Field research: art world Zurich

Project with Christian Tarnai (Munich)

With this project, Kunstraum continues its research on the art worlds of European art centers from the 1990s. At that time, extensive surveys were carried out in the cities of Vienna (cooperation with the Institute for Cultural Studies), Hamburg, and Paris with art sociological questions. Approximately 1600 persons were included - artists⁄, curators⁄, critics⁄, and collectors⁄, but also non-professional visitors⁄ to exhibitions dedicated to international contemporary art. In 2009 and 2010, about 800 persons were interviewed in Zurich who can be attributed to this field of art. The survey in three languages was partly based on the instruments of previous studies in the interest of comparability. The topics of the survey include the art field of Zurich and Switzerland, attitudes towards art (e.g. charismatic ideology, significance of various artistic media and genres), questions of lifestyle, changes in the art field in the form of its economization, but also intellectualization, art criticism, and the reception of exhibitions in 2009 and 2010. The Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst in Zurich is of particular interest from an institutional point of view. Participants in the study, under the overall direction of Ulf Wuggenig, include Christoph Behnke (Leuphana University), Larissa Buchholz (Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.), Sophia Prinz (University of Frankfurt⁄Oder) and, in the methodological-statistical area, Christian Tarnai (Bundeswehr University Munich). The study is funded by the Migros Culture Percentage.

The presentation of a first book publication - Heike Munder and Ulf Wuggenig (eds.), Das Kunstfeld, Zurich: JRP Ringier 2012 - will take place on November 24, 2012 by Christoph Behnke, Sophia Prinz and Ulf Wuggenig at a symposium at the Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst in Zurich, moderated by cultural scientist Vera Kockot (Paris).