Thermostat – Cooperations between 24 French and German art centers
16 June 2010 – 30 April 2011
Warm up with a series of solo shows from Shannon Bool, Julien Bismuth, Evariste Richer, Matti Braun…
After a successful launch on LISTE 15, during Art Basel, Basel art lovers had the opportunity to attend the opening of the joint exhibition from Shannon Bool and Julien Bismuth at the CRAC Alsace, near Basel. This joint exhibition turns into two successive solo exhibitions at the GAK – Gesellschaft für Aktuelle Kunst – in Bremen from mid-November through February 2011. Meanwhile the first solo show in Germany from the young French artist Evariste Richer opened in June at the Kunstverein Braunschweig, a project of La Galerie in Noisy-le-Sec, while Kunstverein Braunschweig will be invited to curate a show from Matti Braun in Noisy-le-Sec in December.
… Stephen Willats, Kerstin Brätsch, Maya Schweizer and Clemens von Wedemeyer
In other projects, Badischer Kunstverein Karlsruhe, Centre d’art Passerelle in Brest and Le Quartier in Quimper got together to organize a major solo exhibition from the English artist Stephen Willats, during fall and winter, while Frankfurter Kunstverein and Parc Saint Léger in the countryside of Pougues-les-Eaux exchange artists, with a solo show from Maya Schweizer and Clemens von Wedemeyer in Frankfurt and one from Kerstin Brätsch in Pougues.
Co-curatorial approaches
Exchanging curatorial standpoints on an international level is one of the objectives of Thermostat: thus curators from Kunstverein Nürnberg and Crédac in Ivry-sur-Seine curate two different exhibitions together, each with the same artists: Thea Djordjadze, Jean-Luc Moulène and Matti Braun, who experience two dramatically opposing exhibition contexts: a former underground cinema buried in typical 60′s utopian Brutalist architecture from the Parisian suburbs and a Bauhaus building flooded with light in Nuremberg. Both exhibitions are currently on view.
Site-specific projects
The issue of context is also the driving force underlying the cooperation between Bielefelder Kunstverein, a small, former bourgeois mansion, and the Confort Moderne in Poitiers, a huge disused furniture warehouse. The first project in Bielefeld, opening in November, could be considered as a sketch for the second, which is planned for next spring in Poitiers. The Ecotone project, conceived by Kunstverein Tiergarten, located in the popular Berlin-Moabit district and the Maison des arts Georges Pompidou in touristy Cajarc, also originates from the drastic contrast between the environments of the two institutions.
Confronting new exhibition conditions
Cooperating also means relying on each other: TRUST! is actually the title of the two exhibitions from Brandenburgischer Kunstverein in Potsdam (opening December) and Synagogue de Delme (currently on view) in Eastern France, in which the institutions challenge themselves with projects from Latifa Echakhch, David Hatcher, Javier Téllez among others who actually put at stake the notion of renouncing authority.
Re-thinking the exhibition and its medias
Some partners also share curatorial thoughts: With their project “Scores”, the CAC Bretigny and the Künstlerhaus Stuttgart consider the exhibition as a concert based on collaborations with Mattin in Bretigny and Beatrice Gibson in Stuttgart. On the other hand, CNEAI in the Parisian suburb Chatou, Halle für Kunst Lüneburg and Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof in Hamburg are organizing “Channel TV”, a collective project about television since the 60′s including a solo show from Simon Denny, two group shows, one publication, in collaboration with the French magazine Multitudes, and a series of broadcasts of artistic TV programs made by artists in various public areas (through January).
Thermostat – more than just a heat detector
Thermostat is based upon the principle of consolidation of different curatorial approaches and standpoints and is intended to lead to a mutual enrichment of the participating organizations and their audiences. Ultimately, both the respective organizational forms of Kunstverein and the centre d’art are united in their aim to facilitate, promote, and communicate unusual and new artistic positions.
Thermostat is a symbolic title which underlines the “systemic” character of the institutional network and the energetic exchange between the respective art scenes in France and Germany. Thermostat provides a valuable contribution to the task of disseminating the special significance of local art institutions and their position as an interface in national and international discourses.
Further details on the Thermostat program can be found at www.project-thermostat.eu
