Calendar

In our lecture, we will look at the typology of the Kunsthalle as a place of the communal, its spatial configuration and the idea of its publics, to then further elaborate on the impact this framing has on the curatorial in the context of the European Kunsthalle, an institution without a space. Rather than simply being an architecture to be turned into temporary exhibitions, it continuously negotiates the complex and often contradictory relationship between two mutually hosting infrastructures: the institutional form and the act of instituting. Here, we are particularly interested in how notions such as "stability" and "instability" can be thought of as a radical response to neoliberal singling-driven modes of spatialisation.

Rike Frank works as a curator and writer and occasionally teaches, with a special dedication to exhibition histories and curatorial practice. She is Executive Director of the Berlin Artistic Research Grant Programme, as well as co-director of the European Kunsthalle. Her practice often reflects on temporality, textility as well as instituting and the aftermath and documentation of curatorial articulations.

Vanessa Joan Müller is a curator and writer interested in institutional structures and Co-Director of the European Kunsthalle. She was Head of Research in the founding phase of the European Kunsthalle (2005–2007), working on applied research informed by the resonance between theory and practice. As Head of Dramaturgy at Kunsthalle Wien (2013–2020), exploring alternative modes of instituting and working together has been a key part of her position. Since 2020, she has been an associate lecturer at the Department of Architecture at the Vienna University of Technology. She is a regular contributor to art magazines such as SPIKE, Artforum, Camera Austria and dérive and has published extensively on contemporary art in exhibition catalogues and artist monographs.

https://eukunsthalle.com