July 23, 2020, 10 am – 1 pm

Many thanks to the artist Julie Beugin for her lecture The City as Material and discussing the works of our participants within the Studio Program at BAI | Berlin Artist Residency, Art School, Arts Incubator, and Live Online Courses & Classes.

“I have a complicated relationship to the city, experiencing it simultaneously as a deep source of inspiration as well as a challenging space to inhabit. Through my practice, I create alternative constructions of the city, using abstraction and collage as tools to create new spaces for open-ended and creative thought in response to the routines and pressures of the everyday. Working in two interrelated mediums of photographic collage and abstract painting, I reconfigure fragments of my personal experience of the architecture of the city into new alignments that suggest a constantly unfolding slippage of space. For my lecture at the Berlin Art Institute, I will discuss the development of my practice in relationship to the different cities I have worked in, focusing on how my work has developed in response to Berlin. From there I will expand into a discussion of the wider historical context of other artists who have used the city as material in various ways: from physical source material in collages and architectural interventions, to a visual and energetic source material for abstract painting.” (Text by courtesy of Julie Beugin)

Julie Beugin (b. 1982 Calgary, Canada, lives in Berlin) works in painting and photographic collage. Beugin completed her BFA at Emily Carr University in Vancouver in 2004 and her MFA at Concordia University, Montréal in 2008. Her MFA thesis exhibition was held at Optica centre d’art contemporain in Montréal. Beugin was shortlisted for the RBC painting competition in 2009, and is the recipient of multiple grants from the Canada Council for the Arts. In Berlin she has participated in group exhibitions at Horse & Pony and HilbertRaum, and solo shows include multiple exhibitions at VivianeArt in Calgary, Canada and Paul Petro Contemporary Art in Toronto, Canada.

More information on the Julie Beugin Website.