EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
ALICE MÁSELNÍKOVÁ
EDITORIAL BOARD
ALICE MÁSELNÍKOVÁ, STUART MAYES, PONTUS RAUD, ANDREAS RIBBUNG
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
ALICE MÁSELNÍKOVÁ, MAX PRESNEILL, FILIP RAHIM HANSSON, MARIJA GRINIJUK, CORDULA FROEHLICH M.A., HARALD ETZEMÜLLER & VLÁDMIR COMBRE DE SENA, ROB KNIJN, MERYEM SAADI
CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS & PHOTOGRAPHERS
JOHANNA SHARTAU (6–7), UNSPLASH (8), JASON JENN (9), HILBERT RAUM (10), STEPHANIE
SHERWOOD (11–12), HOPE EZCURRA (13), JANO KRTEK (16), FILIP RAHIM HANSSON (16, 18–19), VIDENDOMEN (18), BINGO BENGT (19), HILDE SKANCKE PEDERSEN (21–22), ØYSTEIN
THORVALDSEN (21–22), ASLAK MIKAL MIENNA (22), ANDREAS AUSLAND (22), SUSANNE
HÆTTA (22–23), MÁRET ÁNNE SARA (23), MARIJA GRINIUK (23), JOHAN SARA JR. (23), EULENGASSE (24–33), ALICE MÁSELNÍKOVÁ (30), SEAN LALLY (35), ROB KNIJN (36, 38–39), CAROLINE MALMSTRÖM (40), ELISABETH OHLSON (42)
GRAPHIC DESIGN
KATHARINA PETER
LANGUAGE EDITING AND PROOFREADING ALICE MÁSELNÍKOVÁ, STUART MAYES
ADVERTISING SALES
NADJA EKMAN
ADVERTISING CONTACT
AD @SUPERMARKETARTFAIR.COM
PRINTING
PRINTON TRUKIKODA LTD
PUBLISHER
PONTUS RAUD
Cover image: Lisa D Manner, ‘Lake’, 2016, oil on panel, 30 x 40 cm, exhibiting with Aura from Lund at Supermarket 2023
All rights to the photographs belong to the artists or galleries if nothing else is specified. © Supermarket Art Fair ekonomisk förening 2023
MEETINGS EXPANDED & FORUM COORDINATOR
Alice Máselníková
Alice is a Czech visual artist based in Stockholm. Out of the three creative directors of Supermarket she is the one with the most hair and least beard. Also the editor of Supermarket Art Magazine. She is the initiator of the artist-run initiative Flat Octopus and also works as a freelance editor, curator and funding advisor. When she is not working or painting you are likely to find her lost in a book or typing on her Olympia SM4 typewriter.
CREATIVE DIRECTOR Andreas Ribbung
Andreas is co-founder and one of the three creative directors of Supermarket. He is a painter and besides working with his own art, he is involved in the artist-run exhibition space Candyland and active as a project leader and adviser on art in the public realm, at the moment for Region Kalmar County, Region Stockholm and Östersund District Council. He is the father of four wonderful daughters and a dedicated gastro-hedonist.
MEETINGS COORDINATOR
PROOFREADER Stuart Mayes
Stuart is a visual artist living and working in Sweden. In addition to his studio practice he runs Glitter Ball showroom & projects, and art-education workshops. He studied at Dartington College of Arts and the Slade School of Fine Art as well as taking courses at Konstfack and the Royal Institute of Art Stockholm. Stuart has been a proofreader and language editor for Supermarket Catalogue and Art Magazine since 2012. In 2020 he became the Meetings Coordinator.
TALKS & PERFORMANCE COORDINATOR
Tal Gilad
Tal is an independent curator and researcher, attending Collective Practices at the Royal Institute of Art, Stockholm, this year and a member of Editorial Bo(a)rd, a collective dedicated to text editing as a creative practice. She joined the Supermarket team last year. Her interests are in soft institutional critique, cultural diffusion, medium in crisis, and Xennials in Art – having had an analog childhood and digital adulthood.
CREATIVE DIRECTOR
MEETINGS EXPANDED & FORUM COORDINATOR
Pontus Raud
Pontus is a visual artist and curator based in Stockholm. Initiator and co-founder of Supermarket and today one of the three creative directors. He is active as curator and works as an art advisor Stockholm Regional Council. Alongside this, he is a member of the artist collective KKV, and a board member of the Swedish IAA Committee.
INFORMATION COORDINATOR Tania Brito
Photographer, art historian and archival science student who loves to share knowledge and experience about art with others. Works as host and guide at Accelerator exhibition space, Vasa Museum and the Swedish Royal Court. She moved to Sweden in 2014 from her homeland Chile and became part of the Supermarket volunteer team in 2017 returning in 2021.
INFORMATION ASSISTANT Elin Vik
Nature obsessed, multimedia artist and artisan who equals creating to breathing. Elin studies ethnology, and is interested in and inspired by the ways art impacts and connects us to the world, each other and ourselves. She joined Supermarket in 2022 as a volunteer, and is back this year working alongside Tania Brito.
VOLUNTEERS COORDINATOR Ida Seffers
Ida is a socially minded team player, art consumer and gamer. Former student in art history, she has spent two turns as a volunteer at Supermarket before joining the team. Daytime dressed up as a union worker, her passion arises at night! Investigating the relationship between objects and humans she delves into the secret language of the thing.
Felicia is Supermarket's very own spin doctor and communications officer with a passion for the written word and spectacular imagery. She has been part of the Supermarket team since 2017, and in 2020 she became a member of studio collective and art platform Detroit Stockholm. Felicia holds a BA degree in Media & Communications from Stockholm University, and she further studied graphic design at Konstfack, Konstskolan Basis and Södertörns högskola.
Veronika is an artist working primarily around the notions of body adornment in relation to sound. She is one of the contributing editors for the Current Obsession magazine and the founder of the Undisciplined series promoting transdisciplinary craft practices. She has been a part of Supermarket since 2021.
COORDINATOR John W. Fail
Kenneth is an independent artist, curator and the co-founder of Being in The World, an interdisciplinary network exploring topics through dialogue and production of new art. He has been part of the Supermarket team on and off since 2008. He is mainly a painter but periodically he also works with sculpture, printmaking and combining them in installations. He is always looking for new ways to depict outlooks on the world and the phenomenology of being.
Nadja is a photographer, inventor, co-founder of Candyland and a member of Glimpse interactive mobile photo studio. Three days a week she teaches children and young people at the Stockholm School of the Arts in Husby and Rinkeby and a few months a year she sells advertising space in the Supermarket Art Magazine. She loves to watch dance and dances herself but does not like to freeze.
Art pedagog working with youths and creativity in different ways, combined with her own artistry. Studying her last year at Konstfack and one of the founders of the artist-run collective Best Before Collective. At Supermarket 2023 Belinda works as a pedagog and art guide.
Katharina is a graphic designer and after working on several art and culture projects in Sweden and Austria she got to know Supermarket and got hooked. Most of her projects start with a pencil and then they continue often as a combination of all sorts of manual and digital techniques which finally result on paper. She now lives and works in Switzerland.
John is a Helsinki-based artist who works primarily in open-form collaboration and experimental cultural platform design. Previously, he was the co-instigator of Biathlon, a toolkit for operating collectively-run spaces, which ran in Helsinki from 2016–2018. He was co-director of the 2015 Pixelache festival, operated the Ptarmigan platform from 2009–2014, and has performed and released music with various projects. Later this year he is launching a centre for heterodox research into technology and culture production, located in a former railway station in the Estonian countryside.
WEB DESIGNER Hanna Wanngård
Hanna is a singing web designer who, in addition to web design, has studied sustainability, risk and decision theory, and rhetoric. Starting up her web career in the beginning of the 20th century she has had a keen interest in following the most recent innovations concerning web design. That has been keeping her quite busy, but since 2002 she has also been touring all over the world with a famous Swedish piano player, singing in a vocal trio called the Vocalettes. In the future when she has some spare time she is planning to save the world.
PHOTOGRAPHER José Figueroa
José Figueroa studied photography at the University Escuela De Artes Lino Enea Spilimbergo. Following his studies he worked as a freelance press photographer, which included many trips to various countries in Latin America. Since 2000, Figueroa has been based in Stockholm and works especially with still images and film with commissions from the performing arts field, cultural sector, press and media as well as commissioned portraits. For his own projects, he allows himself to be attracted by lavish events.
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As I am writing this editorial one morning in the beginning of April, Stockholm is covered in newly fallen snow. Embraced in its crisp bright reflection it gives a feeling so contrary to the soft dense darkness that soon approaches; too early each afternoon for a good half of the year. Perhaps all this icy glow of the long dark months prepares us for the sudden appearance of light and the white summer nights. Just so that the change is not so abrupt and we do not forget there is always something else than the here and now awaiting. Steadily recurring, yet always unexpected is how seasons change. I do hope that the Greek god Boreas will have sailed away on his frosty cloud by the art fair’s start in May; that the snow will have finally melted away and we will be left to enjoy this year’s venue Stadsgårdsterminalen coated in the sun’s rays rather than frost. It is a wonderful site not only for its central and easily accessible location at Slussen, but above all for its breathtaking view over the water, the old town and the island of Djurgården with its greenery and amusement park (the scent of candyfloss nearly crossing the channel). A former checkpoint for cruise ships, it is easy here to float away into a dreamy reality where the dark swaying waves give such a breathtaking background to the presented artworks.
With such a backdrop, why is this year’s theme the twilight zone and not the marine dream? Have we finally succumbed to the calling of the full moon? Well…not exactly, though I do occasionally get a nostalgic longing for my Emo-goth teenage years. Twilight zone, or to give it its other name the Earth’s terminator, is a moving border between the light and the dark dividing the planet into daytime and nighttime. While one half of the world is shrouded in shadow, the other receives the sun’s blessings. Ever since cosmogony day and night have always existed as counterparts, one unable to exist without the other in a dichotomy highlighted throughout history in myths, religion, art and popular culture. The struggle between those two forces is also understood as that of morality: the good versus the evil, the righteous versus the damned. In Greek mythology we find many personifications representing this scale – yet what is sympathetic and relatable to our daily experience is that all of those characters are ambivalent; gods and humans alike, each one of them fighting their given nature, staggering in the insecurities and contrasts that constitute life.
What I find so fascinating about art is exactly its capacity to contain this eternal division, both in terms of creation, but also in the structural composition of the art world. Time after time, we hear about the good art and the bad art, the commercial and the not-for-profit art sector, the institution and the artist-run gallery. Most often, they are presented as opposing, and not complementing each other. Yet is there really anyone who would actually believe such a simplified view of how the art world functions? The point is, there are numerous grey zones in the arts, so much overlapping of disciplines and skills. If you run an artist-run gallery, should you exhibit your own work, take part in exchange projects and exhibitions or use your contact network to promote yourself as an artist? If you are employed within an institution, how much power do you have to affect its programme course – and should you be able to? Being invited to sit on a panel, to what extent are you voicing your opinion or that of the institution you work for? As an artist, where are you going with your art – should you change the way you express yourself, even just a bit, to please the galleries and buyers?
Not unlike the earth’s terminator, artists, galleries and institutions are always shifting – and growing and transforming, never just remaining static. And that is the whole beauty of it, one of the many allures of art is exactly its combination of transience and ultimacy: something we can always rely on to be there, but never rely on to be the same. As goes the Japanese expression ‘mono no aware’ – a deep sentiment for the impermanence and beauty of things passing.
In this magazine issue you will find articles touching upon the topic of transition, what lies in between and where we go from here.
Waiting for Gago is an article in a play format by Max Presneill set in Los Angeles. It is an artworld adaptation of the classic Beckett play Waiting for Godot. But who is waiting for what in the arts? And will that which we so much long for ever arrive?
| The Middle Room by Filip Rahim Hansson presents one of Malmö’s smallest artist-run spaces and discusses the potential of alternative exhibition formats and their role in parallel to the commercial art world. Is the artist-run the right path to fight the system?
Attention! Made in Sapmi brings you closer to understanding the nature of Sámi alternative art culture and how close it really is to the urban artist-run system. Written by Marija Griniuk, director of the Sami Centre for Contemporary Art.
Meryem Saadi ponders the recent years’ shift in the Swedish cultural policy looking at the current political landscape in her article Trouble on the horizon? Where is Sweden’s art world heading, and how does it affect its artists and cultural practitioners?
This year’s country focus goes to Germany, specifically to Frankfurt am Main, with articles by Cordula Froehlich M.A. summarising twenty-years’ history of one of the city’s most established artist-run spaces, EULENGASSE And, EULENGASSE’s founders Harald Etzemüller & Vládmir Combre de Sena contribute with an article on the history of Frankfurt’s artist-run scene, giving us the context of the city’s cultural landscape.
Finally, you will find the poetic text Arrival – Departure by artist Rob Knijn about nostalgia always lingering around the grey zone of our memory and determination.
Special thank you to the Irish artist Sean Lally for providing a cartoon 1,000 New Ways of Looking at Art (#317)
Welcome to Supermarket 2023. Linger with us for a moment, in-between art and the sea, before the seasons turn once again.
ALICE MÁSELNÍKOVÁ, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
A tragicomedy in two acts – breaking Beckett’s cycle
A city street. A bus stop. Evening.
Estragon (female, late 20s), sitting at the bus stop, is trying to get a signal on her phone. She moves it around with both hands, panting. She gives up, exhausted, rests, tries again. As before. Enter Vladimir (male, mid 50s).
Estragon: (giving up again) Nothing to be done. Oh hi Vlad. (they air kiss)
Vladimir: Hey Esti. What do you mean, nothing to be done?
Estragon: (downbeat) Trying to get things moving. Set stuff in motion. Life is tough and time moves slowly. It is a game in order to survive. And my phone is acting up again. (sighs)
Vladimir: (proudly) Maybe it seems that way to you but we, the Museum I mean of course, have plenty to be getting on with. We never rest. Time flies when you are older though. The next exhibition has been four years in the making and is finally getting there. It is a group show featuring some of the world’s greatest living artists. It will be a blockbuster, I am sure. What about you and your little alternative space?
Estragon: (with enthusiasm) Well, we finish the three week run, this weekend, of our international exchange with another artist-run-space like ours – they are from Budapest. Said Buddha-Pesht, you know – just found that out. Next show is a three person one, about gender, that will open next week. You probably never heard of the artists, but they are great! You should come to the opening!
Vladimir: Yes, of course, if I can find the time.
Estragon: I come to all your openings.
Vladimir: But of course you do. There is a lot to be learned there.
Estragon: (angry) Vice versa, you know. No need to patronise. You really should be expanding your knowledge of who is doing what out there. It’s your job after all. Just showing art stars means you are discovering nothing. Why not take a risk? See what happens … finding new voices is uplifting. We don’t need another old, white, male show.
Vladimir: Age, race and sex discrimination in one sentence. You disappoint me. And that is easy for you
to say. You don’t have a Board breathing down your neck, pressuring you to show artists from their collections.
Estragon: At least you have money. Try doing nine shows or so a year, with no budget!
Vladimir: Yes, yes.
Estragon: Work, work, work for both of us.
Vladimir: Not exactly the same though, is it? What we do is important!! We are establishing reputations by upholding high curatorial standards and professionalism. We create the canon. We make history!
Estragon: Yeah – ancient history. Important is what we invest belief in as important. You take so long to show these artists – by then everybody knows who they are and what they do, who they sleep with and what drugs they take (laughs). They have been seen by our crew first. By the time they get to you the moment has passed. History should remember the adventurous, the ones who discover things, like explorers or scientists.
Vladimir: Who is everybody? And just what do you think you’re doing that needs the documentation of history?
Estragon: Taking risks. Responding to what artists are doing. Working in partnerships rather than mini-dictatorships, however benign. We are fast acting, like a snake, we can strike and our audiences may be smaller but they learn more on visits to our space. We build community. What do you do for the community?
Vladimir: What do we do? If you don’t know, I cannot tell you. What is community? The people in your little gang? Those from the neighborhood? Artists? Anyway, why are you waiting here?
Estragon: The bus. I am waiting for the bus. It’s twenty minutes late. And you?
Vladimir: I am waiting for my driver. Meeting with Larry later. Do you know Larry?
Estragon: Never met him. Not to be too aggressive but…Don’t you think it is about time to rethink the role of Gatekeeper? To join the greater community of artists and to support them through actual working programmes rather than lip service? There are a few things you could start with, you know…
Vladimir: Gatekeepers? We are not that! That’s absurd.
Estragon: Oh, you so are!!
Vladimir: Well, someone has to ensure quality..
Estragon: Maybe a new category of quality is possible. What about seeing the role of the Museum as more akin to a facilitator, reflecting on contemporary culture, not just reflecting the current power bases, the patriarchy, the same-as-everyone-else sense, as seen in museums and biennals all over the place.
Vladimir: (bored) What would you suggest?
Estragon: Oh, I don’t know. It would be great to see the Museum giving active support to alternative spaces. Doing something that shows there is a mutual respect, that recognises the importance of grass-roots activity. You could start with an open-look policy to allow artists to submit their website address to you and have curators review them. You never know – you might find someone brilliant.
Vladimir: (amused) I thought you didn’t respect the establishment.
Estragon: I respect what they think they are trying to do. And some of your shows have been great. It is just that there are so many talented artists doing amazing things that you never become aware of, as you just seem to shop at Gagosian and his other mega-gallery pals. Anyway, I will think about this and get back to you. (holds phone up and turns in a circle)
Vladimir: Tell me then. What is it you do that you think we should? What methods do you use?
Estragon: We use hybrid models of moving. Like your car, I hope. (laughs)
Vladimir: An example?
Estragon: Our aims differ, I know. But should they? We are looking to build artist communities, to diversify presented voices, to facilitate artist’s exchanges and development, and to democratise the relationship with artists and audiences.
Vladimir: All high and mighty, I am sure. But how?
Estragon: Numerous ways. Crowdsourcing, for example. We sometimes use social media to bring unknown artists to the fore, by recommendation by other artists and art lovers. What about allowing artist-run-space organisers to curate a show or part of a show with others from the
alternative scene. We interchange like that all the time. It builds connection. Varies our shows. Maybe we could do an exchange with you! Art from your collection that we can show alongside our artists in our space. That would please the artists and bring a bigger crowd to our doors. Now that would be supportive!! And do the same in your Museum. Though I am not sure what alternative means in our context. An alternative to you, I guess.
Vladimir: To be honest that kind of thing might well help us diversify our audience somewhat – oh and the kind of artists we can present…
Estragon: See. A win-win situation
Vladimir: (discouraged) The Board would not go for it.
Estragon: I am sure you can find a way to sugar coat it so they will. Besides, nothing ventured, nothing gained. What do you have to lose?
Vladimir: My job? (laughing). Where is he?
Estragon: Who? Oh, your driver? Larry can wait. But think of what you could gain…..
Vladimir: Yes..let me get back to you about that.
Estragon: You know, there are little ways you could help.
Vladimir: Like?
Estragon: You could let the artists you work with select their own work so it reflects their practice, or at least their preferences, more than the curators’ aesthetic. Let them be the deciding factor in what represents their own work.
Vladimir: The curators already work like that, essentially.
Estragon: Good to hear. What about the choices for themes? We don’t always need academic approaches, you know. Every now and then it would be nice to see something that takes some content and presentation risks – that reflects the conversation we artists are having now. Art historians make boring shows.
Vladimir: Now that is an overgeneralisation too far. And there have been a few here today from you. Larry won’t wait. I bet he is gone, gone home.
Estragon: Whatever, Boomer. Do you have a phone charger?
Vladimir: Is Gen Z an insult yet?
Curtain
Next day. Same time. Same place
Vladimir: Still here I see. Streets are still empty. Nobody walks anywhere anymore.
Estragon: Yes, but I am getting tired of waiting and it is too far to walk. You thought about what we talked about? New horizons for you to host and for us to participate in? Did you meet with Larry?
Vladimir: No. He wasn’t there. You do realise that we host many things for artists and the public. We do panel discussions and film nights, lectures and workshops. It never ends.
Estragon: I know you do and I support that. You could also offer workshops in navigating the professional world, dealing with studio visits, working with a museum or gallery. There is so much that art school just doesn’t teach you. It’s like learning to balance a checkbook – necessary even if frustrating at times. You could help us with that.
Vladimir: mmmm (thoughtful). Good for the outreach division.
Estragon: Just think. If you saw exhibitions as the start of something, some dialogue with each artist, with some kind of follow up – not a one-off event – such as a mutating touring exhibition that changed with the location, with its own diversity in each place, wouldn’t that be phenomenal? You could engage with the local artist populations. That would be exciting.
Vladimir: We DO tour some shows. Your idea would be more work but it might engage the press and be a lot for our PR dept to work with, as well as establishing closer working ties with other institutions. But your lot would need to be more professional. You know, getting materials in on time. Act as partners. None of this get-round-to-itwhen-I-feel-like-it stuff. Artists, especially younger or less experienced ones need to see how much of a difference it makes when they are professional and reliable to work with.
Estragon: I know that and yes, more of us could try and stop acting like it is a hobby. But you cannot wait around to be discovered these days. It’s another fine mess we have gotten ourselves into, for sure. We need to make it happen ourselves but it would be a lot easier with some backing from types like you.
Vladimir: (musing) I have often thought about how the Museum could extend itself beyond our walls. Do some real public outreach. Do some community building and diversification – you know, all the stuff grants are made of.
Estragon: Like how?
Vladimir: Well, I thought about finding an empty building, an office block or warehouse or maybe even a car park and doing a show based on the game, what’s it called….Chinese Whispers. Where each invited artist invites another until we fill the space!
Estragon: Racist – don’t call it that. Telephone is what it is now called. The Torrance Art Museum does something like that with their NOMAD and MAS Attack projects. Google them.
Vladimir: OK, Telephone, then. Unfamiliar with them but I will check them out.
Estragon: It is a great idea! You could enroll some of us from the artist-run-world to find 50% of the artists. What do you think of that?
Vladimir: Possibly. Let me get back to you on that one. There has to be a way to find compromise that fulfills us both.
Estragon: I think so too.
Vladimir: It is so hard to think outside the box sometimes. It is like we are stuck with horse blinkers on. But when one does manage it, it feels obvious. Here’s my driver, Samuel. Do you want a ride?
Estragon: That would be great, thanks. About time we got out of here. Let’s definitely do something together. Make it work. Find a way forward. I am so jazzed about this and I am sure everyone else would be too. After all, it’s a symbiosis.
Vladimir: I think you might be right. Let’s meet, sooner rather than later, to discuss possibilities. Best of both worlds’ stuff. After you…(opens car door)
Estragon gets into the limo followed by Vladimir. They drive off.
Curtain
Max Presneill is an artist and curator based in Los Angeles. He has exhibited throughout the world and is represented by Patrick Painter, Inc (Los Angeles), and TW Fine Art (Brisbane, Australia), amongst several others and is currently the Director and Head Curator of the Torrance Art Museum in Los Angeles as well as the co-Founder of Durden and Ray.
It began with a walk down a busy sunny boulevard in Malmö, an old pedestrian street filled with fashion and flower boutiques and ‘French’ cafes. Soon, the pavement merged with the rushing traffic of Södra Förstadsgatan, characterised by its family-owned bodegas and Syrian restaurants, and the horizon then started to reveal Möllevångstorget. That’s when I spotted a small crack along one of the building’s facades. In the middle, sandwiched by trash and covered with dust, sat a small display cabinet, just about the size of an A1 paper sheet. It had been used as a promotion window back in its days and later by a travel agency. Forgotten in this abandoned place, everything told me that the display window’s commercial value was long through, and all it could accumulate now was dust.
But despite this first unfavourable impression I saw its potential crystal clear. My mind assembled together a gallery, gazing towards the horizon and the city square, with art that would always be available to everyone who asked for it. With time, the cabinet has transformed from a place for commercial display to a platform for artists to manifest views of their own chosen topics.
As an artist in the public sphere, with a foot in the door of social work and an eye pointed towards a better and brighter future, I saw this small cabinet as a space for dialogue. Naturally, I was met with scepticism when I started formulating the idea of this mini-gallery. Questions such as, whether and why I should be the sole occupier of this space – which led me to the realisation that I shouldn’t be. I’d never wished for a monopoly over any public space. Taking thought into action, I decided to share the opportunity and transform this old commercial window into an exhibition case: an
ongoing conversation of artists’ ideas as a platform for showing art where all who wished to participate and have their voice be heard could apply. With the size of an A1 paper I had to call it galleri A1
As an artist without formal training, I always had to prove myself in seemingly unfair ways to convince the audience or more correctly the holders of the already known art platforms, such as galleries or museums, that I was just as worthy of their attention as any formally trained artist. That’s why I saw no need for any inherent hierarchy or favouritism for any particular training or educational background in the application process to exhibit. I deferred from judging art pieces' execution too harshly since the point was not skill but rather what the artist could, in concept, bring to the discussion of how we use public spaces which proved to be something that shined through any type of work, whatever level or training the artist had. Through the project I wanted to find loose threads and tie a knot with other artists. I could do so thanks to contributions from other like-minded people, giving me hope that this former commercial site could serve my purpose perfectly. From something that told the consumer what to think and strive for, to a circular and constantly regenerating conversation between the formally trained and the homemade.
Today, the gallery is fully booked until the end of 2024, boasting a proud mix of various artists, each portraying a unique point of view through their art. I’ve included pieces from friends who studied at art academies, self-taught artists, as well as others who treat art as a hobby.
My mini-gallery, Gallery A1, is a place of possibilities. Like many other things in my artistic process, I appreciate these
Between two buildings a new form emerges, perhaps one of the world's smallest galleries.Gallery A1’s first international exchange with Czech gallery Ukradená Galerie Český Krumlov. This is just one example of how the format of the gallery can be used to create international exchanges and interesting meetings. Jaro Krtek, “Stepping on a rusty nail time and time again”, two-piece installation, Humpolec, 2021, photo: Filip Rahim Hansson
middle grounds that are ambiently strewn across urban areas, promoting ideas for change in their subtle ways. During autumn 2022, we opened a sibling gallery in Gävle; a small step towards my dream of taking the concept internationally. The gallery offers possibilities in its limitations. Because of its small size, there is not a lot of art that can fit, but thanks to that; the art pieces are concise in their argument. I also don’t need any staff to watch the exhibit, and it is on show 24/7. There’s also the breaking of traditional conventions; there is no typical gallery room with pathologically clinical white walls, the art is in its own small space, confined in an urban setting that it is inherently a part of. That way, I’m not separating the art from its social context like it would otherwise be, but it’s still held safe in the
confines that the display window offered from the beginning. In the future I see possibilities for expansions, opening up a network to promote the same idea amongst other cities and towns.
I’m proud to say that I have not built a space for showing pretty pictures, but provided a platform where art, artist and the audience are invited to tie together the proverbial loose ends in our public discourse and question our reality. Our general perspectives on economic roles in the public environment have to change. I hope that gallery A1 is on that path. Because right in the middle of this unassuming middle room in Möllan, I’ve started a discussion, and I invite you to join in.
Filip Rahim Hansson is an artist whose work sets out to stretch the boundaries and frames of reference in our society. Central to his practice are questions surrounding perfection as something that is constituted by change and acceptance – perspectives that are guided by his studies of Dharma.
Material as well as contextual versatility are key for Rahim Hansson. Some of his work is on the playful side, some of it political, all joined under the artist’s vision that art is telling us what we don’t yet know. Through collaboration, his own gallery and social projects, Rahim Hansson spreads the idea that creativity has its own unique form of perfection, beyond common notions and societal conventions.
Sámi artist-run culture provides a platform for extensive interdisciplinary networks and a crucial approach to creative expression that amplifies Sámi artistic and political voices. This expression is not confined to discipline-specific representations. It is interesting to note that while interdisciplinarity is often promoted in art academies today, the funding and application processes for these institutions often remain discipline-specific.
In the Western understanding, artistic creative processes often limit artists to identify themselves as working in a particular medium or discipline, such as visual arts, choreography, theatre, music, or writing. Even within artist-run culture, artistic and curatorial practices are often categorised as visual art only, although they may intersect. In Sámi society, creativity is understood differently and
artistic practices often include visual expression, as well as literature production and music. In Sámi culture, creativity emerges from tradition and encompasses a lifestyle, a connection to nature, and aesthetic processes, rather than being focused solely on object-based visual art outcomes. Gunvor Guttorm (2015, 2017) explains the term ‘duodji’, which refers to creativity in Sámi culture as a process that brings humans and nature into dialogue, rather than just having a material outcome. The term ‘dáidda’, which entered Sámi language in the 1960s and 1970s, frames artistic activity within the realm of contemporary art, but artistic expression in Sámi culture is still seen as being widely interdisciplinary.
Sámi artist-run culture is influenced by an interdisciplinary approach and has become a significant part of art
institutions. RiddoDuottarMuseat in Karasjok is a museum which holds the Sámi Art Archive with approximately 1400 artworks, and is an important custodian and conveyor of Sámi art. In 1979 a group of Sami artists started Sami Artist’s Union, an artist’s organisation now uniting eighty Sámi artists. The organisation started the Sámi Center for Contemporary Art in the 1980s. In the last ten years, the main centres for contemporary art in Sámi culture have been the Sámi Center for Contemporary Art in Karasjok and Dáiddadállu in Kautokeino, which are approximately 150 km apart and have different formats – the former is a foundation and the latter is an artist-run network. However, both institutions today are led by the same artists: Hilde Skancke Pedersen (image 1 a, b, c), who works with visual art, performance, and theatre production, and Susanne Hætta (image 2 a, b, c), working with visual art, photography, and literature. These artists are involved in decision-making and setting the goals for both institutions, which makes the Sámi Center for Contemporary Art an artist-defined institution as the current board consists of three artists and two politicians.
This reflects how the interdisciplinary nature of Sámi culture encourages artists not only to be involved in their own studio-based productions, but also to take on leadership roles within institutions and shape the frameworks in which they operate. Despite the distance, the Arctic highways unite rather than separate Sámi artists and organisations, facilitating close cooperation and planning. In 2022, both the Sámi Center for Contemporary Art and Dáiddadállu were involved in the Sámi Pavilion (2022) at the Venice Biennale in various capacities. The Sámi Center for Contemporary Art, in collaboration with OCA, Katya Garcia-Anton, the Sámi Parliament, Silja Somby, and the Sámi Council led a non-graduate educational programme for Sámi curators, while Máret Ánne Sara (see Image 3), an artist from Dáiddadállu, was one of three artists featured in the Sámi Pavilion (2022). Máret Ánne Sara is the artistic manager of Dáiddadállu. The Sámi Center for Contemporary Art is also involved in the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2023.1 These international events bring together the entire region of Sapmi, despite the geographical distance, and the community of artists is experienced as close-knit and working together to represent Sámi culture on a global scale. Interdisciplinary approaches allow the individuals involved in the Sámi art scene to combine political activism, management, organisation-based work and their artistic practice, where each of the activity aspects are on local, national and international scales of work simultaneously. This distinguishes Sámi artist-run organisations, since their involvement stretches from the major global art events, such as the Venice Biennale, to the local events and artistic interventions. Sámi art institutions and organisations, whether foundations, artist-run collectives, or individual artists,
carry a political message and advocate for the freedom of identity expression and human rights of the Sámi indigenous community, with the aim of dismantling hierarchies of artistic and societal tradition.
The next important step in the cooperation between the Sámi Center for Contemporary Art in Karasjok and Dáiddadállu is an upcoming exhibition in the summer of 2024, which will mark the 10th anniversary of Dáiddadállu. This exhibition will be based on a series of live experiences and events, highlighting the importance of liveness in exhibitions due to their interdisciplinary nature. These exhibitions offer a wider spectrum of expression than what might be seen in a traditional, static exhibition in a physical space. It is important not to contrast different ways of creativity, but rather to bring them into dialogue and recognise the strong connection between tradition and individual artistic voice in each artwork.
References:
Guttorm, G. (2012). Duodji: A new step for art education. International Journal of Art & Design Education, 31(2), 180-190.
Guttorm, G. (2015). Contemporary Duodji—A personal experience in understanding traditions. Relate North: Art, heritage and identity, 60-77.
For more information about Dáiddadállu https://www.daiddadallu.com/
For more information about Sámi Center for Contemporary Art https://Sámidaiddaguovddas.no/
Cordula Froehlich M.A.
It all started – as with so many project spaces – with an idea: Harald Etzemüller and Vládmir Combre de Sena decided in 2003 to establish an art association together with five other artists and people with an affinity for art. A suitable location on Eulengasse, a street in Frankfurt am Main, gave the association its name. The first to occupy the 17 square metre space was one of the founding members Stehn Raupach.
As early as 2006, the exhibition ‘Beware of the Goose!’ with members Dirk Kalthoff, Martina Templin and others literally bursting the confines of the space.
The success of the space meant that in 2011 larger facilities with studios were rented in the nearby Seckbacher Landstraße, though the already established name of the association EULENGASSE remained.
‘St. CREDIBILITY’, action, Supermarket 2016
‘22/4’, St. CREDIBILITY, Supermarket 2016, anonymous statement
‘Beware of the Goose!’, EULENGASSE, 2006
Over the years, it was not only the members, including artists, cultural workers and art lovers who made the association a well regarded off-space, but also the exhibitions, which were positioned through their diversity in relation to contemporary issues. The conceptual approach of the gallery allowed it to provide a forum for painting, sculpture, drawing, photography and installation in addition to social sculptures in Beuys’ sense. This is how a successful concept came into being – which was named in-house as ‘Kunstverortung’ (art localisation) –and has remained a particular art platform since 2008. Since then, there has been a commitment to specific annual themes, which are conceived collectively by the artistic members with regard to the geopolitical and cultural-political situation as well as the existential artistic position, and which involve a variety of spatial realisations. A process of development is evident looking back at the last few years: CRISIS (2008), SHIFT OF PERSPECTIVE (2011), POLYVERSUM ToArt (2013), ME-I-MYSELF (2015), something is about to change… (2016), Dialectics of Recognition (2019) – to name some examples. The last theme in particular shows the relevance of cultural contributions in initiating dialogue with respect to social diversity.
The invited artists are free to develop artistic concepts on these subjects and to create new works. Artistic reflection in the form of panel discussions and brainstorming accompany the respective projects and are complemented with art education programmes and publications.
The ceaseless dedication of the members led to connections with external curators and other organisations, such as Bund Offenbacher Künstler 1 In 2014, the founders, together with Heide Khatschaturian, Petra Maria Mühl, Brigitte Kottwitz, Carolyn Krüger and others, developed the ‘TAUSCH!’ project, a concept which was repeated in the following years due to the high levels of response. The ‘TAUSCH! Contemporary Art Fair’ is an interdisciplinary art festival that offers a presentation platform to artists, studio communities and local actors in the respective regions within and outside of cultural capitals.2 These events are produced with an intention to explore humane liberalism as a counterpoint to consumption-oriented society. An accompanying lecture given at TAUSCH! by Carla Orthen illustrated the significant role that self-managed project spaces play in this context.3 Last but not least, this also opens up new networking opportunities. Exciting discussions arose in 2019 at the four day festival (developed by Elke Bergerin and Sabine Imhof, and others in collaboration with Kristin Wicher and Roger Rigorth of ARTHaus Altheim), which explored
The current art scene in Frankfurt am Main is quite different in structure compared to other German cities such as Berlin, Leipzig, Munich or Cologne. Although the city has a long and distinguished history of visual arts, the arts field today is still dominated by commercial galleries and museums. The lack of publicly funded spaces for art and the absence of a network organisation of and for independent project and exhibition spaces is also striking.
Venues for artistic experimentation and the development of new presentation and mediation formats in studio communities, as well as producer galleries, already existed in Frankfurt in the 1970s. In 1973, the Kommunale Galerie was opened as a part of the City’s Cultural Office – a first in Germany, and a prototype for the 35 municipal galleries that now exist in Berlin.1 The French-born artist Nicole Guiraud summarises this retrospectively: “The situation of artists at that time, as everywhere in the Western countries, was divided into two areas that had little contact with each other: the academic circles (in Frankfurt centred on the Städelschule, Academy of Fine Arts), which were directly linked to the art institutions and therefore ‘elitist’, and the various ones who did not belong to this milieu and were looking for something ‘more liberal’, experimental, independent, more in the realm of subculture.”2 This split continues in Frankfurt even today; local institutions and foundations mainly subsidise exhibitions by graduates from the Academy of Fine
Harald Etzemüller & Vládmir Combre de Sena ‘TAUSCH!’, Heyne Kunst Fabrik, Offenbach am Main, 2014the question of the actual potency of cultural practice outside of established cultural institutions.4, 5
This made it possible to generate and record various art funding programmes, for example our supporters include the Cultural Office of the City of Frankfurt am Main, the Kulturfonds Frankfurt RheinMain and the State Ministry of Science and the Arts of Hesse. Projects such as the collaboration platform ‘INCORPORE’ (2016 and 2017) were realised with Cornelia F. Ch. Heier, Vera Bourgeois, Kerstin Lichtblau, and Michael Bloeck among others. In cooperation with the Heussenstamm gallery and foundation, Frankfurt studio communities and the basis project space, and simultaneously helped individual artists to obtain a regional recognition.6, 7, 8 Further collaborations with associations and makerspaces such as 68elf in Cologne and kunstbalkon in Kassel followed and resulted, for example, in the creation of supporting programmes for documenta XIV (2017) and XV (2022).9, 10 The Frankfurt Art Summer 2017 already showed the attention and recognition being given to artist-run spaces, exhibition venues and off-spaces such as AtelierFrankfurt, basis Kunstverein Familie Montez, saasfee, Orbit24 or Ausstellungshalle 1A, beyond a scene-specific subculture. Since then, EULENGASSE has been recognised as a self-organised project space. In September 2022, the director
of AtelierFrankfurt Corinna Bimboese hosted the kick-off meeting of the ‘Artist-Run Frankfurt’ format developed by Florian Adolph, Andrea Blumör and Harald Etzemüller to establish a network of Frankfurt project spaces, introduced by a presentation of ‘Artist-Run Network Europe’ (ARNE) by Alice Máselníková.11, 12
The intellectual exchange of humanitarian relevant topics was foregrounded more and more by the members of the art association. In addition, a new focus was added to the digital options. The project Positionen 2018: Digitale Stadt’ (Darmstadt-Frankfurt-Wiesbaden), co-initiated by Dr. Paul Hirsch, in which EULENGASSE was involved as a project venue, extended its integration into the Rhine-Main cultural region. It was a groundbreaking futuristic event which showed the advantages and disadvantages of the digital world in its diversity.
An interdisciplinary artwork was created in 2019 at the invitation of Jasmin Glaab (kunsthallekleinbasel) for ‘SUMME’, the Basel Project Spaces Festival.13 Entitled ‘salonfähig’, a project concerned with space-time-body language was realised through a mulit-faceted collaboration of art historian Dr Ana Karaminova in the FABRIKculture in Hégenheim/ FR, directed by Clément Stehlin.14 During 23 hours
Arts of Frankfurt and the University of Art and Design in the adjacent city of Offenbach am Main, making it difficult to exhibit for artists outside of this context.3
At the beginning of the 1990s, a creative spirit of optimism swept through the country – in West and East; as the fall of the Wall and the subsequent reunification of the two parts of Germany opened up tremendous potential. Many young people left Frankfurt for Berlin at that time, but those who stayed were able to participate in the formation of an independent scene. And that’s how we still know it today. There was the 707 e.V., which with its performances, readings, lectures and concerts was certainly the most important project of alternative cultural mediation in the early 1990s. Founded in 1985 by Andreas Kallfelz and others, 707 e.V. was active until 1995. And then there was GARTNER’S, which from 1993 to 1995 shaped and influenced a scene with weekly changing exhibitions, large crossspace environments, lectures, etc. It was initiated and run by Annette Gloser, who understands herself as a site-specific curator able to transform wasteland into a temporary cultural oasis.4 She subsequently dedicated herself to Galerie Fruchtig, a 600 square metre industrial hall, that ran until 1999. In 1997, the artists’ group Phantombuero was formed with Daniel Milohnic and Dirk Paschke, who until 2000 operated exhibition and event spaces at two locations in order to develop artistic projects as a resistance to the urban Frankfurt phenomenon of contradictions and conflicts – of a world turned upside down.5
Then, towards the end of the 1990s, for the first time a more coordinated self-organisation of the independent scene was developed: Through the ’walks’ event independent exhibition spaces and projects from the city duo Frankfurt/Offenbach entered into an intensive dialogue with the public and creative partners. Organised by Florian Haas of gruppe finger (Frankfurt) and Oliver Raszewski and Thomas Hüh-
‘TAUSCH!’, ARThaus, Münster-Altheim, 2019the visitors could experience the interface between haptic and transcendental perception by means of exhibition objects, performance and dialogue in the trinational region near Basel, Switzerland.
The time leap of social change includes not only artists using digital media to produce their works, but also the initiation of projects on online platforms, so that even in the Corona crisis (2020/21), which was difficult for all cultural workers, digital opportunities could be explored in the form of podcasts, virtual meetings and exhibitions. For instance, a virtual dialogue concept was realised for PLATFORMS
PROJECT Independent Art Fair in Athens, which developed from a project initiated by Adam Szymczyk for documenta 14.15, 16
Another aspect in the context of social responsibility stirred the art emotions in 2020. Four artists worked with young offenders in a project entitled ‘Sentenced to canvas, pencils, wood and words’. This cooperation project developed with Daniel Scheffel and Sabine Imhof and the JKWF Jugend-KulturWerkstatt Falkenheim Gallus in Frankfurt am Main sensitised people on many levels to other people’s experiences and realities. The exhibition opened up a view of the creative process and the transcendental complexity in the arts in terms of psychological, pedagogical, didactic, social and aesthetic aspects that also play a major role in curating – in addition to their historical, content-related and spatial relevance.
Finally, after a cooperation in 2016/17 with Konstepidemin in Gothenburg, Sweden, another transnational project was successfully realised in 2022 with the curators Guillaume Krick and Romain Rambaud from B.A.R. Le Bureau d’Art et de Recherche at the Q.S.P. Gallery in Roubaix, France. Further collaborations in Gjilan, Kosovo, London, Great Britain and Québec, Canada are in the pipeline.17, 18
‘features of three and a half’, EULENGASSE, 2014
‘They belong to me’, Q.S.P. Gallery, Roubaix, France, 2022
sam of Fahrradhalle (Offenbach), this kind of festival took place over five consecutive years starting in 1997. It ran in parallel to the commercial art fair ART Frankfurt and was supported by the City’s Cultural Office.6 Lively cultural actors of this time and represented in these events were – to mention only a few by name – Stefan Beck with multi.trudi, an art space, offspace and art project based on exchange, conversation and participation (1997–2003). Konstantin Adamopoulos and Natalie de Ligt who are two of the few examples to have succeeded in making a seamless transition from artist-run to the institutional world. Adamopoulos, a freelance curator and exhibition organiser in Frankfurt between 1993 and 2002, inventing the term ‘free art initiatives’ while simultaneously working in the context of commercial galleries. De Ligt became director of the Nuremberg Kunstverein after running the exhibition space at 34a Oppenheimer Street between 1999 and 2002, a location which has existed as an art space from 1992 up to the present with changing tenants.
From Off to On: When professionalisation succeeds, the flair and multidimensional social function of the project space is quickly lost, as happened with Jürgen Wolfstädter, who previously offered a space dedicated for performance with his OFKunstraum and subsequently Galerie Wildwechsel but since 2012 has operated a traditional commercial gallery. gutleut 15 (1997–2009) had to close due to a change of ownership of the building, and the former director Michael Wagener now focuses on his small fine art book publishing house.7 Or the finger exhibition
‘alles ist schon draußen’, Galerie BOK, Offenbach am Main, 2016
‘TERRITORIUM’, Supermarket 2015
‘Alle Farben malen Schwarz’, EULENGASSE + Kunstbalkon Kassel, 2020/21
Tomas Ferm,‘KROPP | KÖRPER’, EULENGASSE, 2019
Since 2015, there has been a connection with Supermarket – Stockholm Independent Art Fair. Swedish artists such as Tomas Ferm, Magnus Fliesberg and the Czech artist based in Sweden Alice Máselníková have already been guests at the EULENGASSE exhibition space with their own shows. EULENGASSE’s annual presence at this fair is due in particular to the involvement of the artist Andrea Blumör. It started with ‘TERRITORIUM’, followed by ‘ST. CREDIBILITY’ and a questioning of the credibility of art, politics, science and religion. In this way, visitors have been encouraged to engage in dialogue about world-changing issues. According to an anonymous statement collected at Supermarket, it was already clear in 2016 that art was in danger of becoming an unspectacular niche existence favouring a narrative media world.19 This was to be challenged and became part of further concepts with a focus on dialogue. In 2021, online conversations on the topics of the ‘ROUND ROBIN’ took place before and during the fair. EULENGASSE will be present again at Supermarket 2023 – the year of EULENGASSE’s 20th anniversary.
contemporary art. In 2022 she moved to Uelzen, and is now turning her attention to the Hamburg art scene and its regional surroundings. www.art-words.de
1 https://www.bund-offenbacher-kuenstler.de
2 http://tausch2014.eulengasse.de
3 www.rotmagazin.de/innerhalb-zum-phaenomen-produzentenraum
4 https://www.rathaus-arthaus.de
5 https://tausch2019.eulengasse.de
6 http://incorpore.eulengasse.de
7 https://heussenstamm.de
8 https://basis-frankfurt.de
9 https://www.68elf.de
10 https://kunstbalkon.de
11 http://www.atelierfrankfurt.de/en
12 https://www.facebook.com/artistrunfrankfurt
13 https://summe.xyz
14 https://fabrikculture.net
15 www.platformsproject2020.eulengasse.de
16 https://platformsproject.com
17 https://konstepidemin.se
18 http://www.le-bar.fr
19 ‘St. CREDIBILITY’, SUPERMARKET 2016, anonymous statement, see 22/4
Cordula Froehlich M.A. studied German language and literature and art history at the J.W. v. Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main and worked as a freelance art historian in Frankfurt for over 25 years. Her main focus is on guided tours as well as texts and curations on Alice Máselníková, ‘Longing souls and bodies lost’, EULENGASSE, 2022space at 4-6 Alte Mainzer Gasse, which was ‘borrowed’ by two artists in 1992–2012 from the property owner Städelschule, and today has become fffriedrich, a project space run by students of the MA Curatorial Studies at Goethe University Frankfurt together with students of Fine Arts at Städelschule.8
A characteristic of non-institutional project spaces even today is their often precarious situation, both physically and financially. Many of the inspiring initiatives and places whose existence consists in not being funded are therefore often ephemeral in nature. For many initiatives that disappeared only a few years ago, there is hardly anything left on the Internet about their existence, even in this digital age. The exhibition space Fahrradhalle, which was an important venue in Offenbach started in 1995 but closed 2007 due to lack of both funding and public interest – since closing the building has been demolished and the area is redeveloped. Standort studio/ exhibition space run by Joachim Raab and seven other artists 1996–2006 has also been demolished, the auswärts art space 1999–2002 – no one knows what became of the people running it. MATO, studios and exhibition space, which started in 2000 in an industrial ruin in Offenbach, had to leave the site in 2013 because of its redevelopment (but the non-profit art association still exists and is working on project cofunding).9 This was followed by a municipal studio building increasing rents and becoming linked to the local university of art and design. The project space Balken’s last activity was in 2021, driven for about ten years by the artist Deniz Alt, this former industrial site will also soon be re-clustered with residential development.10 The Bahnhof Mainkur, an art space from 2005 to 2015, is back to being a pub. At least the programme of the art space Schwalbe 54 led by Jana Jander, which ran for eight years, is still available on Facebook, last entry 2020.11 The living room gallery and weekend salong ML44 run by Carola Reichel and many others no longer exists. A special mention for Grxxgs (1991–2006), the most unspectacular exhibition space in town: invitations, announcements, openings – all absent. The only thing in this cool and discrete small shop window located in the north-end of Frankfurt is its monthly changing installations – no trace of the artist or the operator. But, we know him personally: his name is Heinrich Göbel (he is now doing bicycle tours...).
This is the occasion to thank Stefan Beck for his blog-archive ‘Thing Frankfurt’ (still online!) on arts, critique and new media, which has existed since 1992, he describes it as a network for the transformation of Frankfurt arts.12 His records from the independent scene are a highly valuable historical document, where you can find an extensive characterisation of many off-spaces and self-organised
spaces – up until when Stefan moved to Hamburg around 2012 which ended the notes project. There is no current directory of Frankfurt project spaces –not yet.
The following four art venues occupy a special position. Established in 2004 on the initiative of architect Jörg Siedel in the former police headquarters, AtelierFrankfurt was Frankfurt’s first studio house offering forty studios along with event spaces.13 Since moving to Frankfurt’s Ostend in 2014 where it covers 11,000 square metres, has 140 studios as well as several project and exhibition spaces, it has been managed by Corinna Bimboese. All four art venues are run by non-profit associations, but the production and exhibition platform basis is another studio house that operates semi-institutionally through the organisation of a municipal artist-in-residency programme.14 It positions itself by conveying artistic content and questioning the role of art in society. Klosterpresse, an interdisciplinary artist and print workshop founded in 1967, formerly located in the Carmelite monastery, is institutionally supported, as is Ausstellungshalle 1A, in a former laundry and directed by Dr. Robert Bock.15, 16
Among the project spaces that have been around for a long time and are still running today are Galerie Zement, founded by Richard Köhler in 1996 and Freitagsküche by Thomas Friemel and Michael Riedel – which since 2004 has been the best place for a dinner among artists, stylish and trendy people.17,18 In addition there are, Kunstverein Familie Montez founded by the artists Mirek Macke and Anja Czioska in 2007, the saasfee exhibition pavilion of the artists’ collective around Alex Oppermann and Moni Friebe started in 2008, and husslehof run by Felix GroßeLohmann since 2013.19, 20, 21
In this contextualised field of art, five artists in 2003 launched our art association EULENGASSE in a small exhibition space in the Bornheim district of Frankfurt – currently there are 56 members.22 Some of them have their studios in AtelierFrankfurt or other studio buildings. Many artists from the aforementioned stu-
dio houses have already participated in exhibitions in EULENGASSE. There are many personal bonds between the members and most of the art venues mentioned here. EULENGASSE has realised cooperative projects in the past with basis project space, AtelierFrankfurt Klosterpresse MATO Zement Familie Montez and others, developing a growing, self-perpetuating network. Newer foundations on the independent scene are Kressmann-Halle in Offenbach, run by YRD.works since 201623 and from 2017 Atelier Wäscherei operates in Offenbach centred around the artists Carolin Liebl and Nikolas Schmid-Pfähler a.o.24 In 2018 Orbit24 was started by Eva Weingärtner and DeDe Hando as well as newnow artspace by Gabriel & Andra Stoian.25, 26 In 2019 Mañana Bold was founded in Offenbach as a nomadically oriented art association to stimulate artistic impulses in Offenbach, the Rhine-Main region and beyond by working together with already existing initiatives and spaces.27 Launched in 2019 Synnika space run by Naomi Rado and others is interested in establishing connections with protagonists from different contexts and hosting visual installations, workshops, discussions and other formats of gathering that relate to the common environment – whose urban realities on the one hand increasingly stand for isolation and singularity, and on the other hand are becoming more and more comparable on a global scale.28
And these are certainly only a few examples, surely now after the pandemic there are some new developments and certainly many spaces remain hidden from us even now. This is where the initiative ‘Artist Run Frankfurt’, initiated by EULENGASSE members, comes in: to facilitate networking of existing project spaces with the aims of improving the visibility of non-institutional art venues, providing mutual support in the realisation of projects, as well as structural strengthening in order to – side by side with the Frankfurt coalition of the independent
EULENGASSE Bike Tour, Season Opening of the Frankfurt Galleries, 2021
scene – give a loud voice to cultural-political demands for a fair allocation of funding and exhibition fees.29
In summary, Frankfurt has had a growing independent art scene over the last three decades, taking a position parallel to the predominance of commercial galleries, the art market and the museums landscape. In contrast to Berlin, whose vibrant and diverse art scene is particularly characterised by independent artists’ initiatives, artist-run production spaces, makerspaces and studio communities that receive special support from the city government, independent art initiatives in Frankfurt am Main still face many challenges. There is a great gap between the institutional funding of established cultural institutions for visual arts and the comparatively insignificant funding of contemporary artists’ initiatives. There is still a lack of awareness among city councillors and other decision-makers concerning adequate public funding for the independent scene in order to develop a diverse and dynamic cultural landscape. Finally, it is about – as Stefan Beck already articulated in the early 1990s – developing and supporting a new understanding of art, based on participation and collaborative practices, to offer an alternative space for projects and fields of action apart from galleries and institutions. The aim is to improve the voice and visibility of artists in Frankfurt and not to abandon the definition of art to critics, curators or cultural politicians. The Berlin network of project spaces, which has existed since 2009, an alliance of independent, non-institutional exhibition spaces, is an integral part of the art scene there and is integrated into the allocation of funding by the state of Berlin for the independent scene, does not yet have an equivalent in Frankfurt. Hopefully, the kick-off meeting of ‘Artist Run Frankfurt’ which took place in September 2022 will be another step towards a sustainable development of Frankfurt’s artist-run scene.
Vládmir Combre de Sena M.A. born in Recife, Brazil, studied art education with a focus on performing arts in his hometown and in Germany where he completed postgraduate studies in cultural management. Harald Etzemüller studied architecture in Frankfurt am Main and Lyon, France. In 2003, the two established their office for architecture and communication design in Frankfurt. Both are founding members of the EULENGASSE art association. Vládmir Combre de Sena also works as a cultural manager, curator and freelance artist, Harald Etzemüller is active in the field of architectural photography and in managing the association.
1 https://kultur-frankfurt.de/portal/en/Art/Start/0/0/0/0/1439.aspx
2 https://staedelschule.de/en
3 https://www.hfg-offenbach.de/en
4 http://www.annette-gloser.de
5 https://aka.ip-technik.net/milo/ph.html
6 https://archiv.fingerweb.org
7 http://www.gutleut-verlag.com
8 https://fffriedrich.de
9 http://www.kunst-raum-mato.de
10 https://projektraumbalken.wordpress.com
11 https://www.facebook.com/KunstraumSchwalbe54
12 http://www.thing-frankfurt.de
13 http://www.atelierfrankfurt.de/en
14 https://basis-frankfurt.de/en
15 http://www.klosterpresse.de
16 http://www.ausstellungshalle.info
17 https://galerie-zement.de
18 https://freitagskueche.de
19 https://kvfm.de
20 https://www.saasfeepavillon.de 21 http://www.husslehof.org
‘Schlaflabor & Traumfabrik’, 68elf Köln + EULENGASSE, 2017 ‘Sicht’, EULENGASSE, 2019I möte med Kullahusets hemlighet av Sten Eklund
Even now, as Anna's disintegrating body is slowly spreading out over a small area near the linden tree, she knows she will see the sun every day. Just like the night, for that matter. Twilight even twice a day.
**
They had never really understood each other, her mother and Anna. When Anna was four years old she still woke up crying every night. They may have gotten used to it, but neither of them understood why it was necessary all the time. Or when mother moved abroad to earn money and Anna was left with her aunt as a ten-year-old, there was
little understanding, at least with Anna. On the other hand mother could never accept that Anna chose not to go to college, despite having the highest grades in her class. Or, and this is the last example, that mother insisted that Anna's tonsils be removed simply because her own had been removed though such an operation had long since ceased to be standard practice.
Maybe it just didn't really turn out as they had hoped it would. This did not really discourage them; they were both accepting the status quo.
Because of all the years of not understanding there was at most determined affection between them, not more. There was an idea of caring for the other though – the affection made that possible. Plus they didn't give each other a hard time either, which sometimes even created a kind of lightness of being.
**
Last year, while she was still well, Anna's mother told of her longing for the time before she was born. From before mother’s own birth, that is. She said she hoped the time after her death would be like that. Before she was born there had been nothing, a nothingness in the most neutral grey – a monochromatic perfection. It was very quiet there without being deafening (you sometimes hear that too – people speaking of deafening silence). The feeling there in the grey was very soft, quiet, supportive, secure. It's no wonder she was an admirer of Vilhelm Hammershøi's work. It smelled like water there, by the way.
The void before the presence. Being a painter herself, mother was very aware of the struggle that creation brought. The prodding on a canvas. Being in the dark most of the time, is the new work in progress ever worth seeing the light of day? To submerge oneself in grey taking the dispassionate Hammershøi approach, both in subject and in colour, seemed like such an elegant solution.
Now that her time here had been so long – to her life felt more like a free fall than something over which control was possible – she especially wanted less light and less pressure from the world. She longed more and more fiercely for neutrality, absence perhaps. She went blind within a few months because of the light that seemed to burn in her eyes. Whether this was real or imagined was not entirely clear. In any case from a certain point on she had her dark sunglasses on permanently. She closed herself off more with each day having only sporadic contact with Anna in the end. It was like she was falling faster and faster.
**
Things cannot go on like this any longer Anna decided. And on 17th December, exactly on Saturnalia (you couldn't deny Anna some sense of drama), she took over the role of mother from her mother quite smoothly. She fulfilled that role with as much dedication as her mother had done for her. That is, dutifully and minimally. That was enough, and perhaps Anna even grew a little bit closer to her mother, maybe this new role fitted her.
Anna brought her mother – as it was an old wish of hers – to the little cabin in the valley. This was a special place because the sun never touched it, even when it was high in the sky in
summer. So it was always dark, one could not even really sense a difference between night and day. Strangely Anna’s eyes never got used to so much darkness.
A brief list of what was present in the very austere hut: two buckets, a small table, three chairs, some knives and an old silver-plated candlestick, but no candle. No windows, only one door. There was also no phone reception. Anna had been in the hut once before, a long time ago; her mother used to go down there every once in a while.
It may have been very black and quiet there all day and every day (can one even speak of day?), but it was not as one might assume, depressing. In the deepest depths of the ocean the most wonderful creatures live, also devoid of light, and one cannot say of them that they are necessarily depressed either. Or happy for that matter. They are also just living their lives, like us.
**
They don't speak to each other much, mostly they say nothing. To be more precise, it is only Anna who sporadically makes a comment that does not require an answer, and there is none. The dissolution, insofar as it was still necessary between them, was well under way. Mother sat there unmoving, uncomfortable too, in that old chair. The continuous darkness quickly made their skin very pale, almost transparent. That didn't really matter, especially as it was so dark you couldn't see it anyway. Nor was there anyone else there to see it.
Anna had the feeling that all that was happening there at the bottom of the earth was just one moment, as if time was stacked, vertical. Maybe that was, she thought, because there was only the one long continuous night. And maybe also because actually nothing was happening anyway. Time ensures that not everything takes place at the same moment, but that's not how it felt to Anna here. Could there be time without light, she wondered.
With that thought she said to her mother ‘I’m leaving’. She has had enough of this apparent nothingness. She wanted to leave her mother and the cabin to be able to feel some light again or at least the alternation of light and dark.
Anna assured herself that her mother was as silent as she had been the rest of the days spent there and then made her way outside and up. With each step her strength slowly returned. This was necessary because she had a steep climb ahead of her. Atop the snowy mountain – by now quite exhausted after a few hours of climbing anyway – on the left side of the mountain-enclosed valley, and knowing that light would touch her every day, she lay down.
Rob Knijn, Titre inconnu, egg tempera on linen, 49.8 x 39.6 cm, 2022
Rob Knijn is a Dutch painter. In his work he addresses the idea that we are essentially alone, unable to fully understand the other. This deficiency is the reason for suffering and conflict among other things. Despite this glumness, try to rejoice in the falling which is your life if you can. You will bump into some beauty on the way down.
Should artist-run initiatives in Sweden be worried by the current socio-political climate and what it means for their public funding? Absolutely. When I moved to the country in 2017, I was struck by the number of exciting artist-run spaces active in urban centres, suburban and rural areas. Coming from the Moroccan art world concentrated in the main cities, where artists can’t get direct financial support
from the state and where there are more commercial galleries than independent art spaces, Sweden seemed to be a utopian land of infinite possibilities for artists. Compared to most countries, Sweden (and its Nordic neighbours) has indeed a generous cultural policy that has been, since 1974, as important as welfare policies, educational policies and other social planning programmes. There is also the
existence of the arm’s length principle which ensures that artists who receive public funding can express themselves freely without worrying about the reactions of politicians.
But I quickly became aware that there was lingering anxiety among many artists and curators in Sweden, especially those involved in self-organised initiatives. In 2018, the general elections saw the Swedish Democrats party (SD) become the third political force in the country for the second time consecutively. The conservative views of this nationalist and right-wing party gained even more seats in the parliament than in the 2014 elections. The political landscape and the cultural debates were rapidly changing. Some politicians (not always from SD but mainly from the right) had been publicly challenging the existing cultural policy and questioning the ‘value’ and ‘usefulness’ of contemporary art, something that had never happened before. There were cases of municipalities that were even in conflict with the staff of their own konsthalls. In Gästrikland, for example, Gävle Konstcentrum was fighting for its survival after years of drastic cuts in its budget and tensions with the municipality.1 Växjö Konsthall was also in conflict with its local politicians. Filippa de Vos, the director, declared in the media that she was worried “about this trend in society where politicians want to influence what type of
art should be presented – and where it should be presented”.2 She also referred to the municipality of Sölvesborg, led by SD politicians, who announced in September 2019 to stop supporting “challenging contemporary art” to promote “classical and timeless public art” instead.3 The same month they also decided to stop flying the rainbow flag outside the municipality’s building, a decision that some artists saw as a “violation of the arm-length principle” and politicians from other parties as an “insult to everyone working with LGBTQ issues as well as the whole movement”.4
One election later, it is clear that all the concerns that artists and curators had were valid. Today, Sweden is run by a centre-right coalition (between the Moderates, the Christian Democrats and the Liberals), with the support of the Swedish Democrats, the country’s second largest political force. In October 2022, the government announced they wanted to develop a cultural canon, a list of the most “valuable” cultural works the country has created over the centuries that should serve as a “common cultural frame of reference”.5 This announcement sent waves of shock through
2 See https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/smaland/vaxjo-konsthall-annu-iovishet
3 See https://www.svt.se/kultur/solvesborgs-styrande-rostar-om-kontroversiellt-forslag-pa-kulturomradet
4 See https://www.svt.se/kultur/konstaktion-i-solvesborg and https://www. svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/blekinge/moderata-prideprofilen-ett-han-mot-helarorelsen
1 See https://www.svt.se/kultur/konst/gavle-konstcentrums-chef-kansparkas
5 See https://www.svt.se/kultur/kulturministern-om-kulturkanon-ska-enaett-splittrat-sverige
the cultural field, and many see it as a direct threat to the arm’s length principle. Because of the influence of this party, there is also fear that artists whose work reflect Sweden’s cultural diversity or deal with LGBTQ+ communities might be excluded. In the case of visual arts, who will decide what works will be included in this canon? The ideological consequences of this canon could be game-changing if some politicians in regions or municipalities decide to use it as a framework to assess which artistic expressions or forms ‘deserve’ public funding and which do not.
Since artist-run spaces are heavily dependent on grants and subventions distributed by central or local government bodies, their existence would be threatened if the current government decides that public funding for the cultural field should be reduced. On the website of the Moderates, the party who oversees the Ministry of Culture, one can read that they want to review the cultural funding to reduce dependence on grants and thereby reduce political control.6
An intriguing formulation that is in total contradiction with what was one of the basic principles of the Swedish cultural policies when it was created in 1974. At that time, the parliament wanted to “combat the negative effects of commercialism in the cultural sector” and stressed that profitability should not be the deciding factor for cultural activities.7 The Moderate party has historically been a significant actor in the privatisation of the Swedish public sector, so their position on this topic is not that surprising. But the main issue is that the Moderates are opening a Pandora’s box of painful public debates about the ‘value’ of contemporary art. Looking at the value of art organisations through neo-liberal criteria is not new. In Agencies of art: a report on the situation of small and medium-sized art centres in Denmark, Norway and Sweden, curators Nina Möntmann and Jonatan Habib Engqvist wrote already in 2018 that “the normalisation of neoliberal ideology, strategies and managerialism has taken over the art field in its entirety, down to the tiniest art initiative”.8 The current government’s position could accelerate this process and make it more common, making it untenable for self-organised initiatives whose practices are experimental or embedded in artistic research. If there is a silver lining in this situation, it is that many artist-run spaces in Sweden have been thinking about strategies to counter or elude these changes for a while now. During my dissertation fieldwork, where I investigated artist-run initiatives’ artistic and curatorial practices in rural Sweden through the lens of productive vulnerability, the topic always came up in conversations.9 I had the opportunity to visit Kultivator, Rejmyre Art Lab, Gylleboverket, and Ställbergs Gruva (also known as the Non-Existent Centre). They might have different contexts, practices and
6 See https://moderaterna.se/var-politik/kultur/
7 Enquist, Boris, and Lars Olsson. Cultural Policy in Sweden : An Introduction. Stockholm: Kulturrådet, 1979.
8 Engqvist, Jonatan Habib, and Nina Möntmann. Agencies of Art : A Report on the Situation of Small and Medium-Sized Art Centers in Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Oslo: OK Book, 2018, p.70.
9 See https://www.engagingvulnerability.se/meryem-saadi/
interests, still, two things are certain: first, they are all highly aware of the new political landscape’s challenges, and second, they have enough resilience, creativity and experience to work around them. Establishing a self-organised artist-run space is never easy – especially in rural or peripheral areas – so many of them have already experienced tensions or disagreements with local politicians. One example is Rejmyre Art Lab’s Centre for Peripheral Studies, based in Rejmyre, a small factory town. They were shocked to learn in May 2021 that their municipality was pulling its annual 100.000 SEK contribution to their activities. Officially the reason was that the municipality was in a tough financial situation.10 However, the following year, the municipality changed its mind and decided to grant them an annual contribution of 200.000 SEK for three years.11 What happened precisely behind the scenes in the municipality is hard to guess. But what is sure is that the determination of Sissi Westerberg and Daniel Peltz (the co-founders of the initiative), as well as their continuous dialogue with some local politicians who believed in the importance of Rejmyre Art Lab, solved the situation.
Artist-run initiatives also discuss questions related to limited financial support or political vulnerability when they meet through the network The Collective Brain (“Den Kollektiva Hjärnan” in Swedish, initiated in 2014 by Art Lab Gnesta), ensuring that they share important knowledge and strategies. Some, like Ställbergs Gruva, also explore the current political climate and position themselves through their artistic production. In 2022, a few weeks before the general elections, they presented (‘Speech to the nation’ in English), an anti-nationalistic tribute to freedom of expression written by the art group FUL in collaboration with musician Sara Parkman. The performance was a flamboyant and powerful celebration of “freedom of expression and artistic freedom in a time when politicians do not follow arm’s length distance and try to stop culture and art that do not follow a nationalist logic”.12 In conclusion, are artist-run initiatives in Sweden anxious? Yes. Do they have valid reasons to be worried? Yes. Are they scared? I don’t think so. They are prepared for what the future might hold and are not going down without a fight.
12 See https://fulstaltillnationen.se/
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