Curators involved in the exhibition series "Demanding Supplies" are Julia Moritz, Valérie Knoll, Hannes Loichinger, Magnus Schäfer, and Cornelia Kastelan.
Following a long critical tradition, the art market has been understood as art's contaminating "other". More recently, there have been increasing attempts to subject the dichotomy between art and economy to a more differentiated analysis: the art market appears as a highly ritualized, segmented system marked by complex social processes. Whereas it resembles other markets in some respects, its unique characteristics include intransparency, as well as distinctive value regimes and hidden symbolic commodification processes in the interplay of a variety of actants. There is a widespread awareness of these conditions in the artistic field, and many artists are still critically investigating the intricacies of that very market—without falling into euphoria or phobia. In the thicket of an accelerated art market that is perceived as diffuse, explicit positioning seems essential for reflecting on one's own involvement.
In 2011, the Kunstraum of Leuphana University of Lüneburg, Germany, has devoted three exhibition projects entitled "Demanding Supplies – Nachfragende Angebote" to this exploration of art and its markets. In the first phase, "Enabling Space,"
nOffice (Markus Miessen, Ralf Pflugfelder, Magnus Nilsson) developed a new spatial structure and thereby questioned how the conditions of art's presentation predetermine its ambivalent relationship to its market.
The second phase, "Trans-Actions," developed in collaboration with Halle für Kunst Lüneburg and
Magnus Schäfer, was a double exhibition focusing on a phenomenon of the most recent history of art. Taking the example of the New York gallery "American Fine Arts, Co."—founded by
Colin de Land (1955–2003)—the exhibition looked at the merging of commercial and artistic practices generally considered at odds with each other. Exhibition participants included
Art Club 2000, Patterson Beckwith, J. St. Bernard, Stephan Dillemuth, John Dogg, Loretta Fahrenholz, Karl Holmqvist, Jackie McAllister, James Meyer, and
Phillip Zach. Besides these reflexions on the mechanisms of art markets, artist
Carissa Rodriguezhighlighted the problem of professional positioning in the art world in her installation "Secrétaires". The works of three of these artists are kept for the current exhibition.
The third phase, "Besides Reproduction," will now present four artistic positions that shift attention to the art market under varying premises:
Maria Eichhorn and
Daniel Buren are joined by
Diego Castro and
Katja Staats, the two 2011 winners of the Daniel Frese Prize for Contemporary Art, which was awarded for the first time this year.
Upcoming Dates
Lecture by
Miya Yoshida (Berlin)
Thu 27/10/2011, 6 pm
"Processing Worlds, Processing Back Word. Thinking Through The Act of Curating"
Kunstraum of Leuphana University of Lüneburg, Campus Building 5, Room 326
Workshop with
Maria Eichhorn (Berlin)
Sat 5/11/2011, 11 am–2 pm
Kunstraum of Leuphana University of Lüneburg, Campus Building 5, Room 326
Panel discussion "Social Media – Social Revolts?" with
Graham Harwood (Goldsmiths, University of London),
Anne Roth (blogger and journalist, Berlin) and
Aalam Wassef (media artist and activist, Cairo)
Tues 15/11/2011, 7–9 pm
Kunstraum of Leuphana University of Lüneburg, Campus Building 5, Room 326
Symposium "Degrees of Freedom. Art Programs at Universities"
Wed 16/11/, 6 pm–Fri 18/11/2011, 1 pm
Leuphana University of Lüneburg, Campus
Participants include:
Jens Hauser (Ruhr Universität Bochum),
Irène Hediger (Swiss Artists-in-Labs),
Sally Jane Norman (Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts, University of Sussex),
Sarat Maharaj (Lund University, tbc),
Patricia Falguière (EHESS Paris, tbc), a.o.
Reservation required: Marc S. Riedel,
marc.riedel@leuphana.de
www.leuphana.de/lap
Workshop "Passion Investments in Art Markets"
Fri 25/11/2011, 2–7 pm
Lectures by
Olav Velthuis (University of Amsterdam):
"A Market in Stasis. Why Contemporary Art is Always Sold in the Same Way"
Larissa Buchholz (Columbia University New York): "The Relationship of Symbolic and Economic Value in the Global Art Field. Challenging the Convergence Thesis"
Massimiliano Nuccio (Leuphana University of Lüneburg, Bocconi University Milan):
"The Art Market between (Creative) Economy and Economics"
Christoph Behnke, Steffen Rudolph, Ulf Wuggenig (Leuphana University of Lüneburg): "Art Market Research – Some Non-Obvious Results"
Kunstraum of Leuphana University of Lüneburg, Campus Building 5, Room 326
"New Patrons in Hamburg" with
Harun Farocki, Nina Möntmann, Vera Tollmann
Fri 16/12/2011, 6 pm
Kunstraum of Leuphana University of Lüneburg, Campus Building 5, Room 326
The exhibition "Demanding Supplies" is based on a cooperation of the Kunstraum of the Leuphana University of Lüneburg with the project KIM. This project is part of the Innovation-Incubator Lüneburg, which is an EU major project, financed by the European Regional Development Fund and co-funded by the federal state of Lower Saxony.
Contact
Kunstraum of Leuphana University of Lüneburg
Campus Hall 25
Scharnhorststrasse 1
D – 21335 Lüneburg
www.kunstraum.uni-lueneburg.de
Open: Tues–Thurs, Sat 2–6 pm
KIM
Innovation-Incubator
Leuphana University of Lüneburg
Project Office Building 5, 4th Floor
Scharnhorststrasse 1
D-21335 Lüneburg
www.kim-art.net