Who Needs Art, We Need Potatoes

Stih & Schnock are Berlin based artists, who explore how memory functions in the social sphere and how it is reflected symbolically in culture and urban space. There is to be found an ongoing interest in collections and museums, which they conceive as places of collective cultural memory. Starting from this research they develop projects and interventions, that reach into the social and public space and thus are not limited to institutional presentations.

In their lecture, they will discuss the idea of social sculpture and how their projects and concepts develop in dialogue, using the installation »Who needs art, we need potatoes« at the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart (1998) and memorials like »Places of Remembrance« in Berlin Schöneberg (1992/93) as points of reference. On the basis of the concept for the installation »Raft With Stranded Objects« at Saint Louis Art Museum (2013), their latest and yet to be realized project, they illustrate their approach to archives and how this generates public visibility.

The lecture takes place in the framework of the seminar »Memory, Public Art & Social Sculpture« held by Renata Stih and Frieder Schnock in winter semester 2012/13.

Prof. Renata Stih and Dr. Frieder Schnock are both teaching at the Beuth University of Applied Sciences in Berlin. Stih & Schnock had numerous exhibitions at international galleries and museums, amongst others the Beacon Arts, Los Angeles (2012), the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University, St. Louis (2008), the KW Institute for Contemporary Art (2005) and the ZKM in Karlsruhe (2001-2002).

www.stih-schnock.de