Neighbours In Concrete – Jasmin Franzé und Catalina Jara Schenk

In the organizer's words:

"Neighbors In Concrete" is the title of the exhibition that artists Jasmin Franzé and Catalina Jara Schenk are presenting at kultur.lokal.fürth at Bahnhofplatz 2 from August 23 to September 2. In paintings and installations, they examine the anonymous space of fictitious cities and the people who move around in them, their materiality and history, but also the tension between animate and inanimate surroundings, nature and city, proximity and isolation.

Streets merge into streets, buildings stand close together, gray patina lies over the facades and faces. But then, suddenly, something of living nature pushes its way over the dead material of the city: bright green grass grows over the edges of the sidewalk and in cracks, pigeons spread their signs like random paintings on the asphalt, people wander like silhouettes through an urban jungle of metal and concrete. In their art, artists Jasmin Franzé and Catalina Jara Schenk focus precisely on these excretions of life: everything seems connected - and yet at the same time, fractures and cracks appear everywhere, marking isolation, absence and longing. It is precisely this simultaneity of connectedness and disconnectedness, both in the material of the city and in interpersonal relationships, that she is interested in. And the exhibition title "Neighbors In Concrete" also plays with this ambiguity. On the one hand, "concrete" refers to concrete - the ubiquitous building material - which the artist Jasmin Franzé also uses for her works. On the other hand, the word is a reference to concrete art, which is echoed in the works of Catalina Jara Schenk.

The two artists invite you to the opening of the exhibition on Saturday, August 23, from 7 pm at kultur.lokal.fürth. Franzé and Schenk will also be on site during all other opening hours and look forward to engaging in dialog with visitors.

Jasmin Franzé has been studying fine arts at the Academy of Fine Arts in Nuremberg since 2020 and completed an exchange semester at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna. Franzé works interdisciplinary with painting, installation and video. Her artistic interest lies in everyday scenes and objects - such as neon lights, scented trees or train stations - which she transforms into symbolic carriers of urban reality. She is co-founder of the Nuremberg off-space "Galvani Galerie" and has been active there since 2021.

Catalina Jara Schenk, born in Santiago de Chile, has lived in Germany since the age of eight. She initially studied medicine and German language and literature in Munich and Berlin, but then devoted herself to fine art, first in Munich from 2017 to 2020, then in 2020 with a degree at the Academy of Fine Arts in Nuremberg. In her painting, she deals with the isolation of the individual in urban space and the desire for relationship and belonging.