VITA

1958 born in Vilseck/Germany
1978-1985 Hochschule der Künste Berlin/West (UdK)
1988-2018 senior lecturer at Novia University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Jakobstad (Nykarleby), Finland
lives and works in Nykarleby

Inviting spaces:
Albert Braun’s artworks, often various kinds of installations, attract the viewer, sometimes quite palpably and sometimes more discreetly, but always clearly. Yet, clarity does not mean that there is a given interpretation. One can regard the work of Albert Braun as the creation of spaces or as a framework for actions and events that seem to reflect everyday matters, but which aren´t everday at all. They aim at an interaction between the audience and the work, and so they remain unforgettable to the visitors. The memory remains alive, because the works of art do not convey any connection with accustomed life, but rather create space for imagination and reflection. (Pauline von Bonsdorff)

Q: Why t-shirts? What’s so interesting in them as artistic material and a medium?
A: I’ve always been interested in them, long before I had anything to do with the art world. It was and also today is the common daily fabrigue, the daily stuff that we all have access to and we all share – and then again, they do have a local flavor, which reminds me how my mother used to call them, in her strong German accent, as “Tschierts”.
“T-shirts as a medium provides a good and an effective surface for both images and words, it’s like a canvas. The point being is that the potential range of distribution is much larger than in typical art mediums. I like how in t-shirts images and ideas get mixed up and how they circulate outside the art context, but how simultaneously we can bring them back, include them into the discourses on art. What’s fascinating is the option that they can be forever multiplied and used by everyone and anyone – they are both anonymous and personal.”