26th and 27th of March 2010, Fridericianum Kassel
The symposium Institution as Medium. Curating as Institutional Critique? organised by Rein Wolfs, the Kunsthalle Fridericianum and Dorothee Richter, Zurich Postgraduate Program in Curating (Institute for Cultural Studies, Department of Cultural Analysis, Zurich University of the Arts) was opened with the provocative question in how far it is possible to exercise institutional critique by curating exhibitions.
Axel John Wieder, Rein Wolfs, Dorothee Richter, Stella Rollig, Helmut Draxler, Maria Lind, San Keller, Carina Plath, Oliver Marchart, Giovanni Carmine, Stih & Schnock, Sören Grammel.
Alumni international curating programs:
Hyunjoo Byeon, Lisa Boström, Övül Durmusoglu, Alhena Katsof, Natalie Hope, O’Donnell, Alessandra Sandrolini, Andrea Roca, Adnan Yildiz. Moderators: Maja Ciric,
Isin Onol.
Lecturers on Curating programs:
Marysia Lewandowska, Renée Padt, Lisa Le Feuvre, Sissel Lillebostad, Olga Fernández, López, Yael Eylat Van Essen.
“Institutional critique” is a term designating artistic practices and positions such as those of Marcel Broodthaers, Daniel Buren, Andrea Fraser and Hans Haacke. The question is: how can a practice that intends to radically show the conditionality of art, its financial entanglements, and its function as a means of distinction be related to institutions and curators’ activities therein? Is this not a contradiction in terms? The aim of the symposium was to explore these contradictions as well as the possibilities and limitations of critical curatorial practice.