To care for people before us

The practical seminar “To care for people before us” with visual artist Philipp Gufler takes as its starting point his many years of practice and artistic research with queer and self-organized archives and examines the mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion of (hetereo)normative and hegemonic historiography through intergenerational archival work. The seminar will begin with an excursion to Munich, where the students will visit the exhibition “Eccentric 80s: Tabea Blumenschein, Hilka Nordhausen, Rabe perplexum and Kompliz*innen aus dem Jetzt” at Lothringer13, which Gufler co-curated. Furthermore, guided tours through the exhibition “To Be Seen: Queer Lives 1900 - 1950” at the NS-Dokzentrum, through the Forum Queeres Archiv München and a city tour to sites of queer resistance and life in Munich are planned. Following the field trip, students will develop their own research questions on queer struggles for political and social recognition in the 20th and 21st centuries in dialogue with Gufler. The individual research, including possible interviews with contemporary witnesses, will be framed by the joint reading of texts, individual feedback discussions with Gufler and visits to lectures and screenings. In addition to the obligatory participation in the excursion, a scientific-artistic contribution for a zine, which will be published parallel to Gufler’s exhibition in the Kunstraum of Leuphana University at the beginning of December, will serve as proof of achievement.

Philipp Gufler (Munich/ Amsterdam) combines various media in his artistic approach, including screen prints on fabric and mirrors, artist books, performances and video installations. For the video installation Projection on the Crisis (2014), he began his research in the self-organized Forum Queeres Archiv München, of which Gufler has been an active member ever since. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich and attended the artist residencies De Ateliers, Amsterdam, Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture, Maine, USA and Delfina Foundation, London, UK. Gufler’s artist books include: Projection on Crisis (2014 / 2021), I Wanna Give You Devotion (2017), Indirect Touch (2017),Quilt #01-#30 (2020), Lana Kaiser (2020), Cosy at Cosy (2022), and A Shrine To Aphrodite (2022).