Various & Gould are a Berlin-based artist duo who have worked in close collaboration since 2005. Various was born in 1982 in Palo Alto, USA, and Gould was born in 1978 in Düsseldorf. The two artists met at the entrance test for the Kunsthochschule Berlin-Weißensee, and their eponymous street art collective was born. Both graduated in 2010 under Prof. Alex Jordan (Kollektiv Grapus).
The artists often deal with socially prominent themes such as work, migration, gender, death, religion and the financial crisis in a playful, intuitive manner. Vivid colors combined with typography and encrypted messages are the characteristics of their work. Screen-prints and collages are their great passion, and their series of works are influenced by political poster art, Dada and activism.
From 2006 to 2010, Various & Gould initiated and led the Papergirl project, in which art was distributed to random passersby from a bicycle. In 2014, the duo began working intensively on public interventions on monuments. In 2021, together with Colonial Neighbours, they molded the Bismarck Monument in Berlin with paper and symbolically removed the cast from the pedestal, launching the participatory project series Monumental Shadows, which focuses on colonial traces in European culture of remembrance.
Various & Gould's work has been part of numerous solo and group exhibitions in Germany, France, Switzerland, Hungary, Great Britain, Austria, Turkey and the United States.
Selected Exhibitions
- 2013 · Wanted Witches / Witches Wanted · OPEN WALLS Gallery · Berlin