Swedish-French artist duo Anna Hellsgård and Christian “Meeloo” Gfeller, based in Berlin, have been working together since 2001, creating and producing prints, artists’ books, sculptures, zines and more in their print studio Re:Surgo!, cementing their reputation as master silkscreeners and innovators of the medium with every new project. Christian’s incessant artistic output began in 1995, making punk zines under the name Bongoût. From day one, Hellsgård and Gfeller have placed as strong an emphasis on intuition and skill as on DIY ethics and communal practice, in frequent collaborations with other artists on print projects, organizing exhibitions and opening their independent artist space and retail store in Berlin to international artists and musicians. “Perfectionists in terms of technique, in our quest to pursue formal innovation, we have begun to deconstruct the conventions and techniques of the silkscreening process. Our process involves intentional colour overlaps, smudges, bleeding, glitches and transparencies. As such, each piece is conceived intuitively, like an experimental painting, in which accidents, errors and un-learning play an important part. Our works prompts to rethink the understanding of what a book, a print, or a painting is. Our books are series of prints, our prints are as if they would be painted, and our paintings echoes prints.”
Gfeller & Hellsgård’s works have been exhibited worldwide and are in numerous museums and collections such as the MoMA NY, MoMA SF, Stanford Art Library, Harvard University’s Fine Art Library, the State Museum of Berlin’s Art Library, the Yale University Art Collection and many more.
The Collection of the University of Minnesota recently bought the complete silk-screened artists’ book archive of Bongoût (1995-2012).