Artist Residency at the Leipzig International Art Program
By Marcelo Daldoce (MFA 2016)
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| Artists Adam Lupton (MFA 2016), Valerie Gilbert (MFA 2016), Marcelo Daldoce (MFA 2016), and Charlotte Segall (MFA 2016) arriving for the summer 2016 Leipzig Residency |
Adam Lupton, Valerie Gilbert, Charlotte Segal, and Marcello Daldoce will spend two months at the Leipzig International Art Program, housed in the former Leipziger Baumwollspinnerei. While the Spinnerei is now an incredible cultural space for artists, musicians, and performers, it has a rich history through the 19th and 20th century with humble beginnings as a cotton spinning mill.
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| Leipziger Baumwollspinnerei |
In June 1884, the Leipziger Baumwollspinnerei was founded, and it became the largest cotton mill in Europe. The Spinnerei was a modern place from the beginning. A training school, fire brigade, kindergarten, park, and gymnasium were all opened, with music bands and dance groups a part of factory’s life. The site became a city inside a city.
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| Studios on the left and Art Supply Store on the right, how convenient? |
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| The non-profit art space HALLE 14, the largest production hall on the Spinnerei site. |
Cotton production continued throughout the first years after the Berlin Wall fell and Germany was reunified. Because of rising competitive markets, production of thread came to an end in 1993, causing the business to be liquidated and workers fired.
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| Leipzig International Art Program, as illustrated by Marcelo Daldoce (MFA 2016) |
In July 2001, the site was bought by its current owners, and a completely new phase of the Spinnerei began. The empty rooms were used for alternative projects: a summer academy was opened; the first few artists set up studios; architecture firms, workshops, and exhibition rooms gradually moved in.
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| Neo Rauch’s Gallery Eigen-Art |
It was mostly artists who acted as the pioneers of revitalization, and as a result the Spinnerei now boasts over 100 studios. The first artists to set up included some well known international names, such as Neo Rauch who still works here. In addition to artists, musicians, dancers, craftspeople, architects, traders, printers and designers were and still are attracted by this cultural factory.
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| Among the 100 artist studios, here is ours! |
In 2005, six Leipzig galleries opened new exhibitions in the Spinnerei, with a spectacular open weekend that received well over 10,000 visitors. Today the Spinnerei is home to 14 galleries and exhibition spaces.
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| Adam Lupton inside the studio – two months to fill up all these walls with paintings! |
In 2007, The Guardian Newspaper described the Spinnerei as “the hottest place on Earth.” Now, due to its ever-expanding popularity, collectors from across the world come in private jets and helicopters to this cultural center that was once a humble cotton mill.