Berlin: Art, Overlay, Transformation

Renata Stih and Frieder Schnock will reflect about how Berlin became a laboratory, a venue for all kinds of creative experimentation and political discourses, a city where art and short-term action happens to test, inspire, and build momentum, where public art activities create overlays and transform the urban environment. The presented case studies will include The Berlin Wall and David Bowie's music, art installations for the Reichstag, interventions at Alexanderplatz, installations at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the disaster of the Memorial of German Unification, and the legendary competition for The Memorial of the Murdered Jews of Europe. In this context they will also introduce how Berlin's publicly-funded Art Advisory Board and art commissions work, and eventually encourage community engaged processes, but also interact with Federal projects in the German capital. 

Renata Stih and Frieder Schnock are conceptual artists based in Berlin. Their dialogical art work is shaped around memory, philosophy and science; their field of inquiry is focused on how to create platforms for diverse creative and social activities, and new forms of expression in unlikely places. Their multi-media methodology refers to traditional artistic formats and rituals in museums, and also encourages public interaction and engagement. They have also created multiple installations in relation to architecture, and in urban space, like their decentralized memorial "Places of Remembrance" in Berlin- Schöneberg which has been widely researched and is also featured in documentaries like Michael Moore's film "Where To Invade Next". 

Renata Stih (painting, sculpture, art theory, College of Art in Karlsruhe/Germany). Professor Stih is teaching on art and technology, film and media at Beuth University of Technology in Berlin, and has published widely on art, film and architecture. She is also an Honorary Professor at the Institute of Philosophy and Sciences of Art at Leuphana University, Lueneburg, the Chair of the Art Advisory Board to the Senate of Berlin; at the Advisory Board of Normandy Institute, Paris; co-founder of the Human Rights Watch Committee, Berlin. Fellowships, awards (selection): The German Federal Grant, Cité des Art Paris; the Berlin Art Grant; the Freund Fellowship at Washington University, St. Louis; the Rockefeller Fellowship at the Rockefeller Research Center in Bellagio/Italy; the Whitney J. Oates Fellow in the Humanities Council and Department of Comparative Literature, Princeton University (2019-2020). 

Frieder Schnock (art, PhD in art history, College of Art in Karlsruhe/Germany, TU Karlsruhe, FU Berlin, College of Art Braunschweig). Professor Dr. Frieder Schnock is the managing director of the professionalization program at Berlin's Artist Association and lectures Visual Studies at Beuth University of Technology in Berlin, and an Honorary Professor at the Institute of Philosophy and Sciences of Art at Leuphana University, Lüneburg. Schnock has worked as a curator in public and private collections, such as at the Museum Fridericianum in Kassel (documenta) and is the co-founder of the exhibition organisations Gesellschaft für Blickschulung and Loft 44/45 in Berlin. Fellowships, awards (selection): Rockefeller Fellow at the Rockefeller Research Center in Bellagio/Italy; Freund Fellow at Washington University, St. Louis; the Whitney J. Oates Fellow in the Humanities Council and Department of Comparative Literature, Princeton University (2019-2020). 

Stih and Schnock were multiple artists-in-residence and have also lectured at major US universities, including Brown University, Princeton University, Columbia University, RISD, SAIC, MICA, ZHdK. Museum projects (selection): The German Connection- Raft with Stranded Objects. Saint Louis Art Museum (2012); Show Your Collection - Jewish Traces in Munich Museums (2008); The Art of Collecting - Flick in Berlin (2004); LIFE~BOAT. Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA / MoAFL (2005-08); Who Needs Art, We Need Potatoes. Staatsgalerie Stuttgart (1998-2008) / Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb, Croatia (2011). Lacan Doesn't Live Here Anymore Platform L.E.S. Gallery, New York (2012), Philosophy and Supermarket. Leuphana University Lueneburg (2016); Smoking Emigrants. Saint Louis Art Museum (2013); Rosie Won The War. Boca Raton Museum of Art (2015/16) / Kimmel Gallery/NYU (2019). Group Exhibitions/Installations (selection): CTRL Space, Center for Art and Media (ZKM), Karlsruhe, Germany (2001-2002); RAF. KW - Kunstwerke Berlin, Joanneum Graz (2005); Reality Bites, Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, St. Louis (2008); Capital Offense: The End(s) of Capitalism. Beacon Arts, Los Angeles/ USA (2012). http://www.stih-schnock.de/