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Melanie Buchel, Marina Lopes Coelho and Silvia Simoncelli

A Question of Funding

In the interviews that follow artists Liam Gillick, Tommy Støckel and Goldin+Senneby reflect with us on the present situation of diminishing public funding for culture and on the growing impact of private money and the art market on the production of art exhibitions and events. Having participated in Abstract Possible – The Stockholm Synergies, we have asked them to reflect on the reactions the show prompted due to the cooperation with a Swedish Auction House, and what future development they can foresee in the present scenario. We invited also Stefan Wagner, from the independent art space Corner College in Zurich to join the discussion:  Switzerland is commonly regarded as a safe haven in terms of public support to the arts, but the petition Charta 2016 launched in 2012 proves the situation is undergoing major changes in this region as well.

The contributions were gathered by Melanie Büchel, Marina Lopes Cohelo and Silvia Simoncelli.


 

A response from Liam Gillick

Silvia Simoncelli: In the past years, cultural institutions in all European countries have been profoundly affected by cuts in public spending. This has of course a strong impact on the possibility for producing events, exhibitions, publications, and at the same time it makes the impact of private sponsors and patrons on budgets more relevant - and in need to be secured for the coming years. Do you think this growing importance of private funding - in the form of sponsorship or donation - could interfere with curatorial and institution’s choices? To your opinion are there already some evidences of such interferences?

Liam Gillick: There is no universal European position in relation to public funding – and there has not been one during my adult life. “Private” funding has always been a major component of European cultural work. I would prefer to describe European public funding as part of the post-war social project that also included health care and education. I am not sure which European countries, if any, function with public funding alone for contemporary art. Even the Kunstverein system is a form of private funding by individual members. Bank guilt has been a major source of private funding – whether through the now crippled “Obra Social” in Spain or the large German and Swiss banks, which have been funding contemporary art and its institutions throughout my adult life. The countries that do engage in substantial public funding also produce and sell weapons (Sweden, U.K. etc), engage in offering tax breaks for large corporations (Every European country) and have been involved in bailing out the banking system (Ditto). There is always an ideological trace of funding source left in and around supported work. This trace is fairly easy to see. Increasingly instrumentalised public funding leans towards education and some verifiable sense of “good work”. It directs itself away from super-subjectivity and tends to side-line the abject or irresponsible. Private funding also requires some educational aspect – generally part of the “charitable” requirements of the tax benefits involved in funding - but often appears superficially more tolerant of super-subjective positions. The point is that interference is everywhere. There is no innocence or ethical bonus from deriving funds from “public” sources – which include inequitable tax systems and pseudo-democratic governmental systems. The problem here is not a dilemma between public and private funding but when public bodies turn to private money in order to cut back direct involvement in contemporary cultural work. This always involves a reduction in politics towards a culture of accommodation – where cultural funding becomes part of a matrix of capital flows that are not reducible to money or exchange value alone. In short – the contemporary European left appears caught in an addiction to populist, festivalist cultural events or educationally verifiable practices while the right would rather just leave the whole thing to the “market”. The problem is a party political one and should be addressed that way. There is no inevitability about the current situation – nor is there a requirement to “secure” private funding. Direct political pressure should be applied.

SS: Do you consider the source of funding as relevant information to be evaluated when accepting commissions or invitations to show at gallery or institution? Do you think that there is enough transparency about this topic?

LG: Absolutely. It would be ridiculous to do anything else. In my experience there is transparency on these issues – mainly because funders are usually vain enough to want to have their brand or name included.

SS: For one of the manifestation of the exhibition Abstract Possible - Stockholm Synergies, Maria Lind responded to an invitation to curate a primary exhibition at Bukowskis Auction House, where she developed one of three parts of the show, inviting Goldin+Senneby to devise the framework for it. This gave her the possibility to addressed the topic of private intervention in art funding in a truly straightforward way, aiming at generating a debate on cultural politics, discussing to what extent the need for finding alternative source of funding could compromise the art institution with market strategies. On the contrary, a number of observers pinned their attention on the ambivalence of the project, focussing on the topic of moral responsibility from the side of the curator, being Bukowskis connected to Ludin Oil, a company whose ethical conduct is somewhat dubious. Starting from such a radical example, what strategies do you think could be employed to effectively challenge the attention of media and public authorities on the current status of public funds withdrawal from cultural sector?

LG: It seems that the response to this part of the exhibition was a little muddled. It is highly unlikely that Maria Lind was unaware of the connection between Bukowskis and Ludin Oil. Even I knew about it and I am not deeply interested in the Swedish auction house scene. I didn’t perceive any ambivalence in the project but we are operating in a time when pseudo-ethical positions announce themselves loudly from the side-lines or from within the closely policed protest zones that stand in for true resistance to capital. Lind’s gesture was directed as much towards the art context as it was to the predictable mess of contemporary corporate life. Her exposure of near universal complicity with neo-liberal capital manipulation within the art context riled those who believe that they can escape such a situation. The escape is a mirage and does not stand up to scrutiny. As for the last part of your question – I am not convinced that the instrumentalising aspects of public funding with its requirement for cultural gatekeepers and “good” works is a guarantee of anything. It is also worth bearing in mind that the current Swedish Foreign Affairs Minister was on the board of Ludin. The term public is indivisible from the term private in the regime of neo-liberalism. The requirement is for the left to accept its responsibilities towards advanced art and critical consciousness.




A response from Tommy Støckel

Marina Lopes Coelho: In the past years cultural institutions in all European countries have been profoundly affected by cuts in public spending. This has of course a strong impact on the possibility for producing events, exhibitions, publications and at the same time it makes the impact of private sponsors and patrons on budgets more relevant - and in need to be secured for the coming years. Do you think this growing importance of private funding - in the form of sponsorship or donation - could interfere with curatorial and institution’s choices? To your opinion are there already some evidences of such interferences?

Tommy Støckel: I heard of an incident a couple of years ago where a provincial German museum was unable to raise funds to produce exhibitions themselves and therefore asked a Berlin gallerist to organize their shows. As far as I understood, the gallerist practically put together a year long exhibition program from her own artists, who were all were happy to add a museum show to their CV. The gallery does represent “museum quality” artists but a curators should not have commercial interest in the artists that they choose to work with. An institution should not be used to enhance an artist’s CV, which of course in the end will increase the possibilities of sales.

Another example of suspected instances  of compromising the curatorial integrity is the tendency to include artists from countries where it is known that their country’s arts council usually supports their artists generously. Those countries’ contributions can apparently save exhibition budgets, and sometimes one could even suspect that whole exhibitions featuring only artists from these countries are only put on to help out institutions budgets. These exhibitions even seem to be put on to provide institutions with “financial breathing space” with these fully funded shows.

The 2012 Armory Show in New York had a special focus on Scandinavia which was of course financially supported by the arts councils of the Scandinavian countries. What shocked me, as a Dane, was the A3-sized hand-out poster printed by the Danish Arts Council that I stumbled upon at the fair, which proclaimed in large letters : “Need funding? We have it!”. Obviously, in order to access the money, that they seem to be willing to hand out to anyone with an exhibition idea, the projects were supposed to include Danish artists, galleries or curators in some way. Is it really good for Danish art that its artists are being chosen primarily because they are Danish? And only secondarily because of what they do as individual artists? Of course, public funding is much “cleaner money” than private sponsorships but I do believe that it can influence the curatorial aspects of an exhibition.

MLC: Do you consider the source of funding as relevant information to be evaluated when accepting commissions or invitations to show at gallery or institution? Do you think that there is enough transparency about this topic?

TS: I think that artists and exhibition organisers should be aware of where funding comes from, especially if it is used as advertising, but funding is also always a necessity that enables us to produce and create. Only very few turn down funds, if they give the opportunity to work. The question is perhaps just whether the private funding comes with some sort of restrictions or compromises in form of censorship, distracting logos or whatever it might be.

MLC: For one of the manifestation of the exhibition Abstract Possible - Stockholm Synergies, Maria Lind responded to an invitation to curate a primary exhibition at Bukowskis Auction House, where she developed one of three parts of the show, inviting Goldin+Senneby to devise the framework for it. This gave her the possibility to addressed the topic of private intervention in art funding in a truly straightforward way, aiming at generating a debate on cultural politics, discussing to what extent the need for finding alternative source of funding could compromise the art institution with market strategies. On the contrary, a number of observers pinned their attention on the ambivalence of the project, focussing on the topic of moral responsibility from the side of the curator, being Bukowskis connected to Ludin Oil, a company whose ethical conduct is somewhat dubious. Starting from such a radical example, what strategies do you think could be employed to effectively challenge the attention of media and public authorities on the current status of public funds withdrawal from cultural sector?

TS: As a participating artist in the Bukowskis exhibition, I followed parts of the public debate but not being based in Sweden, I was not able to read all the related articles. I personally think that it was an interesting experiment, and the connection between Bukowski and Lundin Oil definitely makes the experiment more of a morally daring one. One thing that I am not certain of, is whether anyone commented on the fact that many of the artists who had their work in the “selling exhibition” at Bukowskis actually showed works relating to the commercial aspect of it, and that they were –although not as explicit as the curator– not purely passive players in the game.


 

 


A response from Goldin+Senneby

Dear On-Curating Magazine,
Our names are Erik Wikberg and Niklas Bomark and we have been asked to answer your questions on behalf of, or rather instead of, Goldin+Senneby. As you are aware, the artists are practicing a sort of withdrawal strategy inspired by George Bataille’s secret society Acéphale, which to our understanding is the reason why they do not answer your questions themselves. Their strategy of withdrawal is evident in the artistic practice within their long-term framework Headless and many other projects, in the Primary Sale of Abstract Possible, and, undoubtly, even in the very sentences you are reading right now.

The reason why we have been asked to answer your questions is because we are currently studying the primary sale of Abstract Possible in a research project, and have met the artists and discussed these topics a number of times. We are happy to do our best to answer your questions.

For the record, however, we want to point out that we are Ph.D candidates in business studies specialized in organizational theory, and none of us have any curatorial or artistic training. Consequently, we want to emphasize that our answers to your questions are based on our own understandings and interpretations of the views of Goldin+Senneby.

Best regards,
Erik Wikberg, Ph.D Candidate, Stockholm School of Economics
Niklas Bomark, Ph.D Candidate, Uppsala University


Melanie Büchel: In the past years cultural institutions in all European countries have been profoundly affected by cuts in public spending. This has of course a strong impact on the possibility for producing events, exhibitions, publications and at the same time it makes the impact of private sponsors and patrons on budgets more relevant - and in need to be secured for the coming years. Do you think this growing importance of private funding - in the form of sponsorship or donation - could interfere with curatorial and institution’s choices? To your opinion are there already some evidences of such interferences?

Erik Wikberg and Niklas Bomark: In order to answer your question, we think it is important to clarify three things. First, yes, although we do not interpret Goldin+Senneby as particularly normative, they seem both concerned and intrigued by the growing dependency of private money in the public domains of the art world. Second, however, we do not think that the artists are bothered by private money per se, but rather worried about how this financing form is coupled to any demands or conditions from the financier, and the consequences this might lead to when it comes to artistic autonomy. Finally, to answer the part of your question that refers to if there are already evidences of interferences of curatorial freedom, we have noted that Goldin+Senneby have been concerned about the instrumentalization of both public and private financing of art. Without going into details and individual examples, one could nevertheless claim that there are already evidences of such tendencies diminishing the degrees of freedom for curators and art institutions in Sweden.

MB: Do you consider the source of funding as relevant information to be evaluated when accepting commissions or invitations to show at gallery or institution? Do you think that there is enough transparency about this topic?

EW/NB: Do Goldin+Senneby consider the source of funding to be relevant information when accepting commissions or invitations? Put shortly, yes. Do they think there is enough transparency about these topics? Put shortly, no. We are glad that you ask these two questions, as we believe they are fundamental to understanding why this event took place. The opacity of the art markets, and the white-washing of money through acquisition of art, is undoubtedly important themes in the framework of Abstract Possible and in the artwork Abstract Possible: An Investment Portrait. These tendencies can furthermore be said to be relevant both in the specific local Swedish context and in the global art world at large.

MB: For one of the manifestation of the exhibition Abstract Possible - Stockholm Synergies, Maria Lind responded to an invitation to curate a primary exhibition at Bukowskis Auction House, where she developed one of three parts of the show, inviting Goldin+Senneby to devise the framework for it. This gave her the possibility to addressed the topic of private intervention in art funding in a truly straightforward way, aiming at generating a debate on cultural politics, discussing to what extent the need for finding alternative source of funding could compromise the art institution with market strategies. On the contrary, a number of observers pinned their attention on the ambivalence of the project, focussing on the topic of moral responsibility from the side of the curator, being Bukowskis connected to Ludin Oil, a company whose ethical conduct is somewhat dubious. Starting from such a radical example, what strategies do you think could be employed to effectively challenge the attention of media and public authorities on the current status of public funds withdrawal from cultural sector?

EW/NB: Generally speaking there is no simple answer to what kind of strategies there are to be employed. However, some clues can be derived through the literature about how different actors (e.g. artists) respond to- and change institutions. In a well-known article from 1991 Christine Oliver put forward five different strategies commonly applied by actors to alter institutions: Acquiesce, Compromise, Avoid, Defy and Manipulate. On a general level, these different strategies could provide a platform for further understanding of different strategies available to be employed. Returning to the particular case of Abstract Possible, one explicit performative strategy has been to overly affirm the tendencies important to discuss. One intention of the artists has been to stage the auction house of Bukowskis itself as a ready-made to be observed and scrutinized. How successful this unconventional strategy is to highlight the topics brought up in your question might still be too early to answer. One can however note that, when it comes to the specific debate on the ownership of Bukowskis, the primary sale brought an unprecedented critique of this topic, and a debate that is still on-going and more interesting than ever.  




A response form Stefan Wagner, Corner College, Zurich

Silvia Simoncelli: In the past years cultural institutions in all European countries have been profoundly affected by cuts in public spending. This has of course a strong impact on the possibility for producing events, exhibitions, publications and at the same time it makes the impact of private sponsors and patrons on budgets more relevant - and in need to be secured for the coming years. Do you think this growing importance of private funding - in the form of sponsorship or donation - could interfere with curatorial and institution’s choices? To your opinion are there already some evidences of such interferences?

Stefan Wagner: Corner College is a small space for discussions, lectures, screenings, mini exhibitions and other unnecessary happenings based on collaboration. We, a team of six people with different backgrounds, intend to avoid self-institutionalization enforced by time and production modes through different strategies. For example we consider CC as a No-Institution[1] for non[2] academic purposes to deal with non[3] hierarchical structures. This means there is also no designated person responsible for funding. In fact this very unprofessional attitude is caused by unpaid labor. This is the reason we also don’t do long term program scheduling. We are looking for our personals interests, what means to have a space for spontaneous, unused ideas and formats. To bring it to a point the whole structure is based on is the negotiation of the self that might end in a very clear image comparable with a Timpano[4].

Our No-Institution is of course a problem for sponsorship and funding. We don’t have the “odeur” for bohemian nor bourgeois representation and of course not for commercial sponsors nor foundations that expect us to bring them a return on investment. At the moment there are many changes going on in the funding situation in Switzerland. After the cuts in the visual arts by the Federal Office of Culture we are considering closing down due lack of financial support. We don’t see any changes in private funding and will also not make a program that suits to any financial supporter. Art must be free and defended to all ways of economical exploitation. There is a time to say No. And if you are a No-Institution you are not existing anyway. No?

SS: Do you consider the source of funding as relevant information to be evaluated when accepting commissions or invitations to show at gallery or institution? Do you think that there is enough transparency about this topic?

SW: It is important to know the sources. But to be honest in Switzerland all the financial support is somehow linked to black, off shore or tax heaven money – even if it is coming from a city or the state. Transparency can be made by ways of production or a structure of “resistance”.

SS: For one of the manifestation of the exhibition Abstract Possible - Stockholm Synergies, Maria Lind responded to an invitation to curate a primary exhibition at Bukowskis Auction House, where she developed one of three parts of the show, inviting Goldin+Senneby to devise the framework for it. This gave her the possibility to addressed the topic of private intervention in art funding in a truly straightforward way, aiming at generating a debate on cultural politics, discussing to what extent the need for finding alternative source of funding could compromise the art institution with market strategies. On the contrary, a number of observers pinned their attention on the ambivalence of the project, focussing on the topic of moral responsibility from the side of the curator, being Bukowskis connected to Ludin Oil, a company whose ethical conduct is somewhat dubious. Starting from such a radical example, what strategies do you think could be employed to effectively challenge the attention of media and public authorities on the current status of public funds withdrawal from cultural sector?

SW: The only way to work with the current situation is to insist that art is political and therefore there is always a need for a critical debate. Maria Lind seem to have found a good way in treading the complicated situation. It seems that this could be a role model for critical or ethical work with the current funding situation. To make it short: Art should not avoid to get in this ethical trouble – it is somehow its duty to deal with it in a reflected mode.

SS: In 2012 you organised a protest at the Swiss Art Award together with a number or independent art spaces. What was the reason behind? How did this action evolved?

SW: In 2011 the federal parliament introduced a new Cultural Promotion Regulation. The regulation organized the competencies of the Office for Culture and of Pro Helvetia differently than before. But what happened is that prizes for art spaces had been abrogated, which was a hard hit for many self-organized art spaces – even if there were not many prizes awarded. In the end the regulation showed that a structural problem in the support of the visual arts in Switzerland. For example there is almost no support for infrastructures. It seems that self-organized art spaces can exist without paying rents, electricity or heating because funding is always based on temporary projects. This is of course a great joke because semi-permanent structures as well as self-organized spaces provide something that is in great need in the arts. Experiments, debates or opposition here are still possible, compared to the populist duties of institutions as museums or a Kunsthalle.

Another topic that was coming up in the discussion was payment of the artistic or curatorial work. There are no budgets for this work – but for materials, advertisement and the work of the technical staff. In the field of theater for example we have a different situation. Work is considered as a part of artistic production. This needs to be changed in the visual arts as well – especially if we see how our society will be transformed under cognitive capitalism discussed by the French economists Yann Moulier Bouateng. In general Switzerland has developed the visual arts field well – but only in terms of institutions that became highly institutionalized and used the financial support for new architecture or event exhibitions. We call that the lighthouse effect – only a few will profit from a lighted house. The reason for this policy is a competition in the cultural field that is materialized and visible in the Bilbao-Effect. Culture is part of economically driven city development, business strategy and event culture. The increasing number of Biennals, Art Fairs or branding architecture produced by architects like Frank Gehry, Herzog & de Meuron or Zaha Hadid welcomes us now in every Global City. To speak frankly - all the public money for culture goes at the moment into architecture, administration, marketing, insurance fees and transports. The results are Pablo Picasso or Jeff Koons exhibitions to attract a mainstream audience. It is even worse than this. In consequences all the big institutions do not talk about any kind of problems of the current society anymore – what is offered is just an entertainment program for Sunday afternoons. They also disregard their duty to work on art historical purposes. It’s like TV – easy chewable entertainment instead of controversial content. In the end this is populist cultural politics.

As a person who runs a self-organized art space in a team I can’t ignore these facts and we have addressed the problem. On the other hand our situation is crucial. We have almost no lobby in the power game of the art field or in politics. We do not generate representational environment for politicians. That’s no news I know. But somehow it is also frustrating to see that creativity and experiments are only interesting in terms of the so-called creative industry – the last promising branch of economy in Switzerland.

We have collected more than 2000 signatures for our petition in which we ask for one million Swiss francs support. Let’s see what politics makes out of our demands. We hope at least to have addressed some problems of the current art world: celebrity culture, networks for curatorial self-representations, interests of collectors in optimizing their financial interests, communication strategies of the financial industry and insurance companies or city and property developers that are driving the arts into a feudalistic representational system.

Notes
1 The idea of a No-Institution is based on the song  “You Don’t Love Me (No No No)” performed by the female Jamaican singer Dawn Penn in 1967 and 1994. While her song in the 60ies is based on a rocksteady line (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjOgnh0U6vg) she changed it later into a reaggae-style with a slightly higher rhythm (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hy1YF54rZZM). The song clearly shows that good ideas never become old but only new inspired (If you don’t believe what you read here, you might read Paul Feyerabends “Science as Art”) Even though the fact of recycling is a matter of at least western civilizations the lyrics express the desire to adore and neglect the form of an institution at the same time.
2 The term “non” derives etymologically from “No”. So we back on the track. Check not famous
but cool rapper Kool A.D. who sings in “No”  (http://mishkanyc.bandcamp.com/track/no-prod-by-amaze-88)

No, no, no no, no no
No, no, no no, no no
No no, no, no no, no no
No, no, no no, no no

Check it out

No, no, no no, no no
No, no, no no, no no
No, no, no no, no no

Kool A.D. makes a clear difference in the use of “No” based on syntactical structure. Therefore we can say that a “No” is a “No” but also not. No?  
3 Yes again non. Check this, it’s oldie but goldie yeah: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7yD8bFtuA8
4 A Timpano is a traditional Italian menu performed in the movie „Big Night“. It contains Spaghetti, meat balls, eggs, tomato sauce, ham and other food. You might consider this recipe as a menu made out of food rests from a week. Indeed it could be used as recycling of the rests of a week where we back again on footnote 1. You also can have a look
on the impact of Timpanos if you go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hn8_eKy3PdE  


Tommy Støckel (*1972 in Copenhagen, Denmark). Lives and works in Berlin. Graduated from The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Art, in Copenhagen. Among the exhibitions in which he participated are: the solo show Ten Transports That Shaped The Work, at Jacob’s Island Gallery (2013), in London; Conductivity, at Location One (2012), in New York; Abstract Possible – The Stockholm Synergies, at Tensta Konsthall and Bukowskis (2012), in Stockholm; Freilassung, at Museum Lichtenberg (2012), and the solo show When Pasts and Futures Meet, at The Nordic Embassies (2008), both in Berlin; Abstract Possible – The Zürich Test (with Wade Guyton), at White Space (2011), in Zürich; Dystopia, at CAPC Museum of Contemporary Art (2011), in Bordeaux; the solo show 3 Sculptures, at SMART Project Space (2010), in Amsterdam; the solo show Tommy Støckel’s Art of Tomorrow, at Arnolfini (2009), in Bristol; and the solo show From Here to Then and back again, at Kunstverein Langenhagen (2008), in Langenhagen.

 

Liam Gillick is an artist based in New York. Solo exhibitions include The Wood Way, Whitechapel Gallery, London, 2002; A short text on the possibility of creating an economy of equivalence, Palais de Tokyo, 2005 and the retrospective project Three Perspectives and a short scenario, Witte de With, Rotterdam, Kunsthalle Zurich, Kunstverein, München and the MCA, Chicago, 2008-2010. He was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2002 and the Vincent Award at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam in 2008. Many public commissions and projects include the Home Office in London (2005) and the Dynamica Building in Guadalajara, Mexico (2009). In 2006 he was a central figure in the free art school project unitednationsplaza in Berlin that travelled to Mexico City and New York. Liam Gillick has published a number of texts that function in parallel to his artwork. Proxemics (Selected writing 1988-2006) JRP-Ringier was published in 2007 alongside the monograph Factories in the Snow by Lilian Haberer, JRP-Ringier. A critical reader titled Meaning Liam Gillick, was published by MIT Press (2009). Liam Gillick was selected to represent Germany for the 53rd Venice Biennale in 2009. He has taught at Columbia University in New York since 1997 and the Centre for Curatorial Studies at Bard College since 2008.

 

Goldin+Senneby (since 2004) is a framework for collaboration set up by artists Simon Goldin and Jakob Senneby; exploring juridical, financial and spatial constructs through notions of the performative and the virtual. Their collaboration started with The Port (2004-06); acting in an emerging public sphere constructed through digital code. In their more recent body of work, known as Headless (2007 -), they approach the sphere of offshore finance, and its production of virtual space through legal code. Looking at strategies of withdrawal and secrecy, they trace an offshore company on the Bahamas called Headless Ltd. A ghostwritten detective novel continuously narrates their investigations.  Since 2010 their work has focused on The Nordenskiöld Model, an experiment in theatrical finance, in which they attempt to (re)enact the anarcho-alchemical scheme of 18th century alchemist August Nordenskiöld on the financial markets of today.


Stefan Wagner (*1973) was trained as a railway clerk and decided in the late 90s to study art history, film studies and philosophy at University of Zurich. He worked in several free projects as a curator - even if he is not familiar or pleasant with the implications of the current concept  of a “curator”. Working in the highly competitive art world with its precarious working conditions he believes more in the idea of collaborations than self representation (such as the concept of curators does). In 2009 Stefan joined the Corner College team (www.corner-college.com). Beside this engagement he teaches in art schools (Zurich, Geneva), writes for journals, magazines and catalogues, works in a national public art research project and initiated with group of people a federal petition (http://charta2016.blogspot.ch) for better working conditions in self-organized art spaces in Switzerland.


Melanie Büchel (1977) is Head of Communications and Marketing at Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein (LI). Prior to that, from 2003 until 2011 she has been Assistant of the Communication Department at Kunsthaus Bregenz (A). She studied Communications at Università della Svizzera Italiana, Lugano (CH) and Freie Universität Berlin (D) and graduated in 2003. In addition she completed the Postgraduate Programme in Curating at Zürcher Hochschule der Künste (ZHdK) in 2012. As well she is engaged over the years in several artistic projects. She exhibits her photography work and furthermore she is performing as dancer collectively with the dance company «Tanzufer» (A) in the field of (dance) improvisation.


Marina Lopes Coelho was born in São Paulo, where she was trained in graphic design and photography. Recently, she has graduated at the MAS in Curating Contemporary Art at the ZHDK in Zurich. She works as a freelancer photographer and curator in Zurich and São Paulo. She is the founder and curator of the independent art space Kunsthalle São Paulo.


Silvia Simoncelli is an art historian and independent curator based in Milan and Zurich. She is professor
at Brera Art Academy and course leader of the Advanced Course in Contemporary Art Markets, NABA in Milan.
She lectures regularly for the Postgraduate Programme in Curating at ZHdK, Zurich. Her research interests comprise the relation between art and economy, institutional critique and art in public space. Recent projects and participations include:
Artists and rights in contemporary art, symposium, Artissima, Turin; Visions of Labour, exhibition, Kunshalle Sao Paulo; Who is Afraid of the Public, symposium (together with Dorothee Richter and Elke Krasny), ICI, London, 2013; Performing Structures, exhibition, Wascherei, Kunstverein Zurich, 2012; Deimantas Narkevicius, Revisiting Utopia, special program, Winterthur Short Film Festival, 2011.

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Issue 20

Total Abstraction

Amber Hickey, Dorothee Richter, Lindsey V. Sharman, Silvia Simoncelli

Amber Hickey and Lindsey Sharman

Meyer Shapiro

Liam Gillick

Marina Lopes Coelho

Silvia Simoncelli

Damian Navarro with an introduction by Véronique Ribordy

Melanie Buchel, Marina Lopes Coelho and Silvia Simoncelli