Demanding Supplies – Nachfragende Angebote I

with nOffice (Markus Miessen, Ralf Pflugfelder, Magnus Nilsson), Berlin/London

»Demanding Supplies – Nachfragende Angebote« is a three-phase exhibition that presents different artistic positions on the subject of art and the market. The first of these »demanding supplies« takes its point of departure from the spatial givens of the exhibition site and questions how the conditions of display predetermine art’s tension-fraught relationship to its market. With a series of artistic interventions into the exhibition space of Kunstraum of Leuphana University of Lueneburg, the »Space Enablers«, nOffice (Markus Miessen, Ralf Pflugfelder, Magnus Nilsson) draw the visitors’ attention directly to the specific functions of presentation: storefront windows, shelving units, lighting effects – techniques an art exhibition shares with the display of ordinary commodities, including the seeming invisibility of these means. But how do exhibition architecture and spatial design concepts actually affect our perception of art – do they even generate the »distinctions« between art and life?

Markus Miessen (nOffice) and Andrea Phillips (Goldsmiths, University of London) will pursue these questions in a public discussion kick-starting »Demanding Supplies – Nachfragende Angebote«. In conjunction, the outlining of two strands of research that will be intertwined in subsequent phases – the scientific art-market discourse and the relations between the global and the regional level of the art field – will be presented as the beginning of a continuing inquiry into processes of valorization and commodification in contemporary art. Last but not least an art prize, the »Daniel Frese Prize for Contemporary Art«, that aims at stimulating the discourse on the art market, particularly with regard to its pending interrelation with the regional level, will be launched by Christoph Behnke, who will also present some introductory remarks on the relations of art, capital and the market from a historical point of view; Cornelia Kastelan and Barbara Uppenkamp (University of Hamburg) will introduce the Renaissance artist Daniel Frese (1570-1611).

nOffice and its three partners Markus Miessen, Magnus Nilsson and Ralf Pflugfelder are a group based in Berlin and London. Situated on the crossroads of critical spatial design, architecture, urban intervention and the art world, nOffice have been accumulating knowledge about the conceptualization and implementation of archives, libraries, gallery spaces, cultural centers and the typology of the »hub«. nOffice have been specializing in the development of heterotypologies. Their recent projects for Gwangju Biennial, 0047, Manifesta 8, Performa 09, ASAP, Archive Kabinett, and the longer term Hans Ulrich Obrist Archive are bastard typologies: productive spatial constructs that overlap, dissect, and conflictually flatten several usually distinct programs into one. nOffice believe that hybrids rather than pedigrees are pushing the idea of the heterogeneous space, something like an »interior city«.

curated by Julia Moritz in cooperation with Kunstraum of Leuphana University of Lueneburg

Exhibition and research project are based on a cooperation between Kunstraum of Leuphana University of Lueneburg and the project KIM (Innovation Incubator, Leuphana University of Lueneburg), which is supported by the EFRE programme of the European Union and the state of Lower Saxony.