Category: curating / project

(translation: “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?”)
Participatory project / video / installation, 2014
@ PCK-Kunst 2.0: Neue Sicht auf alte Bilder, Kunstverein Schwedt

In 2014, I was invited to the city of Schwedt to have a look at some of the “old pictures” in the collection of the former East German state-run oil processing plant VEB PCK Schwedt (now PCK Raffinerie GmbH Schwedt). In the GDR era, the company collected and commissioned several hundred artworks, which were regularly exhibited. Since 1989, however, the art collection has not been shown to the general public.

I asked myself who else should be able to see these “old pictures”? With my project Sag mir wo die Blumen sind (Where Have All the Flowers Gone), I came up with a way of giving viewers – who’d normally have no way to see the collection – an insider’s look at the some of the works. I worked with young people in Schwedt to create a guided tour of selected artworks from the PCK art collection and an accompanying video, both specially designed for the blind and visually impaired.

“Imagine you’re standing in front of this artwork and you can’t see it. What would you like to know about it?” Taking the titles of the works as a starting point, questions were asked for each work. Answering these questions was the task I undertook with my young team in Schwedt: Enrico Frontzek, Mirjam Bunn and Angie Winkel worked with me to create vivid and thought-provoking descriptions of the selected artworks. Viola Brocker from Schwedt spoke both the questions and the answers for the video.

Out of a total of 23 works selected for the guided tour, eleven were presented in a video piece that was presented along with sketches and Braille descriptions of the artworks in an installation in the Kunstverein Schwedt. The tour, offered to members of the city’s Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired, began in the exhibition and continued on to the facilities of the PCK refinery. There the visitors not only had the opportunity to touch artworks, but were able to listen to the young artists’ descriptions of the works included on the tour.

(translation: “Since I First Saw Him – Reflections on Robert Schumann in the Arts”)
Curating / project & photo / video / installation, 2010
Kunstsammlungen Zwickau

On the occasion of Robert Schumann’s 200th birthday in 2010, the Kunstsammlungen Zwickau invited me to create an exhibition dealing with the reception of Robert Schumann and his music in the visual arts from the 19th to the 21st century. Museum Director Petra Lewey wanted an exhibition that would “attempt to approach the composer not only on a theoretical level, i.e., a cultural history overview of reception, but rather using contemporary visual arts strategies as well, to allow visitors to experience Robert Schumann and his music – both visually and emotionally – in a new way.”

For Seit ich ihn gesehen – Reflexionen zu Robert Schumann in der Kunst (documented in the exhibition catalogue of the same name), I brought together ca. 250 very heterogeneous artifacts, including artworks from various collections as well as widely varying interpretations of Schumann and his work from the worlds of art, literature, film, design and merchandising. I organized these into seven thematically linked areas, and often juxtaposed them with works of my own that I created for the exhibition. It was important to me not only to document Schumann’s impact on the art world, but to trace the path of his influence up to the present moment.

I worked with various people (incl. music historians, collectors, young musicians, music enthusiasts, school children, students) to create a series of new artworks for the exhibition. I created several photo and video works, including eight music videos for love songs by Schumann (produced in collaboration with high school students), as well as room installations, a poster competition (called “Robert!”, a fictitious image campaign for Robert Schumann), and interactive digital works (incl. a collection of YouTube videos with a Flash-based navigation). Several of these works were acquired by the Robert Schumann Haus in Zwickau after the exhibition and are now on permanent display there.

A dynamic program of events offered museum visitors many opportunities to get involved: e.g. the “Tango Schumann” workshop conducted by the London performance artist Anthony Howell and the South African dancer Lindi Köpke (see Tango Schumann).

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(translation: “My Dear Swan! An Interplay with Richard Wagner’s ‘Lohengrin'”)
Curating / project & video / installation, 2012
Collaboration with Elli, Kitty, Lena, Lilly, Lizzy & Wiebke
Richard-Wagner-Stätten Graupa

In 2011, I was asked to create an exhibition for the Richard-Wagner-Stätten Graupa, one which would reach a broad audience and would make people aware of their new exhibition space – the Jagdschloss – in Graupa. I decided to focus on just one of Richard Wagner’s operas – the opera ‘Lohengrin’, which Wagner worked on in Graupa in the summer of 1846 – and to work with local schoolgirls to create a video about this opera for the exhibition.

Showing scenes of our working process, the video Mein lieber Schwan! Ein Wechselspiel mit Richard Wagners ‘Lohengrin’ depicts – in an entertaining and poetic way – the girls’ attempt to understand and to feel a connection to Wagner’s opera, and invites the viewers to do the same.

The project began with a workshop presented in cooperation with the Semperoper Junge Szene in Dresden. Students from two different high schools in Pirna were invited to participate. Afterwards, six of those students went on to work with me on this project.

During the rehearsals and filming sessions in the Lohengrinhaus / Richard-Wagner-Stätten Graupa, we worked together to develop various playful and imaginative responses to the opera, alternating between simply reacting to the music and following the mental images inspired by Wagner’s music and the tale of a knight called Lohengrin. I then used the footage of these sessions to present the story of this creative process.

We focused on the scene near the end of the first act of Wagner’s opera, when the knight makes his appearance: Lohengrin has come to Brabant to defend the young maiden Elsa, who has been accused of a crime. Not only is the scene thrilling, both musically and dramatically, but it’s one that has always delighted audiences. It has also always presented a challenge for each new stage production. For Lohengrin doesn’t simply come onto the stage, but rather enters the scene in a little boat being pulled by a swan! It’s a scene that’s magical, puzzling, peculiar, and yet at the same time simply wonderful.

The video was shown in a construction (images, right) that not only provided seating, but also played with contextual elements from the opera, and which I created together with the architect Roland Züger (www.kesselzueger.com).

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(translation: “Take a Look! Non-experts Choose Artworks From the Depot”)
Curating / participatory Project, 2012
Motorenhalle. Projektzentrum für zeitgenössische Kunst, Dresden
Collaboration with the Kunstfonds, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden

“It’s a public collection, so it belongs to us. Let’s take a look and see what we’ve got!”

With this premise as the starting point, I invited various citizens of the city of Dresden to talk with me about art – to tell me what kind of artworks they like, or would like to see in an exhibition – and to join me in an experiment. I asked them to choose artworks from the Kunstfonds collection (Art Fund Collection, Dresden State Art Collections) and, as “non-experts”, to curate an exhibition. I worked with five different groups of people who otherwise don’t have anything to do with art (at least not professionally) to help them develop original ideas for an art show that was then part of the large-scale exhibition in the Motorenhalle.

All in all, the project participants selected about 90 prints, paintings, photographs, sculptures, videos and installations from the time between 1949 and 2010 from the Kunstfonds collection. Silke Wagler, director of the Kunstfonds, said: “It’s important to mention that many of these works hadn’t been seen for a long time – had it not been for this unusual project, they wouldn’t have had the best chances of being shown at any time in the near future.”

The participating groups each tried to find artworks that would fulfill the criteria they had come up with beforehand. My role as artist and initiator of this project was to assist and guide them, as well as to pre-select works for them to look at in the depot. The participants came up with a title and a short text to accompany the artworks they selected for the exhibition:

In fact, not every group was able to find what they were looking for amongst the works in the Kunstfonds collection. The youngest group of participants (the Blue Pearls cheerleaders) had a hard time finding the lively, cheerful, dynamic, and optimistic images of groups they had been hoping to find.

I decided to use the occasion to create a new work for the exhibition, playfully treating the Blue Pearls’ criteria as if they were the requirements for a commissioned work of art – and to involve the cheerleaders in the process. I organized for them to perform for residents of the Clara Zetkin nursing home in Dresden, and the cheerleaders came up with their own choreography for the event. Together with Thilo Frö:bel, I documented the performance and then used the photos to create *gold* (see image lower right). The photomontage light box was displayed along with the Blue Pearls’ selection in the exhibition Mal schauen! Laien wählen Kunstwerke aus dem Depot.

MORE about the institutions involved:

READ essays about this work:

“It’s a public collection, so it belongs to us. Let’s take a look and see what we’ve got!”

With this premise as the starting point, I invited various citizens of the city of Dresden to talk with me about art – to tell me what kind of artworks they like, or would like to see in an exhibition – and to join me in an experiment. I asked them to choose artworks from the Kunstfonds collection (Art Fund Collection, Dresden State Art Collections) and, as “non-experts”, to curate an exhibition. I worked with five different groups of people who otherwise don’t have anything to do with art (at least not professionally) to help them develop original ideas for an art show that was then part of the large-scale exhibition in the Motorenhalle.

All in all, the project participants selected about 90 prints, paintings, photographs, sculptures, videos and installations from the time between 1949 and 2010 from the Kunstfonds collection. Silke Wagler, director of the Kunstfonds, said: “It’s important to mention that many of these works hadn’t been seen for a long time – had it not been for this unusual project, they wouldn’t have had the best chances of being shown at any time in the near future.”

The participating groups each tried to find artworks that would fulfill the criteria they had come up with beforehand. My role as artist and initiator of this project was to assist and guide them, as well as to pre-select works for them to look at in the depot. The participants came up with a title and a short text to accompany the artworks they selected for the exhibition:

In fact, not every group was able to find what they were looking for amongst the works in the Kunstfonds collection. The youngest group of participants (the Blue Pearls cheerleaders) had a hard time finding the lively, cheerful, dynamic, and optimistic images of groups they had been hoping to find.

I decided to use the occasion to create a new work for the exhibition, playfully treating the Blue Pearls’ criteria as if they were the requirements for a commissioned work of art – and to involve the cheerleaders in the process. I organized for them to perform for residents of the Clara Zetkin nursing home in Dresden, and the cheerleaders came up with their own choreography for the event. Together with Thilo Frö:bel, I documented the performance and then used the photos to create *gold* (see image lower right). The photomontage light box was displayed along with the Blue Pearls’ selection in the exhibition Mal schauen! Laien wählen Kunstwerke aus dem Depot.

MORE about the institutions involved:

READ essays about this work:

“It’s a public collection, so it belongs to us. Let’s take a look and see what we’ve got!”

With this premise as the starting point, I invited various citizens of the city of Dresden to talk with me about art – to tell me what kind of artworks they like, or would like to see in an exhibition – and to join me in an experiment. I asked them to choose artworks from the Kunstfonds collection (Art Fund Collection, Dresden State Art Collections) and, as “non-experts”, to curate an exhibition. I worked with five different groups of people who otherwise don’t have anything to do with art (at least not professionally) to help them develop original ideas for an art show that was then part of the large-scale exhibition in the Motorenhalle.

All in all, the project participants selected about 90 prints, paintings, photographs, sculptures, videos and installations from the time between 1949 and 2010 from the Kunstfonds collection. Silke Wagler, director of the Kunstfonds, said: “It’s important to mention that many of these works hadn’t been seen for a long time – had it not been for this unusual project, they wouldn’t have had the best chances of being shown at any time in the near future.”

The participating groups each tried to find artworks that would fulfill the criteria they had come up with beforehand. My role as artist and initiator of this project was to assist and guide them, as well as to pre-select works for them to look at in the depot. The participants came up with a title and a short text to accompany the artworks they selected for the exhibition:

In fact, not every group was able to find what they were looking for amongst the works in the Kunstfonds collection. The youngest group of participants (the Blue Pearls cheerleaders) had a hard time finding the lively, cheerful, dynamic, and optimistic images of groups they had been hoping to find.

I decided to use the occasion to create a new work for the exhibition, playfully treating the Blue Pearls’ criteria as if they were the requirements for a commissioned work of art – and to involve the cheerleaders in the process. I organized for them to perform for residents of the Clara Zetkin nursing home in Dresden, and the cheerleaders came up with their own choreography for the event. Together with Thilo Frö:bel, I documented the performance and then used the photos to create *gold* (see image lower right). The photomontage light box was displayed along with the Blue Pearls’ selection in the exhibition Mal schauen! Laien wählen Kunstwerke aus dem Depot.

MORE about the institutions involved:

READ essays about this work:

“It’s a public collection, so it belongs to us. Let’s take a look and see what we’ve got!”

With this premise as the starting point, I invited various citizens of the city of Dresden to talk with me about art – to tell me what kind of artworks they like, or would like to see in an exhibition – and to join me in an experiment. I asked them to choose artworks from the Kunstfonds collection (Art Fund Collection, Dresden State Art Collections) and, as “non-experts”, to curate an exhibition. I worked with five different groups of people who otherwise don’t have anything to do with art (at least not professionally) to help them develop original ideas for an art show that was then part of the large-scale exhibition in the Motorenhalle.

All in all, the project participants selected about 90 prints, paintings, photographs, sculptures, videos and installations from the time between 1949 and 2010 from the Kunstfonds collection. Silke Wagler, director of the Kunstfonds, said: “It’s important to mention that many of these works hadn’t been seen for a long time – had it not been for this unusual project, they wouldn’t have had the best chances of being shown at any time in the near future.”

The participating groups each tried to find artworks that would fulfill the criteria they had come up with beforehand. My role as artist and initiator of this project was to assist and guide them, as well as to pre-select works for them to look at in the depot. The participants came up with a title and a short text to accompany the artworks they selected for the exhibition:

In fact, not every group was able to find what they were looking for amongst the works in the Kunstfonds collection. The youngest group of participants (the Blue Pearls cheerleaders) had a hard time finding the lively, cheerful, dynamic, and optimistic images of groups they had been hoping to find.

I decided to use the occasion to create a new work for the exhibition, playfully treating the Blue Pearls’ criteria as if they were the requirements for a commissioned work of art – and to involve the cheerleaders in the process. I organized for them to perform for residents of the Clara Zetkin nursing home in Dresden, and the cheerleaders came up with their own choreography for the event. Together with Thilo Frö:bel, I documented the performance and then used the photos to create *gold* (see image lower right). The photomontage light box was displayed along with the Blue Pearls’ selection in the exhibition Mal schauen! Laien wählen Kunstwerke aus dem Depot.

MORE about the institutions involved:

READ essays about this work:

“It’s a public collection, so it belongs to us. Let’s take a look and see what we’ve got!”

With this premise as the starting point, I invited various citizens of the city of Dresden to talk with me about art – to tell me what kind of artworks they like, or would like to see in an exhibition – and to join me in an experiment. I asked them to choose artworks from the Kunstfonds collection (Art Fund Collection, Dresden State Art Collections) and, as “non-experts”, to curate an exhibition. I worked with five different groups of people who otherwise don’t have anything to do with art (at least not professionally) to help them develop original ideas for an art show that was then part of the large-scale exhibition in the Motorenhalle.

All in all, the project participants selected about 90 prints, paintings, photographs, sculptures, videos and installations from the time between 1949 and 2010 from the Kunstfonds collection. Silke Wagler, director of the Kunstfonds, said: “It’s important to mention that many of these works hadn’t been seen for a long time – had it not been for this unusual project, they wouldn’t have had the best chances of being shown at any time in the near future.”

The participating groups each tried to find artworks that would fulfill the criteria they had come up with beforehand. My role as artist and initiator of this project was to assist and guide them, as well as to pre-select works for them to look at in the depot. The participants came up with a title and a short text to accompany the artworks they selected for the exhibition:

In fact, not every group was able to find what they were looking for amongst the works in the Kunstfonds collection. The youngest group of participants (the Blue Pearls cheerleaders) had a hard time finding the lively, cheerful, dynamic, and optimistic images of groups they had been hoping to find.

I decided to use the occasion to create a new work for the exhibition, playfully treating the Blue Pearls’ criteria as if they were the requirements for a commissioned work of art – and to involve the cheerleaders in the process. I organized for them to perform for residents of the Clara Zetkin nursing home in Dresden, and the cheerleaders came up with their own choreography for the event. Together with Thilo Frö:bel, I documented the performance and then used the photos to create *gold* (see image lower right). The photomontage light box was displayed along with the Blue Pearls’ selection in the exhibition Mal schauen! Laien wählen Kunstwerke aus dem Depot.

MORE about the institutions involved:

READ essays about this work:

“It’s a public collection, so it belongs to us. Let’s take a look and see what we’ve got!”

With this premise as the starting point, I invited various citizens of the city of Dresden to talk with me about art – to tell me what kind of artworks they like, or would like to see in an exhibition – and to join me in an experiment. I asked them to choose artworks from the Kunstfonds collection (Art Fund Collection, Dresden State Art Collections) and, as “non-experts”, to curate an exhibition. I worked with five different groups of people who otherwise don’t have anything to do with art (at least not professionally) to help them develop original ideas for an art show that was then part of the large-scale exhibition in the Motorenhalle.

All in all, the project participants selected about 90 prints, paintings, photographs, sculptures, videos and installations from the time between 1949 and 2010 from the Kunstfonds collection. Silke Wagler, director of the Kunstfonds, said: “It’s important to mention that many of these works hadn’t been seen for a long time – had it not been for this unusual project, they wouldn’t have had the best chances of being shown at any time in the near future.”

The participating groups each tried to find artworks that would fulfill the criteria they had come up with beforehand. My role as artist and initiator of this project was to assist and guide them, as well as to pre-select works for them to look at in the depot. The participants came up with a title and a short text to accompany the artworks they selected for the exhibition:

In fact, not every group was able to find what they were looking for amongst the works in the Kunstfonds collection. The youngest group of participants (the Blue Pearls cheerleaders) had a hard time finding the lively, cheerful, dynamic, and optimistic images of groups they had been hoping to find.

I decided to use the occasion to create a new work for the exhibition, playfully treating the Blue Pearls’ criteria as if they were the requirements for a commissioned work of art – and to involve the cheerleaders in the process. I organized for them to perform for residents of the Clara Zetkin nursing home in Dresden, and the cheerleaders came up with their own choreography for the event. Together with Thilo Frö:bel, I documented the performance and then used the photos to create *gold* (see image lower right). The photomontage light box was displayed along with the Blue Pearls’ selection in the exhibition Mal schauen! Laien wählen Kunstwerke aus dem Depot.

MORE about the institutions involved:

READ essays about this work:

“It’s a public collection, so it belongs to us. Let’s take a look and see what we’ve got!”

With this premise as the starting point, I invited various citizens of the city of Dresden to talk with me about art – to tell me what kind of artworks they like, or would like to see in an exhibition – and to join me in an experiment. I asked them to choose artworks from the Kunstfonds collection (Art Fund Collection, Dresden State Art Collections) and, as “non-experts”, to curate an exhibition. I worked with five different groups of people who otherwise don’t have anything to do with art (at least not professionally) to help them develop original ideas for an art show that was then part of the large-scale exhibition in the Motorenhalle.

All in all, the project participants selected about 90 prints, paintings, photographs, sculptures, videos and installations from the time between 1949 and 2010 from the Kunstfonds collection. Silke Wagler, director of the Kunstfonds, said: “It’s important to mention that many of these works hadn’t been seen for a long time – had it not been for this unusual project, they wouldn’t have had the best chances of being shown at any time in the near future.”

The participating groups each tried to find artworks that would fulfill the criteria they had come up with beforehand. My role as artist and initiator of this project was to assist and guide them, as well as to pre-select works for them to look at in the depot. The participants came up with a title and a short text to accompany the artworks they selected for the exhibition:

In fact, not every group was able to find what they were looking for amongst the works in the Kunstfonds collection. The youngest group of participants (the Blue Pearls cheerleaders) had a hard time finding the lively, cheerful, dynamic, and optimistic images of groups they had been hoping to find.

I decided to use the occasion to create a new work for the exhibition, playfully treating the Blue Pearls’ criteria as if they were the requirements for a commissioned work of art – and to involve the cheerleaders in the process. I organized for them to perform for residents of the Clara Zetkin nursing home in Dresden, and the cheerleaders came up with their own choreography for the event. Together with Thilo Frö:bel, I documented the performance and then used the photos to create *gold* (see image lower right). The photomontage light box was displayed along with the Blue Pearls’ selection in the exhibition Mal schauen! Laien wählen Kunstwerke aus dem Depot.

MORE about the institutions involved:

READ essays about this work:

“It’s a public collection, so it belongs to us. Let’s take a look and see what we’ve got!”

With this premise as the starting point, I invited various citizens of the city of Dresden to talk with me about art – to tell me what kind of artworks they like, or would like to see in an exhibition – and to join me in an experiment. I asked them to choose artworks from the Kunstfonds collection (Art Fund Collection, Dresden State Art Collections) and, as “non-experts”, to curate an exhibition. I worked with five different groups of people who otherwise don’t have anything to do with art (at least not professionally) to help them develop original ideas for an art show that was then part of the large-scale exhibition in the Motorenhalle.

All in all, the project participants selected about 90 prints, paintings, photographs, sculptures, videos and installations from the time between 1949 and 2010 from the Kunstfonds collection. Silke Wagler, director of the Kunstfonds, said: “It’s important to mention that many of these works hadn’t been seen for a long time – had it not been for this unusual project, they wouldn’t have had the best chances of being shown at any time in the near future.”

The participating groups each tried to find artworks that would fulfill the criteria they had come up with beforehand. My role as artist and initiator of this project was to assist and guide them, as well as to pre-select works for them to look at in the depot. The participants came up with a title and a short text to accompany the artworks they selected for the exhibition:

In fact, not every group was able to find what they were looking for amongst the works in the Kunstfonds collection. The youngest group of participants (the Blue Pearls cheerleaders) had a hard time finding the lively, cheerful, dynamic, and optimistic images of groups they had been hoping to find.

I decided to use the occasion to create a new work for the exhibition, playfully treating the Blue Pearls’ criteria as if they were the requirements for a commissioned work of art – and to involve the cheerleaders in the process. I organized for them to perform for residents of the Clara Zetkin nursing home in Dresden, and the cheerleaders came up with their own choreography for the event. Together with Thilo Frö:bel, I documented the performance and then used the photos to create *gold* (see image lower right). The photomontage light box was displayed along with the Blue Pearls’ selection in the exhibition Mal schauen! Laien wählen Kunstwerke aus dem Depot.

MORE about the institutions involved:

READ essays about this work:

“It’s a public collection, so it belongs to us. Let’s take a look and see what we’ve got!”

With this premise as the starting point, I invited various citizens of the city of Dresden to talk with me about art – to tell me what kind of artworks they like, or would like to see in an exhibition – and to join me in an experiment. I asked them to choose artworks from the Kunstfonds collection (Art Fund Collection, Dresden State Art Collections) and, as “non-experts”, to curate an exhibition. I worked with five different groups of people who otherwise don’t have anything to do with art (at least not professionally) to help them develop original ideas for an art show that was then part of the large-scale exhibition in the Motorenhalle.

All in all, the project participants selected about 90 prints, paintings, photographs, sculptures, videos and installations from the time between 1949 and 2010 from the Kunstfonds collection. Silke Wagler, director of the Kunstfonds, said: “It’s important to mention that many of these works hadn’t been seen for a long time – had it not been for this unusual project, they wouldn’t have had the best chances of being shown at any time in the near future.”

The participating groups each tried to find artworks that would fulfill the criteria they had come up with beforehand. My role as artist and initiator of this project was to assist and guide them, as well as to pre-select works for them to look at in the depot. The participants came up with a title and a short text to accompany the artworks they selected for the exhibition:

In fact, not every group was able to find what they were looking for amongst the works in the Kunstfonds collection. The youngest group of participants (the Blue Pearls cheerleaders) had a hard time finding the lively, cheerful, dynamic, and optimistic images of groups they had been hoping to find.

I decided to use the occasion to create a new work for the exhibition, playfully treating the Blue Pearls’ criteria as if they were the requirements for a commissioned work of art – and to involve the cheerleaders in the process. I organized for them to perform for residents of the Clara Zetkin nursing home in Dresden, and the cheerleaders came up with their own choreography for the event. Together with Thilo Frö:bel, I documented the performance and then used the photos to create *gold* (see image lower right). The photomontage light box was displayed along with the Blue Pearls’ selection in the exhibition Mal schauen! Laien wählen Kunstwerke aus dem Depot.

MORE about the institutions involved:

READ essays about this work:

“It’s a public collection, so it belongs to us. Let’s take a look and see what we’ve got!”

With this premise as the starting point, I invited various citizens of the city of Dresden to talk with me about art – to tell me what kind of artworks they like, or would like to see in an exhibition – and to join me in an experiment. I asked them to choose artworks from the Kunstfonds collection (Art Fund Collection, Dresden State Art Collections) and, as “non-experts”, to curate an exhibition. I worked with five different groups of people who otherwise don’t have anything to do with art (at least not professionally) to help them develop original ideas for an art show that was then part of the large-scale exhibition in the Motorenhalle.

All in all, the project participants selected about 90 prints, paintings, photographs, sculptures, videos and installations from the time between 1949 and 2010 from the Kunstfonds collection. Silke Wagler, director of the Kunstfonds, said: “It’s important to mention that many of these works hadn’t been seen for a long time – had it not been for this unusual project, they wouldn’t have had the best chances of being shown at any time in the near future.”

The participating groups each tried to find artworks that would fulfill the criteria they had come up with beforehand. My role as artist and initiator of this project was to assist and guide them, as well as to pre-select works for them to look at in the depot. The participants came up with a title and a short text to accompany the artworks they selected for the exhibition:

In fact, not every group was able to find what they were looking for amongst the works in the Kunstfonds collection. The youngest group of participants (the Blue Pearls cheerleaders) had a hard time finding the lively, cheerful, dynamic, and optimistic images of groups they had been hoping to find.

I decided to use the occasion to create a new work for the exhibition, playfully treating the Blue Pearls’ criteria as if they were the requirements for a commissioned work of art – and to involve the cheerleaders in the process. I organized for them to perform for residents of the Clara Zetkin nursing home in Dresden, and the cheerleaders came up with their own choreography for the event. Together with Thilo Frö:bel, I documented the performance and then used the photos to create *gold* (see image lower right). The photomontage light box was displayed along with the Blue Pearls’ selection in the exhibition Mal schauen! Laien wählen Kunstwerke aus dem Depot.

MORE about the institutions involved:

READ essays about this work:

“It’s a public collection, so it belongs to us. Let’s take a look and see what we’ve got!”

With this premise as the starting point, I invited various citizens of the city of Dresden to talk with me about art – to tell me what kind of artworks they like, or would like to see in an exhibition – and to join me in an experiment. I asked them to choose artworks from the Kunstfonds collection (Art Fund Collection, Dresden State Art Collections) and, as “non-experts”, to curate an exhibition. I worked with five different groups of people who otherwise don’t have anything to do with art (at least not professionally) to help them develop original ideas for an art show that was then part of the large-scale exhibition in the Motorenhalle.

All in all, the project participants selected about 90 prints, paintings, photographs, sculptures, videos and installations from the time between 1949 and 2010 from the Kunstfonds collection. Silke Wagler, director of the Kunstfonds, said: “It’s important to mention that many of these works hadn’t been seen for a long time – had it not been for this unusual project, they wouldn’t have had the best chances of being shown at any time in the near future.”

The participating groups each tried to find artworks that would fulfill the criteria they had come up with beforehand. My role as artist and initiator of this project was to assist and guide them, as well as to pre-select works for them to look at in the depot. The participants came up with a title and a short text to accompany the artworks they selected for the exhibition:

In fact, not every group was able to find what they were looking for amongst the works in the Kunstfonds collection. The youngest group of participants (the Blue Pearls cheerleaders) had a hard time finding the lively, cheerful, dynamic, and optimistic images of groups they had been hoping to find.

I decided to use the occasion to create a new work for the exhibition, playfully treating the Blue Pearls’ criteria as if they were the requirements for a commissioned work of art – and to involve the cheerleaders in the process. I organized for them to perform for residents of the Clara Zetkin nursing home in Dresden, and the cheerleaders came up with their own choreography for the event. Together with Thilo Frö:bel, I documented the performance and then used the photos to create *gold* (see image lower right). The photomontage light box was displayed along with the Blue Pearls’ selection in the exhibition Mal schauen! Laien wählen Kunstwerke aus dem Depot.

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“It’s a public collection, so it belongs to us. Let’s take a look and see what we’ve got!”

With this premise as the starting point, I invited various citizens of the city of Dresden to talk with me about art – to tell me what kind of artworks they like, or would like to see in an exhibition – and to join me in an experiment. I asked them to choose artworks from the Kunstfonds collection (Art Fund Collection, Dresden State Art Collections) and, as “non-experts”, to curate an exhibition. I worked with five different groups of people who otherwise don’t have anything to do with art (at least not professionally) to help them develop original ideas for an art show that was then part of the large-scale exhibition in the Motorenhalle.

All in all, the project participants selected about 90 prints, paintings, photographs, sculptures, videos and installations from the time between 1949 and 2010 from the Kunstfonds collection. Silke Wagler, director of the Kunstfonds, said: “It’s important to mention that many of these works hadn’t been seen for a long time – had it not been for this unusual project, they wouldn’t have had the best chances of being shown at any time in the near future.”

The participating groups each tried to find artworks that would fulfill the criteria they had come up with beforehand. My role as artist and initiator of this project was to assist and guide them, as well as to pre-select works for them to look at in the depot. The participants came up with a title and a short text to accompany the artworks they selected for the exhibition:

In fact, not every group was able to find what they were looking for amongst the works in the Kunstfonds collection. The youngest group of participants (the Blue Pearls cheerleaders) had a hard time finding the lively, cheerful, dynamic, and optimistic images of groups they had been hoping to find.

I decided to use the occasion to create a new work for the exhibition, playfully treating the Blue Pearls’ criteria as if they were the requirements for a commissioned work of art – and to involve the cheerleaders in the process. I organized for them to perform for residents of the Clara Zetkin nursing home in Dresden, and the cheerleaders came up with their own choreography for the event. Together with Thilo Frö:bel, I documented the performance and then used the photos to create *gold* (see image lower right). The photomontage light box was displayed along with the Blue Pearls’ selection in the exhibition Mal schauen! Laien wählen Kunstwerke aus dem Depot.

MORE about the institutions involved:

READ essays about this work:

“It’s a public collection, so it belongs to us. Let’s take a look and see what we’ve got!”

With this premise as the starting point, I invited various citizens of the city of Dresden to talk with me about art – to tell me what kind of artworks they like, or would like to see in an exhibition – and to join me in an experiment. I asked them to choose artworks from the Kunstfonds collection (Art Fund Collection, Dresden State Art Collections) and, as “non-experts”, to curate an exhibition. I worked with five different groups of people who otherwise don’t have anything to do with art (at least not professionally) to help them develop original ideas for an art show that was then part of the large-scale exhibition in the Motorenhalle.

All in all, the project participants selected about 90 prints, paintings, photographs, sculptures, videos and installations from the time between 1949 and 2010 from the Kunstfonds collection. Silke Wagler, director of the Kunstfonds, said: “It’s important to mention that many of these works hadn’t been seen for a long time – had it not been for this unusual project, they wouldn’t have had the best chances of being shown at any time in the near future.”

The participating groups each tried to find artworks that would fulfill the criteria they had come up with beforehand. My role as artist and initiator of this project was to assist and guide them, as well as to pre-select works for them to look at in the depot. The participants came up with a title and a short text to accompany the artworks they selected for the exhibition:

In fact, not every group was able to find what they were looking for amongst the works in the Kunstfonds collection. The youngest group of participants (the Blue Pearls cheerleaders) had a hard time finding the lively, cheerful, dynamic, and optimistic images of groups they had been hoping to find.

I decided to use the occasion to create a new work for the exhibition, playfully treating the Blue Pearls’ criteria as if they were the requirements for a commissioned work of art – and to involve the cheerleaders in the process. I organized for them to perform for residents of the Clara Zetkin nursing home in Dresden, and the cheerleaders came up with their own choreography for the event. Together with Thilo Frö:bel, I documented the performance and then used the photos to create *gold* (see image lower right). The photomontage light box was displayed along with the Blue Pearls’ selection in the exhibition Mal schauen! Laien wählen Kunstwerke aus dem Depot.

MORE about the institutions involved:

READ essays about this work: