CURRENT – ART AND URBAN SPACE is a transdisciplinary festival for art in urban space. The first edition will take place from 9—19 September 2021 in Stuttgart. Installations, performances, discussions and workshops set out to explore the connection between art, architecture and the city.

In the first edition, CURRENT dedicated itself to the porosity. The festival focused on the unforeseen, breaks in planning, the experimental. Artists used various formats to respond to specific situations in the urban sphere of Stuttgart, local initiatives and institutions are involved in independent formats—all in relation to and with the ever-unfinished, porous city.


16. September 2021 / 10:00 — 19:00
SYMPOSIUM: Art and urban space – in assembly

Discussion with Irene Agrivina Widyaningrum, Jochen Becker, Ania Corcilius, Christopher Dell, Gilly Karjevsky, Jeanne van Heeswijk, Christian Haid, Andreas Hofer, Barbara Holub, Sonja Hornung, Kathrin Jentjens, Marjetica Potrč, Adnan Softić, Ülkü Süngün, Martina Taig, Renée Tribble → Kunstverein Wagenhalle

As an impulse for a new orientation of art in public space the symposium brings together experts from various backgrounds to address questions of a holistic and forward-looking urban design. Thus, we will raise big questions on a small scale and amplify the polyphony of art in connection with architecture and the city. How important is the investigative and critical view of art on changes in the city? What contribution do art and culture make and what role do they play for the expressiveness and resilience of an urban society? How can we pursue a re-orientation of the program ‘Kunst am Bau’ and ‘Kunst im öffentlichen Raum’ (art in public space) to discuss and develop new formats, strategies and schemes? CURRENT understands the artistic examination of the urban as an important resonance space and would like to put new models, formats, strategies, participations and financing structures up for discussion. Over the course of two days, the symposium will devote itself to current and future challenges, demands and potentials of contemporary art practices against the backdrop of a constantly changing urban space—socially, ecologically and politically—with impulse lectures, discussions and working talks.

WITH: Irene Agrivina Widyaningrum, Markus Bauer, Jochen Becker, Laura Bernhardt, Robin Bischoff, Ania Corcilius, Christopher Dell, Christian Haid, Jeanne van Heeswijk, Andreas Hofer, Barbara Holub, Sonja Hornung, Susanne Jakob, Kathrin Jentjens, Gilly Karjevsky, Alper Kazokoglu, Paula Kohlmann, Julia Lerch Zajączkowska, Marjetica Potrč, Anna Schiefer, Hannes Schwertfeger, Christina Simon-Philipp, Adnan Softić, Lukas Staudinger, Winfried Stürzl, Ülkü Süngün, Martina Taig, Renée Tribble, Nora Unger, Sylvia Winkler, Julia Wenz-Delaminsky, et al.

ART AND URBAN SPACE – in assembly
Symposium 16.09.2021 / 10 - 7 pm
Final public discussion 17.09.2021 / 3 – 5 pm

Project Space / Kunstverein Wagenhalle
Innerer Nordbahnhof 1
70191 Stuttgart


PROGRAM:

WELCOME: 10.00 – 10.30 am
Laura Bernhardt (CURRENT – ART AND URBAN SPACE)
Robin Bischoff (chairman and managing director of Kunstverein Wagenhalle/gGmbH)


INPUT: 10.30 – 11.00 am
Jeanne van Heeswijk – Toward the Not-Yet
(in english)


LECTURE PERFORMANCE: 11.00 – 11.30 am
Christopher Dell – The Improvisation of Space
(in english)


DISCUSSION – Improvisation and Porosity: 11.45 – 1 pm
WITH: Jeanne van Heeswijk (Artist), Irene Agrivina Widyaningrum (HONF, Artist Collective), Barbara Holub (Artist, transparadiso), Christopher Dell (Theorist/Conceptualist in urban design and architecture, Musician, Composer).
Moderation: Gilly Karjevsky (Curator)
(in english)



INPUT: 2.30 – 3 pm
Adnan Softić – Beyond Identities
(in english)


DISCUSSION – Cooperation and Mediation: 3 – 4.30 pm
WITH: Kathrin Jentjens (Mediator in the European Network of New Patrons, Curator), Marjetica Potrč (Artist), Christian Haid (Architect; Poligonal – Office for Urban Communications), Adnan Softić (Artist, Author).
Moderation: Ania Corcilius (Artist, Board Künstlerhaus Stuttgart)
(in english)


BREAK: 4.30 – 5 pm


DISCUSSION – New Structures and Funding Models: 5 – 6.30 pm
WITH: Jochen Becker (Curator/Author; station urbane kulturen/ngbk, metroZones, Berlin), Sonja Hornung (Artist, Soft Soil), Ülkü Süngün (Artist, Institut für künstlerische Migrationsforschung), Martina Taig (Geschäftsführung, KÖR Wien)
Moderation: Renée Tribble (Architect, Urban Planner, Professor TU Dortmund)
(in german)

BOOK LAUNCH 7:30 pm
TOWARD THE NOT-YET: ART AS PUBLIC PRACTICE
Jeanne van Heeswijk & Rachael Rakes