Strategien künstlerisch-kuratorischer Intervention im öffentlichen Raum, Prof. Axel Loytved vom Kunstverein Sankt-Pauli im Gespräch mit Sven Christian Schuch, Künstlerischer Leiter spce | Muthesius
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The St. Pauli Art Association is an interdisciplinary group from the fields of art, design, garden landscaping, sociology and architecture that was founded in 2006 in the form of an “OffSpace” at the Reeperbahn in St. Pauli, Hamburg. The closure of the exhibition space in 2009 and the group's agreement that an engagement with art was necessary, especially in public spaces, has since led to the testing of experimental new forms of exhibition.
In 2010, an overseas container was purchased, which – initially set up at the fish market in St. Pauli – served as a location for events. From 2011 to 2013, the container went on tour and was used as a work and presentation space for exhibitions at various locations in Germany and Europe. Since 2016, the St. Pauli Art Association has been organising “car park meetings,” in which several artists are invited to create their works in cars that are parked at different locations. From 2019 to 2020, the St. Pauli Art Association realised the artistic intervention “Cage Match”, with several invited artists, on the construction site at the tea house in the Planten un Blomen public gardens in Hamburg.
In September 2020, the art association showed the spatial intervention “World in Parts” on Hamburg’s Heiligengeistfeld. At the end of 2023 they intervened spatially in the Vivo Center in Ottensen with Praxis der Orte. Prof. Axel Loytved will report on his experience as a member of the group of artists. Sven Christian Schuch is a freelance curator, and since 2021 has been the artistic director of spce | Muthesius, which was founded in summer 2022. He considers exhibitions as a process-based research practice and uses curatorial means to question our society and its future. A characteristic feature of his curatorial practice is that he goes beyond the classic exhibition framework, opening up new places and achieving a society-wide discourse about art and its content. In addition to positions at dOCUMENTA (13) in Kassel, director of the Sfeir-Semler Gallery (Beirut/Hamburg) and as managing director of the Schinkel Pavillon Berlin, he has been initiating and curating exhibition projects in public spaces for 15 years. In this interview he will talk about the project Mind the Gap, an exhibition series in the disused paternoster of the historic Bieberhaus in Hamburg, which took place over almost a year.
The intervention in an existing and functional structure was thematically dedicated to the question of how existing buildings can be reinterpreted, urban space rethought and social participation in it constantly negotiated anew. The building's disused paternoster served as a curatorial bracket, as a carrier of emotions and stories; its standstill is symbolic of changing conditions of use and new demands on urban society. Participating artists were Cordula Ditz, Annika Kahrs, Alexandra Hojenski, Simon Hehemann & Christl Mudrak!
