Starsearch Winterthur

Wathiq Al Ameri feat. Wamidh Al Ameri und Ali Al Fatlawi, Mia Diener, Peter Del Fabro, Nicola Grabiele, Valentin Magaro, Surab Narmania, Christoph Oertli, Christian Schwager, Sabina Speich, Theo Spinnler

December 17 2006 – January 21 2007

Starsearch Winterthur is a competition for local artists from the area of Winterthur of which the winner will get a solo exhibition at the Kunsthalle, a show which will be part of its annual programme 2007. 41 artists sent their documentation in response to the public submission in late summer of this year, in order to be selected by a professional pre-jury. The preselected 10 artists now present a selection of original works in a group show and the general public will vote for their favourite artist.
Unlike in the Starsearch tv programme the main aim of the exhibition is not to make a new superstar; it is more about trying out a format that was generated outside the art context in order to make structures and processes in the art system visible. The idea is to find out about the taste of the local audience and the expectations of the local artists and to produce not only a surprising exhibition but also a publication with the 11 artists who got to the final round. The publication will be presented to the public at the opening of the following exhibition in February.
In the Dritte Raum Prague based artist Ondrej Brody’s video Artstar will be shown. It shows his performance on the tv programme with the same title that was broadcasted on Czech television in 2004. Already two years ago they organised an artist casting as a tv programme.

Oliver Kielmayer