WORLD OF ART
School for Curators and Critics of Contemporary Art
Season 14
Sønke Gau
Lives in Zürich (CH), cultural scientist, curator, critic and lecturer
2004–2009 he formed, together with Katharina Schlieben, the curatorial directing team of the Shedhalle in Zürich. 2000–2004 he worked at the Institute for Contemporary Art at the Academy of Fine Arts (Wien), as exhibition co-ordinator and curator at Künstlerhaus Vienna and as project manager of the 3rd Berlin biennial for contemporary art. Recent publications include: Spectacle, Pleasure Principle or the Carnivalesque – A Reader on Possibilities, Experiences in Difference and Strategies of the Carnivalesque in Cultural-Political Practice and Work to do! Self-Organisation in precarious Working Conditions (ed. together with Katharina Schlieben, 2008 and 2009). He has been a researcher and the project manager of ‘Institutions of Critique’ at the Institute for Theory (ith), since 2010 and ‘Scientist in Residence’ at the Institute MA in Transdisziplinarität, 2011–2012, both at Zürich University of the Arts (ZHdK).
Petra Kapš
Petra Kapš (Maribor, 1975) is an independent author, working as writer, researcher, performer, curator and producer.
Her studies of slovenian language, theology, philosophy, aesthetics and specific art phenomena are interlinked with researches of different aspects of media, word, image and sound. Currently she is preparing her PHD on significant shifts between oracular, oral and rhetorical practices in ancient Greece with possible effects of the later in artistic practices in western context.
Since 2003 she has been extensively writing about different art phenomena, art works and artistic practices. In 2010 she self-published her first book –OR– changes of art, Book Nr. 1, and in 2011 she began with her e-mail critical correspondence OR reflection. She led artists run space Open studio with Iztok Maroh (2007–2010), co-founded and actively participated in the TU Society for the Promotion and Development of Culture (2004–2007) and the assembly so0gledi (2007–). The first steps in a long-term research work OR were made in 2010 with the project –OR– changes of art, Being poetic in correspondence with an oracle (exhibition, book, lectures, performances, and debates, with: Alenka Pirman, Katarina Zdjelar, Borut Savski, Tao G. Vrhovec Sambolec, Evelyn Müürsepp, Erkki Luuk, John Grzinich, Simon Macuh, Marko Košnik; Likovni salon Celje). Some of her latest and most prominent projects are: discursive project “On” – reflection of art (ten discussions with artists, curators, critics, theorists, producers on some of the basic topics in art; in cooperation with KIBLA Maribor, 2008), After curatorial dinner (curatorial dinners with seven artists, research, in-situ exhibition, with: Riho Kall, John Grzinich, Evelyn Müürsepp, Toomas Thetloff, Patrick McGinley, Erkk Luuk, Anna Hints, in collaboration with Moks, Center for art and social practices, Mooste, Estonia and Tomar, Portugal), project Laboratorium (The World of Art, organized by SCCA-Ljubljana) and LabSUs, open platform of curators, artists, writers, theoreticians (Gallery Škuc, Ljubljana, 2007). Sound-video-text installation Transition (Kazemate, Ljubljana Castle, together with Iztok Maroh, 2009) was a turning point, where words and texts were not used as words about art, but as the art of words. She started her performative readings with This late or already, 50 (49) questions for Admission Free (Spitall Chapel, Celje, 2010), followed by Hearing Eurydice in project Public readings and performative lectures. She started performative writing in-situ with 44 (20) questions for the ARZENAL DEPO 2K9 (Viba studio, Kapelica Gallery, 2009) and continued with latest 47 (8)>(7) textual fragments for Radio Art Space (personal computer, typewriter and a fountain pen … homage to Friedrich A. Kittler and his essays Gramophone Film Typewriter, Gallery Škuc, December 2011).
Dorothee Richter
Art historian, author, curator, organised symposiums as Curating Degree Zero – an international symposium on curating, GAK, Bremen (with Barnaby Drabble), 1998; Dialogues and Debates – feminist positions in contemporary visual arts, 1999; The Quintessiental Hold of Images, 2001 (with Sigrid Adorf and Kathrin Heinz), The Visuality of Theory vs. The Theory of the Visual (with Nina Möntmann), Re-Visions of the Display: Exhibition Scenarios, Their Readings and Their Publics, Migros Museum (with Jennifer John and Sigrid Schade), Communitiy_ perhaps (with Jörg Huber and Elke Bippus), Institution as Medium. Curating as Institutional Critique? concept with Rein Wolfs, Fridericianum Kassel.
She was director of the Lichthaus in Bremen, artistic director of Kuenstlerhaus Bremen, 1999–2003, some projects included: over high, over flow; naming a practice, collaboration – a practise which creates an environment. She initiated with Barnaby Drabble Curating Degree Zero Archive; an archive, travelling exhibition and web resource on critical curating, shown and re-interpreted with artists, curators, designers in: Basel, Genf, Linz, Bremen, Bristol, Lüneburg, Birmingham, London, Berlin, Edinburg, Milano, Seoul, Paris, Bergen and Cork from 2005 to the present day. She lectured at University of Bremen, University of Lüneburg, Ècole des Beaux Arts in Genève, Merz Akademie in Stuttgart. She was research associate Exhibition Displays at School of Art and Design in Zürich. Director of the Postgraduate Program in Curating at Zürich Art University. She is initiator of a web journal on curating (www.on-curating.org), which is online since June 2008, until now 11 Issues were published.
Publications: Curating Degree Zero – an international symposium on curating (ed.: D. Richter and E.Schmidt, Nürnberg, 1999); Dialogues and Debattes – on feminist positions in contemporary visual arts (ed.: D.Richter, Die Höge, Nürnberg, 2000); Programming for a Künstlerhaus (ed.: D. Richter, Künstlerhaus Bremen, 2002); The Visuality of Theory vs. The Theory of the Visual (ed.: Nina Möntmann, Dorothee Richter, Frankfurt, 2004); Curating Critique (ed.: B. Drabble, D. Richter, ICE, Edinburgh, Frankfurt, 2008); Re-Visions of the Display: Exhibition Scenarios, Their Readings and Their Publics (Zürich, 2009); Mit Sein (ed.: Elke Bippus, Jörg Huber, Dorothee Richter, 2010); 11 Issues of On-Curating.org.
Katharina Schlieben
Cultural scientist, curator and lecturer
2004–2009 she formed, together with Sønke Gau, the curatorial directing team of the Shedhalle in Zürich. 2002–2004 she worked as curator at Kunstverein München and before as guest curator at the Künstlerhaus in Wien and at the South London Gallery (London). Recent publications include: Spectacle, Pleasure Principle or the Carnivalesque – A Reader on Possibilities, Experiences in Difference and Strategies of the Carnivalesque in Cultural-Political Practice and Work to do! Self-Organisation in precarious Working Conditions (ed. together with Sønke Gau, 2008 and 2009). Teaching positions at various art academies and art schools in Switzerland. Since 2010 she works as curator and lecturer at the Art Academy in Dresden.
Andrzej Szczerski
Professor at the Institute of Art History, Jagiellonian University in Kraków, director of postgraduate curatorial studies. He was visiting lecturer at the Goethe University in Frankfurt (2003) and St. Andrews University (2004). His books include Patterns of Identity. The Reception of British Art in Central Europe c. 1900 (Kraków, 2002) and Modernizations. Art and Architecture in the new states of Central Eastern Europe 1918–1939 (Łódź 2010). He co-edited The Mousetrap Book. On dealing with art institutions in contemporary curatorial practice (Gdańsk – Frankfurt 2007). He curated the Modernizations 1918–1939. The Future Perfect exhibition in Museum Sztuki (Museum of Art) in Łódź in 2010 and co-curated The Power of Fantasy. Modern and Contemporary Art from Poland exhibition in Palais des Beaux-Arts BOZAR in Brussels in 2011. He is current President of Polish Section of AICA.