Second edition April–July 2018
The City of Munich, Department of Arts and Culture is pleased to announce that the second edition of Public Art Munich will take place in spring/summer 2018 and will be curated by Joanna Warsza.
With a budget of EUR 1.1 million, the program represents a clear cultural and political commitment by the city council to engage contemporary art as a catalyst for urban development and civic discourse. This is especially crucial given how digitalization, privatization, and global commerce have increasingly transformed the concept of “the public.”
“Art in public space offers a permanent challenge and the chance for an affluent city like Munich to remain open, to respond boldly to novelty, and to continually verify that it is still on the right track. As we are dealing with social issues that concern all of us, we will bring art to the space inhabited by the people,” says Hans-Georg Küppers, Director of the Department of Arts and Culture.
Public Art Munich was launched in 2013. For its first edition, the Scandinavian artist duo Elmgreen & Dragset curated a wide-ranging temporary art project in the center of Munich, contributing to a renewed debate about the concept of public space today. The exhibition A Space Called Public/Hoffentlich Öffentlich was accompanied by a series of public lectures and an extensive catalogue. Full documentation can be found here.
The second edition of Public Art Munich is set to take place from April to July 2018 as a time-based program inviting artists from various countries to develop new commissions related to Munich. Projects will be performative in nature and will include, among other things, a congress, a one-day citizen orchestra, temporary installations, and architectural pop-up interventions. Participating artists will come from the fields of visual arts, filmmaking, opera and music, architecture, theater, and theory. Each of the projects will be developed with a local partner and accompanied by a public program.
About her own role in the project, Warsza says: “I grew up to the hum of Radio Free Europe, broadcast from Munich over the Iron Curtain, which formed an image in my mind of a city I never visited until quite recently. It will be fascinating to address, from a curatorial and artistic perspective, the idiosyncrasies of Munich and its unique past and present.”
Joanna Warsza (born in Warsaw, based in Berlin) is a curator and researcher in the fields of visual and performing arts and architecture. Currently she directs CuratorLab at Konstfack University in Stockholm. Her recent curatorial commissions include the Georgian pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennale, the public program of Manifesta 10 in St. Petersburg, and the exhibition Finnish Landscape in Helsinki. Warsza has also edited several publications including Stadium X: A Place That Never Was (2009), Forget Fear (2012), Ministry of Highways: A Guide to the Performative Architecture of Tbilisi (2013), and I Can’t Work Like This: A Reader on Recent Boycotts and Contemporary Art (2017).
Chaired by Hans-Georg Küppers, Director of the Department of Arts and Culture, the jury committee for the curatorship of the second edition of Public Art Munich consisted of Maria Auböck, Akademie der Bildenden Künste München; Ayzit Bostan, Kunsthochschule Kassel; Patrizia Dander, Museum Brandhorst; Jolanda Drexler, independent art critic; Achim Hochdörfer, Museum Brandhorst; Matthias Mühling, Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus; Angelika Nollert, Die Neue Sammlung; Bernhart Schwenk, Pinakothek der Moderne; Daniela Stöppel, Kunstraum München; and members of the Munich City Council.
With the selection of Warsza, the City of Munich demonstrates its commitment to the role of curatorial and artistic practice in examining the local relevance of current global discussions and developments related to urbanism.
Contact:
Department of Arts and Culture, City of Munich
Kerstin Möller, kerstin.moeller [at] muenchen.de
Public Art Munich is funded by the City of Munich, Department of Arts and Culture.
