LETTER OF RECOMMENDATION FOR A.R.

Linda Mary Montano
THE ART/LIFE INSTITUTE
9 John Street
Saugerties, NY 12477

November 3, 2012

To Whom It May Concern:

In the summer of 2011, I met Angelika Rinnhofer when I was looking for an artist to assist me with a performance art project. Nicolas Dumit-Estevez, a mutual friend who had previously been Angelika’s mentor, recommended her to me and indicated that she would be an incredible assistant. And after a summer of working together, I got to know Angelika as a dependable and motivated artist.

Because my focus is to eliminate the borders between life and art, Angelika and I were able to live/work as collaborators and co-artists while we scanned interviews for a book of mine. That is, we made ART/LIFE as we walked, meditated, worked, cooked and talked about our life histories. We successfully combined life and art.

I challenged Angelika each time she came to my house to create a performance in addition to our mutual scanning of documents. Her themes were: her relatives in Germany and her upbringing in a religious family; a short video about her mother and issues concerning gender; Catholicism and it's mixed messages; and personal mourning.

Angelika’s final project during our informal summer residency related to the history of Saugerties, the small village where I was raised. I helped Angelika find volunteers to pose for her camera, while they held a loaf of bread, a blanket, some yarn, a piece of cloth, and a shirt, which immigrant settlers traded with the resident Indians as "payment" for the town of Saugerties! I encouraged her to develop her concept further by involving her students in her project “Selling America”. It took her vision as a creative visionary from Germany to see the injustice and greed underneath this early transaction because it is a fact that we who live here in Saugerties, accept as a given until the truth is exposed as art.

I believe that Angelika is an ideal candidate for a PHD program because she is mature, generous, capable, extremely personable and able to interact with others enthusiastically and intelligently. She has already demonstrated her continued interest and willingness to grow as an artist, and her decision to support and further her ideas by conducting research and writing about her findings illustrate to me her seriousness and sincerity toward her life as an artist.

In ART/LIFE,

Linda Mary Montano