New (self) advertisements by
AES+F., åyr, Peter Aerschmann, Beni Bischof, Maja Cule, Critical Art Ensemble, DullTech™, Karl Holmqvist, Marcus Kraft, Juan López, Meier & Franz, Modeling Agency (Janus Hom & Martyn Reynolds), Helena Hernández and Rafael Koller aka The Niñxs, Sarah Ortmeyer, Angki Purbandono, PUNK IS DADA, Rosalie Schweiker & Maria Guggenbichler, Stipan Tadic, Britta Thie, Valentin Hauri, Valerio Pellegrini, Eva Vuillemin + Ruth Erdt. 

 
Ephemeral production by artists occurred beginning in the ‘60s and ‘70s—suddenly all formats of exhibition making, of the arts, of the distribution and production of invitation cards, press releases, inserts, and other forms of artistic (self-)marketing became part of the reorganization of the art field. From my perspective, this reformulation was embedded in a radical institutional critique. Ephemera, editions, and invitation cards were seen as specific interesting objects; they did not only offer a space of self- representation, they also made art available to everybody. So this was meant as a critique of power relations and was part of a re-evaluation of artistic paradigms, but also of value systems and hierarchies. It is in this light that historically ephemeral products started to circulate. Ironically, through the consecration of these new products as art, the “junk got value” as Emmett Williams muttered, somewhat disappointedly.

From its revolutionary beginnings to its acceptance as a new genre, this kind of work is endangered today. Invitation cards are vanishing; they are being replaced by email, Facebook invitations, Twitter, and other fluid digital news. So in a way we started from that point to work on a project to accompany the exhibition They printed it! at Kunsthalle Zurich, which deals with historical ephemera. This mirrored in a way our own experience with archival material—when we (Barnaby Drabble and I) started to collect material on Curatorial Practice, we assembled a body of catalogues, printed matter, invitation cards, and DVDs. All of which is now situated in the library of the ZHdK. But the newest project, the web journal OnCurating.org (publisher Dorothee Richter, co-publisher Michael Birchall, designer Ronald Kolb) is related to digital space. The possibility of sharing and to reaching out  inter­nationally is what interests us. So in a way we would like to keep the message but change the form.

We see this as a logical development from a paper collection to an archive in digital space which is still connected to paper, so we—students and lecturers at the Postgraduate Programme in Curating of the Zurich University of the Arts—started to ask artists and designers whose work we liked and admired and whose capacity to play with the notion of (self-)advertisement reflected in contemporary media had attracted our attention for some time, and we asked these artists to contribute to this issue of On Curating. The written content of this issue is closely related to a symposium that took place at Kunsthalle Zurich and was delivered by Barbara Preisig; the articles and interviews for this journal were assembled by Maja Wismer. We, which means in this case the students of the Postgraduate Programme in Curating at ZHdK, who are individuals with their own varied professional backgrounds in the arts: Debora Mona Liem Adinegoro, Lisa Lee Benjamin, Susanne Bernhard Gross, Mariana Bonilla Rojas, Frédéric Bron, Emilie Bruner, Francesca Brusa, Hana Cisar, Matthias Gasser, Michelle Geser Lunau, Matthew Hanson, Cindy Hertach, Raphael Karrer, Katya Knoll, Thomas Lindenmann, Barbara Marbot, Cordelia Oppliger, Diana Padilla, Morgane Paillard, Ludovica Parenti, Paloma Rayon, Silvia Savoldi, Teresa Seabra, Franziska Stern Preisig, Makiko Takahashi, Petra Tomljanovic, Katrijn Van Damme, Simon Marius Zehnder; and we, as lecturers, Ronald Kolb and I, discussed and invited the specific artistic positions. As always, we see the working group of students as a value as such—knowledge from different cultural and professional backgrounds comes together to be confronted, to mingle, to struggle, and to come to new conclusions. And we are most grateful that the artists accepted our offer to use the space of one page as a (self-)advertisement.

As we see it, contemporary artists are well aware of the even more pressing need of self-advertisement in times of immaterial labor in post-Fordism and reacted ironically, intelligently, surprisingly, cool and uncool. Now the ads or inserts will travel to unknown places and our readers will be curators the moment they take the opportunity to print out pages of inspiring contemporary artistic ephemeral practice and put them into private homes, public spaces, and collections, as well as having the advert as part of this issue.

ccV TRE Fluxus Magazine, 1964–1970 (9 issues) Reprint at Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Archiv Sohm, photographer Dorothee Richter

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AES+F Group was originally formed in 1987 by conceptual architects Tatiana Arzamasova and Lev Evzovich and multi-disciplinary designer Evgeny Svyatsky. Exhibiting abroad since 1989, the group expanded its personnel and name with the addition of photographer Vladimir Fridkes in 1995. AES+F’s recent work develops at the intersection of photography, video, and digital technologies, although it is nurtured by a persistent interest in more traditional media – sculpture especially, but also painting, drawing, and architecture. Deploying a sophisticated, poetic dialogue among these media, and plumbing the depths of art history and other cultural canons, AES+F’s grand visual narratives explore the values, vices, and conflicts of contemporary culture in the global sphere. For more than a decade, works by AES+F have been showcased in signature festivals and biennial exhibitions of contemporary art around the world, including – in addition to Moscow and Venice – those of Adelaide, Gwangju, Havana, Helsinki, Istanbul, Kiev, Lille, Lyon, Melbourne, St-Moritz, Sydney, Taipei, Tirana, and Toronto. Their work has also been featured in influential events devoted to new media – such as ARS Electronica (Linz), Mediacity Seoul, and Video Zone (Tel Aviv) – and photography – such as FotoFest (Houston), Les Rencontres d’Arles, and Moscow’s Photo Biennial.


Page 78
åyr is an art collective based in London whose work focuses on interiors, domesticity, internet and the city. It was co founded by Fabrizio Ballabio, Alessandro Bava, Luis Ortega Govela, and Octave Perrault. Recent exhibitions include Comfort Zone at the Frieze Art Fair in London; Newcomers at Project Native informant, London; Tower at the Ibid Gallery, London; Aspects of Change at Bold Tendencies, London; Welcome You’re in the Right Place at the Fondazione Sandretto Re Redbaudengo, Turin; The Easter Show, Weekends, Denmark; AIRBNB Pavillion, Venice Architecture Biennale, Italy. Texts include My flip phone brought me here, Volume; Catfish homes, Rhizome and home 2014, Fulcrum.


Page 80
Peter Aerschmann was born in Fribourg (Switzerland) in 1969. He now lives and works in Bern. He is the initiator, co-founder and board member of PROGR foundation
Bern and Residency.ch. Peter Aerschmann is an artist in the fields of video and interactive computer installations. His work has been exhibited at galleries, festivals, and museums internationally including Palazzo Grassi Venice; The National Art Museum of China, Beijing; The Musée d’Art Moderne Luxembourg; Moscow House of Photography; Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris; Berlinische Galerie - Landesmuseum für Moderne Kunst, Berlin; Center of Contemporary Art Fri-Art, Fribourg/CH; The Margulies Collection at the Warehouse, Miami; ZKM - Museum of Contemporary Art, Karlsruhe/D; Kunstverein Freiburg/D; Kunst Museum Bern; The Center for Contemporary Images, Geneva. Aerschmann’s artwork has been acquired by institutions and collections including The François Pinault Foundation, Venice; The Martin Z. Margulies Collection, Miami; Credit Suisse Collection Zürich; Roche Art Collection; Kunstmuseum Thun, The Carola and Günther Ketterer-Ertle Collection; Kunstmuseum Bern and the Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris; Awards include the Swiss Art Award 2002, the Aeschlimann-Corti Award 2006 and residencies in New York, Berlin and South Africa.

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Beni Bischof was born in Widnau in 1976 and now lives and works as an artist in
St Gallen, Switzerland. His works are unruly and intuitive. His spontaneous thoughts on social and political issues are translated into quirky and witty word and character messages and have a disarming directness. Beni Bischof’s eruptive creative urge is expressed in his drawings, collages, paintings, sculptures and installations have been shown over the last decade throughout Switzerland and Europe. He leads us to question our preconceived ideas of what things mean and how they are used. Well known for his Handicapped Cars Series, sculptures covered in spray paint and glued on objects have aesthetic, which range from the attractive to the disturbingly bizarre. He has had solo exhibitions at Cabaret Voltaire, Zürich; Galerie Sommer & Kohl, Berlin; Galerie Rupert Pfab, Dusseldorf; and Fumetto
in Luzern.


Page 91
Maja Cule (born in 1984, Rijeka) lives in New York. In her video works, Cule explores social relations and constructs the scenarios from which the image is formed, encompassing both performance and image production. Cule participated in group exhibitions at Mini /Goethe-Institut, New York, Andreas Huber Gallery, Vienna, Hessel Museum in New York and in Palazzo Peckham at the 55th Venice Biennale. She has had solo exhibitions at Arcadia Missa, London; Stadium Gallery, New York (together with Dora Budor); CEO Gallery, Malmö.


Page 74
Critical Art Ensemble is a collective of five tactical media practitioners of various specializations including computer graphics and web design, film/video, photography, text art, book art, and performance. Formed in 1987, CAE’s focus has been on the exploration of the intersections between art, critical theory, technology, and political activism. The group has exhibited and performed at diverse venues internationally, ranging from the street, to the museum, to the internet. Museum exhibitions include the Whitney Museum and the New Museum in NYC; the Corcoran Museum in Washington D.C.; the ICA, London; the MCA, Chicago; Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt; Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; and the London Museum of Natural History. The collective has also written 7 books, and its writings have been translated into 18 languages.


Page 90
DullTech™ is a hardware startup and performative artwork concurrently. Created as a form of radical corporate publishing in an age of high efficiency capitalism, it creates technologically simplified or ‘dull’ products in order to distribute artworks in tribute to the late Ray Johnson. Initiated during a 2012 OCAT residency in Shenzhen China, with the company’s motto ‘neoliberal startup lulz’, most products relate to production processes in the artist’s studio. The company has exhibited in the Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam, HMKV Dortmund, Transmediale Berlin and the White Building in London.


Page 77
Karl Holmqvist was born in 1964 in Västerâs Sweden. He now lives and works in Berlin.  He is well known for his provocative text based art which in the form poetry readings, installations and sculptures. For him poetry is an invisible art and the act of writing is always connected and contains a sense of intimacy. He has exhibited, intervened and published world­-wide for over two decades. His latest exhibitions include HURRY UP. CHASE IT DOWN, Sismografo, Porto, Portugal, MEN ARE WOMEN, Freedman Fitzpatrick, Los Angeles, HERE’S GOOD LOOKING @U, KID, Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, New York and Y.O.Y.O.G.A.L.A.N.D., with Ei Arakawa, Overduin & Co., Los Angeles.


Page 72
Marcus Kraft was born in 1980. He is an art director, designer and artist; Marcus Kraft studied graphic design in Switzerland, Germany and USA. In 2011, he opened his studio marcus kraft, where he realizes projects for commercial and cultural clients as well as self-initiated projects. The emphasis is on elaborate design concepts, editorial projects all that have a typographical quality. Most are multi disciplinary ventures and importance is placed on collaboration with photographers, architects, artists, etc., from a reliable network. studio marcus kraft’s work has been frequently exhibited and published. In 2012, his inter­national bestseller ‹Don’t Eat the Yellow Snow› was published and also part of Jungkunst 2012. Kraft is also the founder and curator of ‹Tableau Zürich›, a public art space in Zürich.


Page 81
Juan López was born in Cantabria, Spain in 1979. He graduated with a Fine Arts Degree from UCLM, Cuenca, Spain. His work has been exhibited in galleries, art centers, fairs and national and international museums, most notably: La Casa Encendida, Madrid; Nogueras Blanchard Gallery, Barcelona; La Fábrica Gallery, Madrid; MUSAC, León; Laboral Art Center, Gijón; Joan Miró Fundation, Barcelona; Artium, Vitoria; La Panera, Lleida; MARCO Vigo, Galicia; Liste Art Fair, Basel; O.K. Centrum Linz, Austria; National Museum of the Republic, Brasilia; Tokyo Wonder Site, Japan; Art Basel Miami Beach, USA or Den Frie, Copenhagen. He has also won many awards and grants such as Hegnspl-Award Byens Hegn, Region 0 Video Art Festival New York, Generaciones 2013 Art Award, CAM Grant of Art, ABC Art Award, Altadis Art Award, Marcelino Botín Foundation Grant, Government of Cantabria Art Prize o INJUVE Art Show.


Page 88
Meier & Franz
Michael Meier & Christoph Franz have been working since 2009 as an artist duo. Places and the social, historical and political forces that shape them are the starting point for most of their works. In thorough processes of research, the duo appropriates these places and refers to them with temporary installations ranging between sculpture, architecture and image. They live and work in Zürich.
In 2012 they received the Promotion Prize of the Canton of Zürich and the Kiefer Hablitzel Prize, and in 2013 the Nationale Suisse Art Prize.
Michael Meier was born in 1980 in Wiener Neustadt, Austria - lives and works in Zürich, Switzerland. He has a Master of Arts in Fine Arts, from the Zürich University of the Arts and a Bachelor of Arts in space & design strategies, from University of the Arts Linz.
Christoph Franz was born 1982 in Singen, Germany - lives and works in Zürich, Switzerland. He has a Master of Arts in Fine Arts, Zürich University of the Arts, and a Bachelor of Arts in space & design strategies, University of the Arts Linz.


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MODELING AGENCY:  Curated by Martyn Reynolds and Janus Høm
Martyn Reynolds is a New Zealand born artist living in Vienna, a student at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste, Vienna. His art practice is based on questioning how we objectify our visual environment. Taking conventional forms and established visual codes Reynolds re-contextualizes these to dislodge fixed meanings and open new indeterminate potentialities. An important aspect of his work is the bodily experience of space, its relationship to the production of knowledge, and understanding it as metaphor. Recent projects were shown at La Salle de Bains, Lyon; Shanaynay, Paris; Gloria Knight, Auckland and IMO, Copenhagen. In 2016 he will show at Rogaland Kunstsenter, Stavanger.
Janus Høm was born in 1985. He studied at The Royal Danish Art Academy, Akademie der Bildende Künste Wien, and Universität der Künste Berlin. His recent exhibitions include “Janus Høm” at 1857, Oslo; Palazzo Peckham, 55. Venice Biennale;  “Endless Scroll Deregulated Generation” at IMO, Copenhagen; “Modeling Agency” at 68m2, Copenhagen
Janus Høm is running TOVES and has previously run the galleries Perfect Present (2013) and Pleasant (2012).


Page 86
THE NIÑX: Helena Hernández and Rafael Koller aka The Niñx
Helena Hernández and Rafael Koller partnered in 2014. As the Niñx, the aim
is to discuss, analyze and share everyday experiences. The duo sees their daily activities as opportunities to question the world we live in. Rafael and Helena are represented by two stick- figures and their whole world is in front of them. They see the world in a similar way and love the same activity: collective drawing. They are playful, joyful and are surprised by their surroundings. These are the reasons they call themselves “The Niñxs” (“The Kids”.
The “x” is the Spanish way of gender equality.)
Helena Hernández was born in 1987. She is a visual artist. She carried out her studies of Visual Arts at the National School of Plastic Arts ENAP, UNAM in Mexico and finished her Master studies in Art in Public Spheres at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts (HSLU D&K) in Switzerland with an Erasmus semester in Vienna, Austria at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste.
Rafael Koller was born in 1983. He is an Illustrator. He studied a Bachelor of Arts in Design with specialization in Scientific Illustration at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts (HSLU D&K) and a Master of Arts in Design focused on Fictional Illustration.


Page 85
Sarah Ortmeyer was born in 1980 and is a graduate of Städelschule, Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste, Frankfurt. In the last year her work has been featured in Artforum, Frieze Magazine, Kunstzeitung, The New York Times and The New Yorker amongst others. She has published on a range of subjects, including: Chess and Working Class, Springer, Vienna; The Chasing of Shiloh Jolie-Pitt as a Boy, Cura, Rome; The Wittgenstein House, Grüner + Jahr, Hamburg; The Allies WWII, Verlag für Moderne Kunst, Nürnberg; and Volvo Car Repair ,Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, Cologne. Select exhibitions include Museum for Contemporary Art, Ghent; Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw; Palais de Tokyo, Paris; MAK Center, Los Angeles; KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin; Luma Foundation, Zürich; Wittgenstein House, Vienna; Stedelijk Museum Bureau, Amsterdam; Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt; Gesellschaft für aktuelle Kunst, Bremen; Marres Centre for Contemporary Culture, Maastricht; Swiss Institute, New York.


Page 75
Angki Purbandono born in 1971 in Kendal now works and lives in Yogyakarta. He is a leading Indonesian contemporary photographer. Angki constantly challenges general perceptions in the field of photography. He radically brings into question the photographer’s use of a camera, in order to take a picture of an object. These reflections led Angki, to the development of scanography, a breakthrough technique, by which he substitutes the camera with a scanner.  Angki’s signature style of scanography, gained major recognition after the exhibition of “Space and Shadows – Contemporary Art from Southeast Asia” at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Germany in 2005. Since the early 2000’s, Angki has participated in many exhibitions – locally and abroad. In 2002, Angki, together with a group of fellow photographers, initiated Ruang MES 56, a non­profit institution that focused on the development of art photography in Indonesia and Southeast Asia.


Page 93
PUNK IS DADA is “futuristically political”, [i.e. unrealistic] proposing the contents and makings as a form of post-political entertainment. The content examines other virtual egos and experiences allowing the works to become a dematerialized hybrid of modern day culture. PUNK IS DADA has a consumptive response to civil society, often the “readymade” sits in the works a recognizable tool of identity yet PUNK IS DADA sees this as a compression artifact (or artefact) of Modern-western identity. She exploits the ease of these resources to break down social, political, cultural and aesthetic dimensions. She often creates work with a certain cosmic pessimism allowing problems of the non-human world to be explored through her works ultimate negation of form as anti form is her ideal structure. Yet she declares herself an untrend; PUNK IS DADA assumes the visage of poverty in her anti-nostalgic dystopia she is industrial by nature and de-gendered by style.


Page 79
Maria Guggenbichler (*1952 in Zürich, CH) und Rosalie Schweiker (*1946 in Zürich, CH) arbeiten seit 1979 zusammen an Installationen und Arbeiten im öffentlichen Raum​. In den meist dialektisch konzipierten Arbeiten setzen sie sich häufig mit den Klischees und Banalitäten des Alltags, der Kunst und der Erwartungshaltung des Publikums auseinander.


Page 84
Stipan Tadic was born in 1986 and is a painter from Croatia, Zagreb. In 2011, He made his MA in painting on the Academy of fine Arts in Zagreb. Since then he has been a freelance artist/painter with a wide range of focus, from traditional painting, murals, comic books etc. Every artwork comes thru observation of life where he senses tension of a specific moment. Four years ago, Stipan initiated a project, which is based on daily self-portraying in the context of specific situations, which he encounters. Stylistically and narratively, drawings depict details of his life from a perspective of a young artist after finishing Art School. Focus is on subjectivity through daily events, scoping from emotions and preoccupations, travels, accident and artistic reasoning. They are published daily on Facebook, which erases the limits between private and public.


Page 76
Britta Thie, born 1987 in Minden Westfalen in northern Germany, studied fine arts at the Universität der Künste in Berlin in the class of Hito Steyerl, where she was supported by the Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes.  She now is a Berlin-based artist whose work engages emerging technologies and the relationship between self and digital representation. She is also a professional model who has worked with brands including Louis Vuitton, Jil Sander, and Eckhaus Latta; in her practice Thie often depicts her own body to examine the meaning of the figurative image in a product-driven society. In recent years she has shown work at Anthology Film Archives, New York; Mumok, Vienna; Auto Italia, London; and Kunst-Werke Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin. This spring she opened her first solo-show at the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt’s new curatorial platform ‘Digital Art Zone’ with her 6-part web–series “Translantics”.


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Valentin Hauri
Born 1954 Baden, Switzerland
lives and works in Zurich
www.valentinhauri.ch


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Valerio Pellegrini was born in Milan in 1987, with a strong bent for illustration from a young age. He is a practicing communication designer, specifically, dealing with data visualization, graphic design, illustration and editorial design. Valerio gives a structure to the data, identifying patterns and highlighting the seemingly invisible though significant relationships, to design eye-catching graphics that manage to convey forcefully the contents. He collaborates with research laboratories and studios in Italy and is a freelancer for the United States, Great Britain, Holland, Japan and China. He was awarded best individual contribution for the Kantar-Information is Beautiful Award in 2013. And third prize for the Malofiej Awards for his Geopolitica della condivisione (Geopolitics of sharing) info graphics in 2012.


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Eva Vuillemin & Ruth Erdt
The posters were created and anonymously pasted for an exhibition by Ruth Erdt and Eva Vuillemin. The collaborative work shows self-portraits, staged by both artists in the same age between 16 and 22. “CYANOTYPES 16–22” was published in this context. Eva is Ruth’s daughter.
www.erdt.ch
www.evavuillemin.net