Nora Mertes
Nora Mertes (BE/GE, born in 1982) is an artist from Belgium based in Germany, who primarily deals with sculptural qualities in her material- and site-specific work. Mertes uses materials, everyday objects and her own body in her investigations of physical qualities of material culture. In exhibitions, this becomes visible through a variety of media, including installation, sculpture, photo, and video. Mertes tests different ways of manipulating the material and everyday objects and explores how these can react to each other, or transform in the process. By placing them in so-called foreign roles, the artist wishes to bring forward the meanings and potentials of the physical world that surrounds us, and it is this aspect that largely forms the basis of her sculptural and spatial works.
More info on Nora’s homepage.
Exhibitions at Kogo
Press and Publications
Conversations and monologues with matter
Eva-Erle Lilleaed. Magazine of Art and Visual Culture KUNST.EE. 1/2019
‘Chatty Matter’ by Kati Saarits and Nora Mertes at Kogo Gallery
Blok Magazine. 18/03/2019
Chatty Matter
Footnotes on art
Photo reportage from the exhibition ‘Chatty Matter’ by Kati Saarits and Nora Mertes at the Kogo Gallery
Echo Gone Wrong. 20/02/2019
CV
Nora Mertes (1982) is from Belgium, but cuurently lives and works in Berlin, Germany.
Education
| 2009-2012 | Institute of Art in Context, University of the Arts, Berlin (MA) |
| 2007-2008 | Hiroshima City University, Art Department, Hiroshima (J) |
| 2004-2009 | Alanus Hochschule Alfter, Bonn (diploma and Meisterschülerin) |
Solo Exhibitions
| 2019 | Chatty Matter, with Kati Saarits, Kogo Gallery, Tartu, Estonia |
| 2017 | Entliehene Bücher: Nr. 1 und Nr. 2, Dzialdov, Berlin, Germany |
| 2016 | Suspending Plains, Skaftfell Center of Visual Art, Seydisfjördur, Iceland |
| 2013 | Work presentation and talk at Stundars, Solf, Finland |
| 2011 | Still not Blue, Gallery Blunk, Trondheim, Norway |
Selected Group Exhibitions
| 2016 | Õrn rippumine, Kilometer of Sculpture, Rakvere, Estonia |
| 2016 | Camuli – Trading Places, Galerie 5020, Salzburg, Austria |
| 2015 | Ikob-Award 2015, IKOB Museum of Contemporary Art, Eupen, Belgium |
| 2015 | Camuli – Trading Places, MEWO Kunsthalle Memmingen and Kunstverein L40, Berlin, Germany |
| 2015 | No. 1, Salon piano alto, Berlin, Germany |
| 2014 | Berlin Project Space Festival, Kleine Humboldt Galerie, Berlin, Germany |
| 2014 | Chorprobe, Kunstverein ArtToll, Bedburg Hau, Germany |
| 2014 | In leeren Räume wohnen, Berlin, Germany |
| 2014 | MDF (Monat der Fotografie), project space Strahler, Berlin, Germany |
| 2012 | Graduate exhibition Out of Context, University of the Arts, Berlin, Germany |
| 2011 | Multistable Perception, Kunstverein E-Werk, Freiburg, Germany |
| 2011 | Beautiful Mind, German-Sudanese artist exchange, supported by IFA, project space Kunsttransit Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe, Germany |
| 2010 | After Art & Language, in the exhibition Brilliant Volume, University of the Arts, Berlin, Germany |
| 2010 | In Maps Water Is Always Indicated In Blue, Imperial Cathedral Königslutter, Germany |
| 2009 | A Room, inauguration of Heliopolis University Cairo, Cairo, Egypt |
| 2009 | ASYLIER, Japanese-German project exhibition, Künstlerforum Bonn, Germany |
| 2009 | Young Art to the Sieg, Karin Halft Fellows exhibition, Eitorf, Germany |
| 2008 | IKOB prize 2008, IKOB Museum for Contemporary Art (nomination), Eupen, Belgium |
| 2008 | engine, Gallery Jack in the Box, Cologne, Germany |
Scholarships and Grants
| 2013-2020 | Studio scholarship of BBK (Berufsverband Bildener Künstler Berlin), Berlin, Germany |
| 2016 | Goldrausch Künstlerinnen Projekt, Germany |
| 2015 | Ikob-Award, IKOB Museum of Conteporary Art, Eupen, Belgium |
| 2015 | Grant of the Goetheinstitut, Artist in Resident at Skaftfell, Seydisfjördur, Iceland |
| 2015 | Artist in Residence USF Bergen, Norway |
| 2014 | Artist in Residence at Stundars, Solf, Finland |
| 2012 | Scholarship of the Simulation Situation Society, Liechtenstein |
| 2010-2011 | Study Scholarship of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, Germany |
| 2010 | Project grant of the University of the Arts, Berlin, Germany |
| 2009 | Heliopolis University Scholarship, Cairo, Egypt |
| 2008 | Karin Halft Grant, Germany |
| 2007 | Japan-Scholarship of DG (Deutschsprachige Gemeinschaft Belgien), Eupen, Belgium |
| 2007 | Study Scholarship of Alanus Hochschule für Kunst und Gesellschaft, Alfter, Germany |
Teaching Experience
| Since 2016 | FG Kunst TU Berlin |
| 2015-2018 | University of Art Berlin Alanus Hochschule, FG Bildende Kunst Bauhaus Universität Weimar, FG Bildende Kunst |
| 2012-2014 | Institut für Architekturbezogene Kunst, TU Braunschweig |
Kati Saarits