Freitag, 30. Januar 2009

NIKOLAUS HIRSCH

Herzliche Einladung zu den Veranstaltungen der Städelschule!


The Architecture Class presents:
The Pavilion: Interim Passage and Polemics in Art & Architecture - Public Lecture Series Winter Semester 2008-9
- a series of public lectures that address the pavilion as typology and idea in relation to architecture and the arts.

Nikolaus Hirsch: Exquisite Corps
Thursday, 5th February, 19h, Aula
Alle Veranstaltungen der Architekturklasse finden in englischer Sprache statt.
In his lecture at the Städelschule Nikolaus Hirsch contributes to the discussion on pavilions in light of some of his most recent projects. Referring to "Exquisite Corpse", his growing institutional model for the European Kunsthalle (recently being exhibited at Showroom London, 2008), and the "Cybermohalla Hub" (Manifesta 7 and Delhi), he questions the relationship between stable and unstable spatial configurations.

Nikolaus Hirsch is a Frankfurt-based architect and guest professor at Städelschule who has held academic positions at the Architectural Association in London, at the Institute of Applied Theater Studies at Giessen University, and at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. His work includes the award-winning Dresden Synagogue, the Hinzert Document Center, and numerous exhibition structures such as “Making Things Public” at the ZKM (curated by Bruno Latour and Peter Weibel) and "Indian Highway" (Serpentine Gallery, 2008). Hirsch´s ongoing research in institutional models has resulted in projects such as the Bockenheimer Depot Theater (with William Forsythe), Unitednationsplaza in Berlin (with Anton Vidokle), European Kunsthalle, Cybermohalla Hub in Delhi and currently a studio structure for Rirkrit Tiravanija´s “The Land”.

His work has been shown in “Neue Welt” (Frankfurter Kunstverein, 2001), “Utopia Station“ at the Venice Biennial 2003, “Can Buildings Curate” (Architectural Association London / Storefront Gallery, New York, 2005), Thomas Bayrle´s “40 Years Chinese Rock 'n Roll” (MMK Frankfurt, 2006), "Horn Please" (Kunstmuseum Bern, 2007), and Manifesta 7 in Bolzano. Nikolaus Hirsch has curated „ErsatzStadt: Representations of the Urban“ at Volksbühne Berlin and is a member of the „Curating Architecture“ program at Goldsmiths College in London. Recently he has published „On Boundaries“ (Sternberg Press), a collection of essays and interviews that focuses on the relationship between architectural, artistic and curatorial models.

Freitag, 23. Januar 2009

TIRDAD ZOLGHADR / MORGAN FISHER / FRANK BARKOW

Herzliche Einladung zu den Veranstaltungen der Städelschule!


Tirdad Zolghadr: Only You. Thoughts on the Artworld and its Peculiar Sense of Expertise
Tuesday, 27 January, 19 h, Aula

Die Veranstaltung findet in englischer Sprache statt.

How does art do it? What’s the unique selling point that lets art get away with murder, again and again. Whether you’re lecturing, writing, curating, or helping yourself to context as an artist, the art reference will open doors to an unquestioned ambivalence that remains out of bounds for other professions. When is the artistic colonization of architectural, theoretical, activist traditions a blessing, and when is it a case of unwittingly aping the “architects”, “academics”,“activists” etc. In other words, when does the post-medium, post-disciplinary condition offer the productivity of unpredictable combinations, and when is it a fashionable display of semi-knowledge. And when can it be both. Trouble is, if the world is our oyster, then there’s no situation where the artworld can be expected to sit down and shut up. So even if attempts to delineate the arts-as-field have amounted to ignoble acts of intellectual malice, committed by pompous old cretins in corduroy, even then, it might be worth the risk.

Tirdad Zolghadr is an independent writer and curator based in Berlin. He currently teaches at the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College (NY), and writes for magazines such as Frieze, Parkett, Bidoun, Cabinet, and Afterall. He has curated “Ethnic Marketing” at the Kunsthalle Geneva 2004) and „Lapdogs of the Bourgeoisie“ (2006-09). His novel "Softcore" is still available on Amazon, used and new.


Morgan Fisher: Painting Work
Wednesday, 28 January, 19 h, Aula

Die Veranstaltung findet in englischer Sprache statt.

While studying art history and film, the American artist and filmmaker Morgan Fisher worked as a film editor for Hollywood productions, and his first film projects were clearly shaped by these experiences. He first appeared at the end of the 1960s with film works such as The Director and His Actor Look at Footage Showing Preparations for an Unmade Film (2), Documentary Footage or Production Stills (1968 and 1970). In 1984 he produced his well-known 35-minute Standard Gauge, in which found footage was compiled according to a precise formal model. With these conceptual approaches, Fisher reflects on the parameters of cinematographic depiction. In the early 1970s, these works were already shown at the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. At the end of the 1990s, Fisher expanded his work to include painting, drawing and spatial installations. Today, Morgan Fisher ranks as one of the best-known and most influential artists of the American West Coast who has decisively influenced an entire generation of young artists. For many years, he was professor at UCLA and the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California.


the Architecture Class presents:
The Pavilion: Interim Passage and Polemics in Art & Architecture - Public Lecture Series Winter Semester 2008-9
- a series of public lectures that address the pavilion as typology and idea in relation to architecture and the arts.

Frank Barkow: Revolution of Choice
Thursday, 29 January, 19h, Aula
Alle Veranstaltungen der Architekturklasse finden in englischer Sprache statt.
Parallel to their internationally acclaimed buildings Berlin-based architects Barkow Leibinger have continuously developed a series of pavilions, temporary structures and applied research modules. These include Barkow Leibinger´s “Formation (Re) Formation: A Nomadic Garden” for the Architecture Biennial in Venice 2008, the Marcus Prize Pavilion in Milwaukee, and most recently the project for a pavilion for the German Architecture Museum in Frankfurt. Resulting in a variety of prototypes the applied research addresses advanced techniques such as revolved lasercutting (Tubematic), bending (Trumabend V-series) and casting of ceramic elements.

Frank Barkow is an architect and partner of Berlin-based Barkow Leibinger. He currently teaches at Harvard Design School and has previously held academic positions at Cornell University, the Architectural Association in London, and Akademie der Bildenden Künste Stuttgart. Barkow Leibinger´s work includes Trudec Building in Seoul, the service and Training Center in Dietzingen, the Campus restaurant and auditorium in Dietzingen and Biosphere in Potsdam.


Ausstellung:
Morgan Fisher: Portikus Looks at Itself
Eröffnung: 30. Januar, 20 Uhr, Portikus
Ausstellungsdauer: 31. Januar 2009 - 15. März 2009

Montag, 19. Januar 2009

SABETH BUCHMANN / JAN VERWOERT / CHARLES WALKER

Herzliche Einladung zu den Veranstaltungen der Städelschule!

Sabeth Buchmann
Thinking against the thinking.
Production, Technology, Subjectivity

Tuesday, 20th January, 19h, Aula

Die Veranstaltung findet in englischer Sprache statt.

Based on works by Sol LeWitt, Hélio Oiticica and Yvonne Rainer as well as some central shows from the 1960/70s dealing with "Art and technology", Sabeth Buchmann turns attention from "Thinking against the thinking" to the various interrelations between social production codes and artistic works. This includes the American choreographer, dancer and filmmaker Yvonne Rainer and the relativization of author and creation based catagories while referring to industrial catagories of production that address aspects of motion, psyche, emotions, sexuality and intersubjective relations.

Investigating exemplary choreographies and films, Buchmann shows that the (self-) interpretation of the performer is always to be understood in direct confrontation with the technological and media constructions of physical presence which have been vital for (post-) avantgarde concepts. In this connection she considers the current receptions of the 60/70s post-aventgarde, which identify a parallel-development to the postfordistic and biopolitical organisation forms of social works.

Sabeth Buchmann is an art historian and art critic who teaches as a Professor for Modern and Postmodern Art at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. She is a regular contributor to art magazines such as "Texte zur Kunst" and a co-editor of 'Polypen' - a publication series on art criticism and political theory.


Jan Verwoert
Why are conceptual artists painting again?
Because they think it’s a good idea.

Wednesday, 21st January, 19h, Aula

Die Veranstaltung findet in englischer Sprache statt.

How have the basic conditions of art practice changed and what words and models could we use to open up the potentials at the heart of these developments in art after Conceptualism? The dominant models no longer satisfy. It makes no sense to melodramatically invoke the “end of painting” (or any other medium-specific practice for that part) when the continous emergence of fascinating work obviously proves apocalyptic endgame scenarios wrong. Yet, to pretend it were possible to go back to business as usual seems equally impossible because the radical expansion of artistic possibilities through the landslide changes of the 1960s leave medium-specific practices in the odd position of being one among many modes of artistic articulation, with no preset justification. How can we describe then what medium-specific practices like painting or sculpture can do today?

Unfortunately, a certain understanding of conceptualism has had incredibly stifling effects on how people approach their practice, namely the idea that to have a concept in art means to know exactly why you do what you do - before you ever even do it. This assumption has effectively increased the pressure on artists to occupy the genius-like position of a strategist who would clearly know the rules of how to do the right thing, the legitimate thing. How could we invent a language that would describe the potentials of contemporary practice, acknowledge a sense of crisis and doubt, yet break the spell of the senseless paranoia over legitimation - and instead help to transform critical art practice into a truly gay science based on a shared sense of appreciation and irreverence?

Jan Verwoert is a critic, who lives in Berlin, teaches art at the Piet Zwart Institute in Rotterdam, works as a contributing editor to frieze magazine, writes for different publications and co-curated the city-wide exhibition Art Sheffield 08, Yes, No, Other Options in Sheffield in 2008.


The Architecture Class presents:
The Pavilion: Interim Passage and Polemics in Art & Architecture - Public Lecture Series Winter Semester 2008-9
- a series of public lectures that address the pavilion as typology and idea in relation to architecture and the arts.

Charles Walker
Get Real!
Thursday, 22nd January, 19h, Aula

Alle Veranstaltungen der Architekturklasse finden in englischer Sprache statt.

Canadian-born Charles Walker returns to Städelschule to give a share his vast experience in directing and realizing projects ranging from small pavilions to large urban masterplans. Currently working for Zaha Hadid Architects in London,Walker has previously practiced design-based engineering with Atelier One as well as Ove Arup & Partners. The latter firm he joined in 1998 and in 2000, he co-founded its Advanced Geometry Unit with Cecil Balmond.
Leading this unit, Walker was projector director and masterplanner for the Battersea Power Station Project, but - not the least in light of this lecture series, he was responsible for the Serpentine Gallery Summer Pavilions, including Daniel Libeskind's, Toyo Ito's and Oscar Niemeyer's structures.Educated an architect in Canada, Charles Walker went on to undertake post-graduate structural engineering studies at the Imperial College of Science Technology and Medicine in 1992. Since 2003, he has been teaching an Intermediate School Unit at the Architectural Association in London.

Freitag, 9. Januar 2009

MARIA LIND / BEATRIZ COLOMINA

Herzliche Einladung zu den Veranstaltungen der Städelschule!

Maria Lind: The Collaborative Turn: On Collaborative Practices and Contemporary Art
Wednesday, 14th January 19h, Aula

Die Veranstaltung findet in englischer Sprache statt.

What can we make of collaboration as one of the most important strands of recent art? Artists, curators, writers, architects, activists and others collaborate on a short-term basis, as well as on more long-term bases; they spread their attention across various subjects, methods, lifestyles, different political orientations, often hoping for some kind of emancipation. Furthermore, in a variety of projects, the form and basis of collective activities have been presented, examined, and called into question. At the same time, these collaborative efforts often constitute a response to specific, at times local, situations, and they constantly run the risk of being swallowed up and incorporated into the very systems against which they are reacting.

Since 2008 Maria Lind is the director of the graduate program, Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College (NY). Previously she was the director of Iaspis in Stockholm (2005-2007) and the director of Kunstverein München (2002-2004) where she ran a program which involved artists such as Deimantas Narkevicius, Oda Projesi, Bojan Sarcevic, Philippe Parreno and Marion von Osten. The format of a retrospective was explored in a one-year long exhibition with Christine Borland, only ever showing one piece at a time and a retrospective project in the form of a 7-day long workshop with Rirkrit Tiravanija. The group project “Totally motivated: A sociocultural manoeuvre” was a collaboration between five curators and ten artists looking at the relationship between ”amateur” and ”professional” art and culture. From 1997-2001 she was curator at Moderna Museet in Stockholm and, in 1998, co-curator of Manifesta 2. She is the co-editor of the books “Curating with Light Luggage and Collected Newsletter” (Revolver), “Taking the Matter into Common Hands: Collaborative Practices in Contemporary Art” (Blackdog Publishing), as well as the report “European Cultural Policies 2015” and “The Greenroom: Reconsidering the Documentary and Contemporary Art”.


The Architecture Class presents:
The Pavilion: Interim Passage and Polemics in Art & Architecture - Public Lecture Series Winter Semester 2008-9
- a series of public lectures that address the pavilion as typology and idea in relation to architecture and the arts.

Beatriz Colomina: The Pavilions of Modern Architecture
Thursday, 15th January, 19h, Aula

Alle Veranstaltungen der Architekturklasse finden in englischer Sprache statt.

Re-commencing the current lecture series after New Year’s, architectural historian and theorist, Beatriz Colomina, will talk about the pavilions of modern architecture. Her lecture draws on her extensive scholarship, which focuses in particular on questions of architecture and media.

Colomina is Professor of Architecture and Founding Director of the Program in Media and Modernity at Princeton University. Her books include, amongst other, Privacy and Publicity: Modern Architecture as Mass Media (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1994), which was awarded the 1995 International Book Award by the American Institute of Architects; Sexuality and Space (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1992), which was awarded the 1993 International Book Award by the American Institute of Architects and Architectureproduction (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1988). Her latest book is Domesticity at War (Barcelona: ACTAR and MIT Press, 2007). She has also curated a number of exhibitions.

In her essay, Pavilions of the Future (in Your Black Horizon, Olafur Eliasson and David Adjaye, Walter Konig, Cologne, 2007), Colomina argues that historically, 'pavilions made dreams seem real, and reality seem dreamlike...the unique role of a pavilion (is) to fuse image and structure...The pavilion is the key instrument for negotiating the relationship between image and physical structure.'