Alex Martinis Roe (b. 1982, Melbourne) is concerned with the performative efficacy of art and facilitating feminist relations within the art encounter and its historicization. Her work explores the affectivity of theoretical exchange and seeks to bring moments between authorships into art contexts. She completed her PhD in Fine Arts at Monash University Australia with the Silver Jubilee Scholarship in 2010. In 2006-7 she was a resident at Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces, Melbourne, and since 2009 she has lived and worked at the Kunsthaus KuLe, Berlin. Recent exhibitions include Genealogies; Frameworks for Exchange, Pallas Projects, Dublin (solo) (2011); Denkmalpflege, Heidelberger Kunstverein (2011); Collected Collaborations, MUMA, Melbourne (2011); HaVE A LoOk! Have a Look! FormContent, London (2010); Encounters: Conversation in Practice, Limbus Europae, Berlin (solo) (2010); Opening Lines, Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces, (2010); Unseen Forces, ICAN, Sydney (2010); Discreet Objects, Utopian Slumps, Melbourne (2010); Affirmations, Light Projects, Melbourne (solo) (2010); Towards a Positive Politics of Difference, Monash University Faculty Gallery (solo) (2010). Martinis Roe has been published in art magazines such as Art & Australia (2009) and produced artist pages for Un Magazine issue 3.1 (2009). In November 2011 she will present a solo project at Bibliothekswohung, Berlin, and then in February 2012 a solo exhibition at Artspace, Sydney.
Images of Alex's Projects
'Frameworks for Exchange Workshop', Dublin City Gallery, The Hugh Lane, 27 April 2011
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'Genealogies; Frameworks for Exchange' (installation view)
Letter to SEoul Art Space GEUMCHEON
Dear Seoul Art Space Geumcheon,
Thank you for hosting me at your institution for the last seven weeks – it has been a wonderful time for my work. The excellent community of Korean and international artists currently in residence was an exciting milieu for me, within which I had rich dialogues about many topical issues facing art practitioners in Korea and more broadly in the world today. In particular, our discourse kept returning to modes with which the artist can operate as an agent of social change. Amongst our diverse practices I found that there was an exciting common interest in the performativity of the artwork and also experimental redefinitions of what the art object can be.
As soon as I arrived I was immediately situated within an interested and supportive community. Many of the Seoul-based artists showed interest in and helped me with my project, for which I am very grateful, and my fellow visiting artists soon became a close-knit and supportive network. There are several people who are currently in residence, both local and international, with whom I will keep contact and can imagine working alongside again in the future. In addition, the community at Seoul Art Space Geumcheon generously included me in their wider networks, meaning that I met many interesting curators, artists, other arts workers and professionals related to my project research area. In addition, I had many studio visits, some of which were facilitated by Seoul Art Space Geumcheon and some that came from meeting curators further afield. All these meetings were very engaged and serious discussions, which were very valuable to the development of my work in Korea and my other current projects.
I also want to mention the very interesting situation of your institution in Doksan-dong. I felt that it is immensely important to the discourses and the kinds of artistic practices at Seoul Art Space Geumcheon that it is located in an industrial neighbourhood. I think that this economically and politically complex context for artistic practices has an interesting potential to foster the making of artworks that question and carefully consider their own means of production.
And finally, thank you for taking me to openings and such wonderfully delicious group dinners!
With very best regards,
Alex Martinis Roe
“Alex Martinis Roe’s residency was part of an exchange between Gertrude Contemporary, Melbourne, and Seoul Art Space GEUMCHEON. Her residency was supported by the Victorian Government through Arts Victoria.”
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