum, Germany



http://www.martinbrand.com






Martin Brand (*1975 in Bochum, Germany)

Martin Brand’s work oscillates between video art and documentary film. His video “Breakdance” was screened in numerous international festivals and exhibitions and received several awards. In 2004 Brand was awarded with the Prize for Young Artists of the City of Dortmund (Germany), since 2005 he regularly participates in international group exhibitions with his video films and video installations. In 2006 he received with the Promotion Prize of the State Nordrhein-Westfalen (Germany) for Young Artists in the section “Media Art”. In addition to his artistic work, Brand teaches among others at the University of Dortmund (2003) and at the Alanus School of Visual Arts near Bonn (2006).

Martin Brand - Turku Portraits

During his four weeks residency at Gallery Titanik in Turku, German artist Martin Brand realized a video project called “Turku Portraits” with people he met in the streets. 2004 he implemented a slightly similar project with the title “Pit Bull Germany”, where he made video portraits from adolescents from the youth scene around the train station in his hometown Bochum/Germany. The teenagers were mostly recruited from groups like the so-called skinheads, gabbas, punks or gothics and were instructed to look into the video camera in a concentrated manner for about two minutes.
“Pit Bull Germany” is a multi-channel video installation, where ten different video portraits lasting approximately 2 minutes are shown on each of the two or four video projections.
Brand used the conception of portraying people with a single long video shot as starting point for his work in Turku. In contrast to his earlier project, he focused now on ordinary, common people. He made always two portraits from each person, the first is showing the whole person and the second focuses more on the face and the upper part of the body. Both portraits are now assembled side by side in a single widescreen image. The motion speed of each double portrait is slowed down from normal speed at the beginning to a very slow motion speed in the middle and back to normal speed at the end of the duration. Slowing the motion speed down enables the exhibition visitor to leave the surface of the portrait and to get very close and intimate to the projected person.

On Wednesday 27, 5pm at Gallery Titanik
Martin Brand will present the “Turku Portraits” and give a
brief overview of his earlier works.