Dr. Johannes Stahl
Culture Consulting

Here I mention some finished or current work. The reason is not just promotional, but also my wish for Your ideas and some communication. Technical developments will rarely function without any impulses from outside. Cultural ones definitively will not. 

My list (sorry, some announcements, links will be left out or remain in german language. Refer to the list in german).

The brilliant festival in honor of Ferdinand Franz Wallraf, which raged through Cologne for 10 days in September 2024 under the name WASTA, is now history again. Only a few murals will remain, the majority of the artistic interventions in the urban space have already disappeared. However, a documentation is pending.
Gigo, intervention
A new seminar will now be held at the Ruhr University's Music Center together with Denise Winter:
How does an idea become a work of art? For more than forty years, this institution has offered students the opportunity to develop and realize their own artistic projects. Time to focus on the making and the made.

brain
The “Wandelgänge” project (Verein für Christliche Kunst in der Kirchenprovinz Paderborn e.V.), which began in 2019, explored questions between art and the church in individual walks. A documentation is now available. A booklet designed by Torsten Illner and Tobias Jacob brings to life changing references between images and spoken word; the participating artists Norbert Radermacher, Dagmar Schmidt, Nancy Jahns and Thomas Blase contribute their views on their respective walks through Paderborn, Kassel, Magdeburg and Meiningen.
wandelgaenge documentation
For many years I have been photographing situations that have to do with exhibiting or seeing in general. Now I've been asked to put together a series of pictures for the magazine kultur politik, which is planning a curatorial issue. Many photos are now to be viewed under this new aspect ...
"Most beautiful outlook for wine"
Cologne-based artist Ivo Weber has invited me to take part in one of his amazing projects. He set off on the long journey from Cologne to Cluj in Romania with an electric vehicle for seniors and a donkey sculpture. As a herald, he delivers messages collected there that revolve around art and its role in the public sphere. For obvious reasons, I met him in Neu-Ulm and was allowed to contribute to his travel blog.
Ivo Weber during his trip
There are probably connections between the famous Cologne scholar and collector Ferdinand Franz Wallraf (1748-1824) and today's street art. But what do they look like? The WASTA project is investigating this. We'll know more in September 2024. wasta
A new course for the AiB in Bonn showed me that my American students who were also attending a course on “Gambling on a Global Scale”. Reason enough for me to question the topic artistically for the final assignment in my course - with results that were as surprising as they were pleasing.
cubes
The results of the seminar at the Ruhr University Bochum's Music and Arts Center are as astonishing as they are pleasing: self-designed postcards came up, a herbarium, prints and lyrical texts about the not at all lyrical ambience of their university.
Semester finals
For an exhibition catalogue, I am writing about a familiar topic, but an under-lit relationship structure in it: between handwriting in graffiti, stylepieces and official typography.
   
Handschriften, offizielle Typografie
As a continuation of the "Area" series at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum, this time it's not about cities in the Ruhr, but a particular urban area and its art: the Ruhr-Universität itself and its surroundings. Kunst am Bau, Ruhr-Universität Bochum
Multiples: I have been thinking about this for some time. Artotheques have many editions anyway; artistic media like all graphic techniques suggest the edition as a form of publication. Now I'm supposed to write a historical overview for the Jena Art Collection.
William Hogarth, The Batlle of Pictures (det.)
Now it's a reality: the "Ringbuch" that I have been preparing for too long is printed and will be presented to the public. It documents what Frank Bölter, Matthias Hoffmann, Uschi Huber, Johanna Reich, Jan Rothstein, Boris Sieverts and others have produced as artistic projects on Cologne's "Ringstraßen" (main circular street) between 2017 and 2019. The whole is reflected by essays and interviews, among others by or with Kay von Keitz, Stefanie Klingemann, Kaska Kmiotek and Dirk Tillack.
Ringbuch
The Kunstmuseum Bochum is showing a major exhibition by Takako Saito - and has used some of the furniture she built herself and even partly the floor of her studio for this playful approach. Some videos of older actions and a large new installation by the 94-year-old artist are also on show for the first time. Takako Saito
A recent course for American students at AiB in Bonn brought me together with students, some of whom were fantastically good at drawing - and also used this skill to approach places like the Hombroich Museum Island or the Bonn ministries in the Kreuzbauten. Students at Bonn ministry
The third exhibition in Serigrafiemuseum Filderstadt was the last one I curated. Based on the exhibition title "Walls and Layers", the works dealt with questions between figure and ground, between image and support. There were brilliant names from the collection, an Aldi shopping bag and a silkscreen by Denise Winter executed directly on the wall and paper hanging in front of it. Denise Winter
Once again, an assignment is in the works to further record art in buildings - the Museum of 1000 Places (Museum der 1000 Orte) portal created by the Federal Office for Building and Regional Planning (Bundesamt für Bauwesen und Raumordnung) is growing. I'm also trying to see all of the 50 artworks assigned to me myself. Hedemünden bridge
The magazine "Alte und Neue Kunst" (Old and New Art) of the Verein für Christliche Kunst (Association for Christian Art) in Paderborn is published only every two years. Here I was allowed to report on a trip I took to prepare the project "Wandelgänge". In order not to anticipate these artist's walks, I concentrated on places to which it was not to go in the end: Fulda, Heiligenstadt (here a Jeremiah figure by Gerhard Marcks socketed as a monument to displaced persons), Externsteine, Halberstadt, Erfurt ... Heiligenstadt
This is already the second exhibition I have been able to curate for Serigrafiemuseum Filderstadt (Filderstadt Serigraph Museum). It is about stories that find many forms in this exhibition. The pictures by Birgit Jensen, printed on canvas with silkscreen, add an aspect that is as contemporary as it is supra-temporal. Serigrafiemuseum Filderstadt, Ausstellung "Geschichten" mit Arbeiten von Birgit Jensen
Once again there are artistic forays through Neu-Ulm. This time I have invited Denise Winter. A cut-out of aluminium sheet accompanies us through the small town, along with passe-partout sheets for all participants, as visual aids and notepads. We encounter peculiar situations in the urban space, talk about water shortages, spatial and physical situations. At the end, we stand in an unexpected courtyard and everyone reads their notes in a kind of speech fugue.
Streifzug Denise Winter
The third intensive study week of the international research project "Graffiti Art in Prison" by my colleague Gabriella Gianciolo Cosentino at the University of Cologne was about "The wall as a heterotopic place". I was allowed to conduct a workshop for the academics and students in Cologne who had come together for this. The event was characterised by a tour of the walls of Ehrenfeld, postcards with views and the written exchange of comments on them.

OUTSIDE SPACES INSIDE VIEWS: an exhibition at the Edwin Scharff Museum in Neu-Ulm shows perspectives on art in public space - when artists produce them for the interior. On display are sketches, models, documentations, relics and new versions - all of which are visual reflections of the processes and contexts of works outside the museum space. I am pleased to have Max Erbacher, Oliver Gather, Gigo, Uschi Huber, Christian Hasucha and Dagmar Schmidt for this exhibition.
ESM, Neu-Ulm
In CHAM's caricature, the jailer looks in astonishment at the result of his temporary absence: the incarcerated personification of the satirical magazine Charivari has found company in his cell. My workshop with Gabriella Gianciolo Cosentino and international students at the University of Cologne will deal with prison graffiti - and corresponding situations in Cologne.
I asked the six-member art collective KLUB7 from Berlin and Halle / Saale to make the first contemporary contribution to the happenings at the Serigrafiemuseum Filderstadt. The result is a multi-layered collage of materials and, on the wall opposite, a large-format serigraph on wood.
Klub7
After a long start-up period, it is now open: the Serigrafiemuseum Filderstadt. Every four months, it shows exhibitions of art that uses the fascinating possibilities of the screen-printing technique.
Serigrafie-Museum Filderstadt
I have always held Harald Naegeli in high esteem as a draughtsman in public space and hardly less as a draughtsman on private paper. Now I have written a small text for his exhibition in Berlin.

Torsten Illner has created a convincing graphic realisation for the envisaged artistic walks in the area of the church province of Paderborn. This is particularly remarkable because these walks can hardly be associated with a pictorial form in advance.
Wandelgänge
Together with Denise Winter, there will be another seminar in the summer semester of 2022 at the Musisches Zentrum at Ruhr Uni Bochum. This time it's about the role of art in urban contexts and the Ruhr "Gebiet" (area). Excursions are planned, as well as real seminar meetings and the students' own small works.
map
Janina Schmid connected her scholarship for the Kunsthaus Kloster Gravenhorst with a special project: a trailer became a selfserviceselfiebox. Small ready sculptures were available for visitors to produce their own selfies in this camera obscura. For the documentation of the results I wrote a text.
(c) Janina Schmid: selfserviceselfiebox, 2021
It looks like after a long break there will be another course for American students after all at AiB, Bonn. Again, it will be about "The Making and Use of Space". But now the Bonn Minster is accessible again, a wonderful place to think about such questions together.
Bonner Münster
I rarely participate in blogs. However, I simply had to make an exception for the Academy of Arts Saxony-Anhalt, which I hold in high esteem. I also wanted to talk about herman de vries, an artist whose work I have known and admired for more than thirty years. That was the reason for my pilgrimage to his Sanctuarium in Stuttgart. Here are my impressions.
herman de vries, Sanctuary, 1993
For some time now, the Cologne artist Gabriele Seifert has been poaching I Ching signs in selected places: the oracular golden strokes of eastern origin get into the most diverse situations and contexts. From her photographs collected in annual photo books, she is now compiling a larger book, to which I may contribute with a text.
(c) Gabriele Seifert
There is a hail of cancellations of cultural activities and warnings against contacts. The pandemic is so virulent that even the unvaccinated are beginning to think. I wonder whether I can forget about my course for American students scheduled for January.
virus
I had already announced it, now it has appeared: the volume edited by T.O. Immisch and Siegfried von der Heide is a literary local history book about Halle an der Saale. In addition to the publisher's information, there is also a homepage with pictures and short texts.
im Freien
In 2022, the Association for Christian Art in the Dioceses of the Church Province of Paderborn would like to organise a series of walking talks. I have suggested a number of artists and locations for this. The project is still in the development phase; after all, the area extends locally from Paderborn via Erfurt and Fulda to Magdeburg. In terms of content, the dimensions between art and church are likely to be much broader. Magdeburg, Cathedral
I wrote an article for Johannes Traub's catalogue about his multi-layered landscapes - and of course about processes of painting.
(c) Johannes Traub
After a break due to the pandemic, the walks through Neu-Ulm continue. Starting from the Edwin Scharff Museum, Uschi Huber and Oliver Gather have discovered new aspects of the cityscape during public walks.
Neu-Ulm
Together with the photographer Jürgen Domes, it was planned that we approach the enigmatic open urban space in Halle, which can be found in the plan under the name "Brunos Warte". Unfortunately, the direct interaction did not happen: Jürgen died unexpectedly recently. His soulful images and my text now appear in the book "Im Freien", edited by T.O. Immisch and Siegfried von der Heide.
Brunos Warte
What to do when a symposium on landscapes, postponed several times due to the pandemic, becomes a restricted working meeting and it is still really cold in the Renaissance castle of Kannawurf? I improvised, moved my lecture outside and explained the key points using elements of the building and its surroundings. My left visual material can still be used in the planned documentation.
"Areal of Protected Landscape"
I have known and appreciated the work of the Düsseldorf artist Wolfgang Spanier for a long time. Now my text on his recent photos has been published in a beautiful catalogue.
(c) Wolfgang Spanier
A seminar in the summer semester at the university in Bochum, together with Denise Winter: according to the time circumstances, we will deal with walks. It is still open what form it will take and whether it will end up with something like editions.

A publication is being produced on the artistic actions during the Cologne City Lab 2017 and 2018. I will compile documentation, feedback and further reflections.
Takako Saito has long deserved her own homepage. She has created many chess games and played with the forms and rules. This is a good starting point for a course that conveys this rich artistic oeuvre on the internet: Zandra Harms will make this basic idea work.

A museum dedicated to artistic silk-screen printing is built in Filderstadt. Luitpold Domberger introduced this exciting printing technique to Germany in the early 1950s, and his son Michael Domberger continued to lead the company to world fame. Their collection of exquisite silkscreen prints was acquired by the state of Baden-Württemberg in 2009. I still have an intensive curatorial period ahead of me until the opening scheduled for spring.
colour test frame
In the end, the seminar in Bonn and on the Internet produced really positive results. In the shop window of the AiB there are now posters in which the students put their aspects of the topic "The Making and Use of Space" into shape. Sometimes the stressful situations of quarantine play a role in this "poster section". My collegue Carolin Wübbelt made a perfect job presenting them.
poster section
When I stepped out of the house in the morning, I saw a plastic structure next to the entrance. A neighbor's kid must have made it. I think that this child probably saw a picture that was flickering more often on the TV monitor lately. The problem of the pandemic has not been solved with the production of this magical plastic, but perhaps we are beginning to get a clearer idea.
virus?

The seminar for the spring semester at the AiB took a strange course. While, as usual, numerous joint excursions and drawings took place on site until mid-March, the corona crisis forced a radical rethink. The students are now sitting on the east and west coasts of the USA or in Egypt, I'm at Cologne, all of them at computers. The topics now are more this special situation, the domestic environment, coping with the quaternary including boredom. At the end there is not a joint tour through Bonn, but posters which make these experienced differences the subject of discussion.
sketching in class
The banks of the Rhine near Bad Godesberg are the subject of a project by Cologne architect Stephanie Brandt for Penn State University and AiB in Bonn. I am to contribute impulses from culture and history, pointing out perspectives and impressions. The best way to do this is to go on a bike tour together. Headsets are used.
Bonn-Bad Godesberg
At the Université Bordeaux, students asked me about the circumstances of curating. They had invited me to do so when Takako Saito's successful exhibition at the CAPC musèe d'art contemporain de Bordeaux entered its final round. To this end, I also drew on older correspondence with artists.
Why doubts?, annotation by an artist
Students of Loyola Marymount University attend my new seminar for AiB, the Bonn Academy for International Education. Suggestions from previous courses have led me to focus on one topic. It is about "Relics of Future" and, as a counter-perspective, about "Future of Relics". The discussion involves the development of urban spaces, books, the preservation of historical monuments and the veneration of legacies.
giveaway books, Bordeaux
The walks in Neu-Ulm, now known as "rambles", will continue in 2019. Starting again from the Edwin-Scharff-Museum, artists and the public will take a closer look at the city. Such different approaches and perspectives as those of katze und krieg, Max Erbacher or Rita Lass and Anne-Kathrin Pohle promise interesting outlooks and insights.
Neu-Ulm, Caponniere 4
In the Thüringer Künstlerhaus Schloss Kannawurf I will soon be talking about landscapes and rural areas. Because there is still some time left, I have the opportunity to think about it more thoroughly. For example, the changes in the centres of villages like the one I grew up in occupy me. Older houses sometimes fall into disrepair, while new ones are being built on the outskirts of the village. Probably also the still unspoilt view into the landscape plays a role.
Frücht, Center of Village
For the city of Neu-Ulm I have created an electronic portal to art in public space. Art-tours lead to selected artworks, squares or noteworthy architectures. You may choose whether to regard artworks alongside the Danube, or reflect how they handle the city's military past or questions of centering. Introductory texts, comments and further considerations are available on site via QR codes.
Initiated by the Edwin Scharff Museum, the portal was created for the 150th anniversary of the city. It was designed and programmed by Zandra Harms.
Edwin Scharff: Männer im Boot (Men in Boat)
The opening of Takako Saito's exhibition at the CAPC musèe d'art contemporain de Bordeaux confronted me with a whole series of unknown aspects. Above all, the mass onslaught of the public on the exhibition required a great deal of management. The ninety year old artist patiently underwent the signing hour for the catalogue. Takako's signing hour
In the spring of 2019 I had to do with engineering students at the AIB in Bonn. They come from Lafayette College in Pennsylvania. It is obviously easy for them to improvise a Romanesque church in the freshly fallen snow. snow church
Neu-Ulm: the little sister city on the Bavarian Danube side across from Ulm will be 150 years old. The staff of local Edwin-Scharff-Museum takes this as an opportunity to think about the cityscape and the public sculpture stock. I may therefore invite artists to explore this city in open-ended walks.
Neu-Ulm
In a small but fine selection on the art of Fluxus, the Ausstellungshaus Spoerri  (Spoerri exhibition center) in Hadersdorf in Austria has assembled selected works of art. In addition to the regularly exhibited works by Daniel Spoerri, many ideas that have become a concrete form of this poetic, experimental and artistic art that goes beyond borders are on display. Among them is also a larger part of Takako Saito's work. A magazine published for the exhibition contains my little ABC about this artist.. Fluxus, Hadersdorf
Berlin-based artist Thorsten Goldberg has created a subtle and mediating installation at the canteen of the Bonn Federal Ministry of Education and Research: "Reflected ministry", as a projected image sheet, presents other artworks, in part significantly older but on the same terrain. Visitors can control the sequence of photos on the glass by their own movements. A booklet is in preparation, to which I was able to contribute a text. Thorsten Goldberg: "Reflected ministry"
The documentation for the art project "Fluchten" is printed. It is exciting to see the many ideas, discussions and artistic products collected and reflected. Fluchten
In the new course for the Akademie für internationale Bildung in Bonn students of animation are present. I am curious about their results: studies deal with mouse holes, lonely places and social readings of public seating. My part for this course is a short discourse on art history. Whether such considerations can be included in the results? Bahnhof Köln-Süd
 A wonderfully made small documentation booklet has appeared for Fuge, gefaltet17 by Denise Winter. This production for the pilgrimage church in Neviges was based on a poem about Europe, which the artist wrote on a journey and decomposed by translations and convolutions into phonetic fragments. It was performed twice in a choral dialogue. In addition, a slide projection with images of "calving icebergs" illuminated this architectural concrete sculpture. 
Denise Winter: Fuge, gefaltet17
She is a fascinating artist: Takako Saito, whose great exhibition is now coming in the Siegen Museum of Contemporary Art. Alongside with it, a book is in sight, which will be edited by Eva Schmidt and me.
Takako Saito: a seesaw chess
With the title "urban art & architecture" a course of  Architect Bruno Röver and me is running for students of  Loyola Marymount University. Based at the Bonn Akademie für internationale Bildung, the seminar deals with art history and basic questions of space and architecture. Excursions and individual sketch books are specials in this course. Course in Düsseldorf
It has started: the art project "Fluchten", having been planned together with my collegue Ludger Hengefeld since some time for Caritas Association in the Archidiocesis of Cologne. It is about widening the narrow perspective focussing just on something like a "refugee crisis". The word is being framed by media and pictures according to it are repeated over and over again. This makes the discussion of these questions in general public an inacceptable narrow one. We hope reflecting these questions together with visual artists will help us to better perspectives towards these difficult items. The questions of flight and its perspectives are in no way new: Buddha, Christ or Mohammed have been refugees.   emergency exit sign, ww II bunker, cologne
It was inspiring: together with my collegue Martin Seidel we interviewed each other concerning art and street. Now this can be read with the title "Kunst an Straßen- Fragen über Fragen" in the journal "kultur politik" of Bundesverband Bildender Künstler innen und Künstler (federal artists association in Germany), No. 2/2016, p. 13-18. Andreas von Weizsäcker: hang over
Now, after a long time of preparation it came out: Protest Cultures, a Companion. Kathrin Fahlenbrach, Martin Klimke and Joachim Scharloth have edited the voluminous 546p book aiming to be a new standard on that item. As to be expected, my small contribution focusses on Graffiti. graffiti, engers
An attempt for an artistic research on reception undertook by Dagmar Schmidt concerning her work "Grabungsstaedte" now has lead to a publication. It is remarkable, in which many concerns this installation in the vanishing  Halle-Silberhöhe quarter has cause reactions since 2005.Biologists list how and which plants have spread taking posession of their realm, photographers with different objectifs show how the installed furniture has been used and how the concrete becomes aged. Archeologists examin the ground. I'm glad to hear that Kunstfonds and Kunststiftung Sachsen-Anhalt have funded the project - and happy to have contributed an introduction to such a fine thing. Dagmar Schmidt: Grabungsstaedte, 2005
Since some years I'm regarding works by Honoré Daumier. Now I finally wrote a small german text about his "Philantropes du jour" cyclus. Here we go.

Really, I did study this subject. Urbanistic questions always have played a role for my projects. Without a special focus towards this direction I was busy with city imagary and even offered some guided walks for different towns. May 2013 now will bring it all: it is about urban gaps in Halle and, by the end of may in Dortmund about the impact of street art on the pictural and meaningful side of towns.
"Erbarmen als soziale Form" is the name of the art project for the Caritas in Cologne aiming to install a general discussion on charity, beginning inJune 2013. Starting point is a bundle of questions on "Lebensmittel-Tafeln", which have some quite complicated impacts on social structure and social feelings. Seen historically images work with allegorical pelicans or nurses. It is worth asking for contemporary images of charity, feed and spirituality.
German homepage of the
projekt
Pelikan
"Harald Naegeli managed for years and with uncomparable rigidity, consequence and inconsiderateness to shatter the Zurich inhabitants and their faith in the inviolability of property as founded in our legal system."
This said in the 1980ies to enforce the
9 month sentence for Naegeli at court marks just one level of the multiple work of "Der Sprayer von Zürich". An intense study of his graffiti will investigate his wall drawings and will keep me busy for the next months.
Harald Naegeli, Zürich
In the course of livetime you happen to meet things several times, watch some of your interests coming back or get clearer views of correlations. During the end of my studies I was much occupied with the architecture in the time of reconstruction after WW II. Now preparing a lesson for architects offers me to give this interesting era another close look. Some keypoints are religious concerns, society-constructing forms and the mixture with art traditions.

Now it is already over: the Seminar on Public art and how to promote it given by Dagmar Schmidt (who made the foto)  and me at Halle University. During this we provisorically cleaned the mirroring ground plate of Klaus-Friedrich Messerschmidts work "Reflexion Geschichte" (1989/2000) at the regulatory authority in Halle-Neustadt. Thus we were able to see his artistic revision of his sculpture formerly standing on solid ground. And we managed to meet the "Blaues Wunder" of Düsseldorf artist Andrea Knobloch intervening in Kunstraum Kiosk hr.fleischer.
You wake up in the morning and don't know where you are. Or in the night - and this is not the place that used to be. But somehow it is looking similar: have I been here before or just dreamed I was? People who used to live regularly at two sites might know the feeling, whether they have defined strict borders between a place to live and a place to work or whether they have felt like being home at the two different places. Suspicion there might be much more to discover leads me to a contribution to "Doppelleben ... Sein an zwei Orten", a project that Dieter Hofmann is occupied with since some time at Burg Giebichenstein. I am curious: in the end this should lead to well-designed new objects.
How do we find public art? is the key item of a teaching project which Dagmar Schmidt and I will have in Wintersemester 2012/13 at Institut für Kunstgeschichte und Archäologien Europas of the Halle - Wittenberg University. We can count on the experience we made during our curatorial grant in summer. Hinweisschild nowhere in Nordschweden
I cannot help it: I am fascinated by cars as a cultural phemonenon though I never had one for myself. It might have to do with the fact that some of the first words I was able to pronounce were car companies. The multiple slogans of many years have remained in my ears, too. The elegant remarks Roland Barthes (Mythologies, 1957; deutsch Mythen des Alltags, Frankfurt am Main 1964) opened my eyes to some hidden cultural levels of these vehicles, f.e. the "déesse" (goddess), which was really new as Citroen DS. During the 1960ies as a child I was much occupied constructing this car with my Lego toys. Auto
Could things create love affairs if they were able to look around in space? "space affairs", the exhibition of artist, architect and poet Marc Mer opens this question. In Wien he has chosen from the MUSA collection some crucials art works and positioned them in the exhibition hall. My text for the catalogue for it focusses on the relation of spectator and things toward spaces today.
Seems like 2012 will be a time to focus a lot more on curatorial questions. Kunststiftung Sachsen-Anhalt awarded me a grant (together with Dagmar Schmidt). Here are some hints to basic thought. Special events are programmed: a public sculpture walk focussing on questions of promotional shares in the artwork. Or a talk about "Skulptur Gewächshaus", an art work by Johanna Bartl, Wieland Krause and Olaf Wegewitz that was mentioned before.
It exists since 1987: Kunsthaus Rhenania - situated in the middle of the booming Cologne Rheinauhafen quarter. this forner Speicherhaus (built in 1926) offers working space for visual artists, musicians and theatre people and have a sepcial place for cultural events. My project "Rhenania in[tro]spektion" puts up an exhibition which could mark the start of a series. The Kunsthaus is focussing on public effect and exchange with other art scenes elsewhere. Because of this the regards go to the own infrastructure.
As a professional field it is as interesting as  traditional: the interchange between religion, art and promotional questions. one o my activities since 2011 are exhibition talks in Kolumba Art museum of the
Archdiocese of Cologne. This massive and sophisticated building ba Peter Zumthor, the multilevel situation in the centre of cologne and the convincing collection of this house enrich these talks with a widespread range of different visitor groups.
Kolumba, Blick in die archäologische Zone 2011
The Cologne Street Art Festival CityLeaks saw me engaged:  I find an impulse for working at facades of the Inner City an the Ehrenfeld quarter is remarkable, as is the fact that artists were free in chosing their actions. I specially liked the mixture between alternative locations such as  Kolbfabrik (here I was involved in "Archive Flickering"), the basic discussion of such activities ("Cityleaks Symposium") and the slippery floor of official points of view. Ending a series of pictures on typical quarter-items, the sophisticated contribution by L.E.T. now forms the wall's accent in front of Bürgerzentrum Ehrenfeld. "I will never say what You want to hear" is to be read: a laconic remark on tensions between consensual culture and juvenile rebellious consciousness. L.E.T.
My last visit to dutch Heerlen saw a confrontation of two fields of art promotion facing each other with extended animosity. A campaing for the newly-installed public art loan scheme attacked the existing public sculpture. With tusks, it seems.
So I took some
situational fotos of this clash of cultures and tried to adept to this Heerlen Invasion by a text (here as a pdf-file, german, with a possibility that a dutch version will follow).
elephants everywhere
For Klub7 I wrote a text which will give an introduction to an overview of works this interestng artists group has done. This will come out in the publication series Design / Designer by Paris-based Pyramyd Editions. As the printed version appears in french and english look here for the german text.
jan 2011
Klub7
Suitcases normally are few inspiring useful things which usually hide their content. Who goes deeper or reads Hans Christian Andersens special fairy tale will recognize that these containers mean mor than they are supposed to mean.  As a gift when leaving Halle I got a suitcase full of art - which resulted in some considerations I wrote on the item.
Some (more systematical) text about art suitcases as a pedagogical means is now planned for 2011.
dec 2010
Koffer
At the Art Fair I ran into someone who stated: I don't hear anything about You now. Do I receive Your newsletter? Shortly after that, the same ting happened again. Since now I don't know whether I should take this serious. Did the habits of bilateral informations alter in a way that now I behave like not normal and not communicative? To be honest: I like to receive individual letters, post cards, e-mails or calls. Mass mails I appreciate less. In relations to social networks I have quite some restrictions. Therefore I have been reluctant to accept invitations to be their part. Here are some reasons (sorry, just in german language). social networks
It is as interesting as traditional: the relational field between between church, art and promotional questions. One of my future activities from 2011 on will be museum talks in Kolumba which is the art museum of the
Archdiocese of Cologne. The massive and at the same time filigrane building by the swiss acrhitect Peter Zumthor, the multi-level situation of this location in the centre of cologne and last not least the convincing collection of this museum make the talks to an challenging demand.Facing now the second of the annual exhibition changes, I am occupied with the new focus and title - which is "thinking".
Peering into the archeological site, forming the base of the museum.
Lecture at the International Conference "Straßen. Von der Frühgeschichte bis in die Moderne. Verkehrsweg - Kulturträger - Lebensraum" ("Roads From early history to modern transport route - Bearers of culture - living space," Thomas Morus Akademie Bensberg 7.-10.2.2011.
Already quite a while ago the term "street art" joined two spheres which otherwise are not necessarily related to each other. In addition to the art phenomenon which today has a streamline way to gain attention my contribution asks for those conditions, which road gives to art. On this basis, a further focus will open the discoures towards general cultural history.
oct 2010
Hinweis, Oxford
Paper presented at the Reichenau Artist Days 2010, Island of Reichenau, 10.-10.12.2010. General theme of the meeting: Image - representation.
This year's Cultural Days of Reichenau confronts ecclesiastical and artistic ways of thinking and theories of the picture. Objects here are the history of the exegesis of the holy bible, the Church's current criteria, philosophical and art-theoretical aspects.
My presentation: changing perspectives. Art and Church in interaction. Contact

Anton Pilgra: Selbstporträt im Wiener Stephansdom, 1515
International Conference on "Color in Education" at Burg Giebichenstein Halle, 29-31.10.2010, with more than 70 participating speakers and workshops, coming from many areas of education, as well as representatives in education policy and a major thematic exhibition.
My presentation is: street soccer players of color. About some constant factors of the (self-) education in street art.
Conference Programm
Detail aus Brüssel
"VOOR NIKS" is about artistic giveaways, how easy You can get them, what they are heading for and what use You can really have with them. Starting from Burg Giebichenstein the Halle University of Art and Design, the exhibition takes place in kus, a small Dutch Art Association of Heerlen. Unlike the more historically-based precursor, the exhibition "Giveaways" (2002), a range of exciting artists from Halle, Heerlen and Maastricht are actively involved. In the development of the project, the show goes to Halle, in the impressive kiosk of the art initiative "hr.fleischer".
Introduction (D)
Further Information (NL/D) and Images
kuS (Kunstencentrum Signe), Heerlen (NL)
"hr.fleischer" Kiosk am Reileck, Halle / Saale (D)
voorniks
Vormals an anderer Stelle bereits abgebildet, möchte ich hier noch einmal gesondert auf ein Kunstwerk im öffentlichen Raum hinweisen, das mir sehr am Herzen liegt und das zur Zeit durch Zerstörung bedroht ist. Es Handelt sich um die "Skulptur Gewächshaus" der Künstler Johanna Bartl, Wieland Krause und Olaf Wegewitz. Seit einigen Jahrenwächst in ihrem Inneren  - so das Konzept der Künstler - die Natur unbehelligt weiter. Diese überzeugend im Bereich des alten Klostergartens in Magdeburg platzierte und "angewachsene" Arbeit möchte der OB der Stadt, Dr. Lutz Trümper, nun aus der Innenstadt und vom Elbufer weghaben. Dabei scheint er weder wahrhaben zu wollen, dass der Standort Teil der Arbeit ist noch dass gerade der prozessuale Anteil richtungsweisend die älteren Arbeiten im Bereich des Kunstmuseums Kloster Unser lieben Frauen bereichert. Dass das zudem ein Geschenk des Landes an die Stadt war, macht die Sache nicht einfacher.

Bartl/Krause/Wegewitz: Skulptur Gewächshaus
Ending my work in Halle has some sentimental taste, but most of all, the impression remains to have done useful work, having given positive impacts, and being there in the right place. Both personally and institutionally a whole series of contacts continue and some projects arose. It is still an open question to what extent this will have lasting effects on my new plans.
transient_london08

Having been occupied with papers on Art in public realm and architecture-related art, it was time to make this an item in seminars. Connecting this teaching forum with everyday reality I expect impulses for both sides, specially as this item is in focus for a number of institutions, who want to locate this theme more often in public discussions ans in teaching.

Claes Oldenburg / Coesje van Bruggen: Giant horn. Köln, Neumarkt
>An old flame does not die<, they say. After my intensive occupation with graffiti and other signs at the walls during my doctoral thesis this interest weakened a bid in my professional life. Since then a lot has happened. More than 25 years later I started again. The result is a wide-spread book about street art and graffiti which bundles recent trends and older results. It is not only the artistic awakeness for the public walls which matters here, but also all those questions of mediation which have gained more and more importance for an information society.
Here are some hints by my publisher Ullmann-Publishing.
Invader in London, 2008

Die Kunstgeschichte als lebender und sich entwickelnder Organismus von Bildern, Gedanken, gelebten Gefühlen und gesellschaftlichen Verhältnissen: Das ist ein grundlegend wichtiges Arbeitsfeld für Ausbildung, vermittelnde Praxis und beratender Tätigkeit. Und offensichtlich gilt das für so unterschiedliche Bereiche wie die künstlerische  Selbstdarstellung und seine Fremdwahrnehmung, für Fragen der Wand oder für Methoden und Triebfedern gesellschaftlicher Arbeit.


Seminare hierzu:
Annäherung an die Kunstgeschichte

Umbrüche, Umstürze, Umbauten

Wiki-Kunstgeschichte

 

Beschriftung, Alte Nationalgalerie

My projected book "Der interaktive Blick" is finished and will soon be available as an e-Book.

Bocca della veritá, Norditalien

Er liegt noch immer nur passagenweise vor: mein Beitrag zum aktuellen Kunsterklärhype. Der Titel steht jedoch schon ziemlich fest:
Wie erkenne ich schlechte Kunst?

 

Kunsterklärungen

Zur Ausstellung "Skulptur Projekte Münster 2007" ist ein Kinderführer (9.80 €) zu haben, für den ich die Texte verfasst und spannenderweise mit den Illustratoren Christoph Mett und Philipp Seefeldt zusammenarbeit habe.

Näheres unter: http://www.skulptur-projekte.de/information/publikationen/

oder

http://www.coppenrath.de/anzeigen_aktuelles.php?
id=123&table=aktuelles&n0=aktuelles&n1=news

Skulptur Projekte: Kinderführer

Wirtschaft als Kunstfaktor: ein Salon.

Als Einstieg in die Arbeit an der Hochschule für Kunst und Design Burg Giebichenstein Halle 2007 begonnen, hat sich das Thema weiterentwickelt.

Am 15.4.2010 ging es im ungewöhnlichen abendlichen Veranstaltungsformat des Kölner Salons um die Wechselperspektiven zwischen Wirtschaft und Kunst.

geldgeldgeld1geld1
Der Nachhaltigkeitsaspekt interessiert mich auch für das freie Projekt "10 years after. Zu präh- und postaktuellen Situationen". Hier geht es um den Zeitabstand, der einen klareren Blick ermöglicht, historisch oder prophetisch. Und nicht zuletzt um all das, was durch den Aktualitätskult möglicherweise allzu rasch wieder aus der Optik verdrängt wird. William Hogarh, Time Smoking a Picture, 1732