BERLIN.- From April 27 to August 18, 2012 National Museum Gemaeldegalerie Berlin will feature the second part of the solo exhibition Botticelli | Grey by American artist Michael Joaquin Grey. As part of the Renaissance Faces show at the Bode-Museum Berlin and the Metropolitan Museum New York, the curator Stefan Weppelmann invited Michael Joaquin Grey to collaborate and he selected a single Renaissance painting. The artist chose Botticelli’s masterly Portrait of a Young Woman. The so-called “Simonetta Vespucci“ was the muse of muses, the 'It Girl' of the Renaissance and is today still an icon of idealized beauty. Her portrait is the basis for Grey’s generative work, which gradually alters the profile of Simonetta by means of his own algorithmic software which synchronizes to body signals and the moon cycle in real time. Grey’s generative portrait operates in the tension between likeness and ideal, authenticity and construction, being and becoming. It connects the Renaissance beauty to a larger cosmos and raises fundamental questions about the status of portraiture in the 21st century.

Michael Joaquin Grey’s generative portrait evolves from the artist’s investigation on states of time, transformation and self-organizing principles. Interested in the interface between form and syntax, Grey blurs the boundaries of art, science and pedagogy for over twenty years. He was born in Los Angeles, USA, in 1961 and lives in New York and San Francisco. Grey studied genetics and sculpture at the University of California at Berkeley and Yale University. He exhibits in museums and galleries worldwide, including the Museum of Modern Art NY, PS1 NY, Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, Walker Art Center Minneapolis, Serpentine Gallery London, National Museum Gemaeldegalerie Berlin, Barbara Gladstone Gallery NY, Lisson Gallery London and Galerie Sherin Najjar Berlin.

A catalogue has been published by the occasion of this exhibition series: Botticelli | Grey. Edited by Sherin Najjar and Stefan Weppelmann for the National Museum Gemaeldegalerie Berlin. Verlag der Buchhandlung Walter Koenig, 2011.

Side program
Friday, 27 April 2012, 5pm
Artist walk and conversation with curator Stefan Weppelmann, New Media Art expert and author Edward A. Shanken and Michael Joaquin Grey.

Venues: National Museum Gemaeldegalerie Berlin and Galerie Sherin Najjar
Starting point: Foyer National Museum Gemaeldegalerie Berlin

Galerie Sherin Najjar showcases exceptional positions of emerging and established artists whose practices focus on a conceptual approach. The gallery supports existing and new forms of artistic production to present singular positions which strongly question their issues and realise complex patterns of thoughts. Solo exhibitions and theme group shows as well as collaborations with curators, museums and other non-commercial institutions shape the profile of the gallery.

The exhibition Botticelli l Grey is a collaboration between National Museum Gemaeldegalerie Berlin and Galerie Sherin Najjar.