Rebecca Ann Tess

»Alpha++ Models«

54 Floors-Suicide Towers, 2019
(Coastal Skyline/Caribbean coast, Tung Chung, Lantau Island, Hond Kong, 2016)
Pigment inkjet print, 51 x 75 cm (framed)
Edition of 5 + 1 AP

With the series »Alpha++ Models«, Rebecca Ann Tess explores the relationship between the (metropolitan) city and its inhabitants in terms of urban design and architecture.

The works show photographs of landscapes and cityscapes taken from all over the world, especially from global megacities such as Dubai, Hong Kong, Seoul, Shanghai, London or New York.

A Neighborhood for a Reconstruction, 2020
(Porcelain Pagoda, Nanjing, China, 2014)
Pigment inkjet print, 51 x 75 cm (framed)
Edition of 5 + 1 AP

A Neighborhood for Profit, 2020
(Heukseok-dong, Dongjak-gu, Seoul, 2015)
Pigment inkjet print, 41 x 60 cm (framed)
Edition of 5 + 1 AP

Tess’ photographs are based on her critical and analytical stance towards the way humans treat nature. She documents how we expose nature to our civilisational constraints and ruthlessness.

The documentary aspect of Tess’s photographs is underlined in particular by the titles of her works: location and year of taking the picture are marked in the subtitle and, together with the temporal and geographical reference, offer the possibility of placing the works within a socio-political background.

Fake old Berlin, 2020
(Kreativquartier, Südliche Friedrichstadt, Berlin, 2017)
Pigment inkjet print, 51 x 75 cm (framed)
Edition of 5 + 1 AP

The Future is Now, 2019
(Hong Kong Island, 2015)
Pigment inkjet print, 28,2 x 41 cm (framed)
Edition of 5 + 1 AP

Tess’ photographs are based on her critical and analytical stance towards the way humans treat nature. She documents how we expose nature to our civilisational constraints and ruthlessness.

The documentary aspect of Tess’s photographs is underlined in particular by the titles of her works: location and year of taking the picture are marked in the subtitle and, together with the temporal and geographical reference, offer the possibility of placing the works within a socio-political background.

Rebecca Ann Tess (* 1980 in Annweiler am Trifels, lives in Berlin) studied at the Universität der Künste in Berlin and completed her studies – in the classes of Judith Hopf and Willem de Roij – in 2009 at the Städelschule, Frankfurt a.M.. Between 2006 and 2008 she was a fellow of the Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes, and in 2011 she received the Villa Romana Residency in Florence and the Balmoral Fellowship Residency in New York. In 2012 she participated in the Artist in Residence program of the City of Frankfurt in Seoul, Korea, between 2015 and 2017 she taught as Assistant Professor at Chung-Ang University in Seoul, in 2019 she lived as Artist-in-Residence in Valparaíso, Chile and in 2020 she was a fellow of Künstlerhaus Schloss Balmoral. Notable solo and group exhibitions have included the Neue Aachener Kunstverein, Aachen; the Berlinische Galerie, Berlin, and the Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Bonn; the Videonale in Bonn; the Kunstverein in Frankfurt and the Heidelberger Kunstverein; Kunsthalle Mainz; the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul; the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Taipei; and the Nassauischer Kunstverein, Wiesbaden.

For several years now, Tess’s work has revolved around themes of architecture, urbanism, landscape, and how we as humans relate to each other and to nature, through photography and video installation. The question of who exercises what power over whom and how this is manifested in our cities and also in our nature goes hand in hand with this. This is only seemingly a departure from the themes that have interested Tess thus far: namely, the examination of film and television history from the particular perspective of interest in gender topoi. For these, too, have been investigations of relations of power and oppression.

 

Also on view at Unseen Amsterdam 2022