Saturday, 28 November 2015, 02–06 pm

Lectures and discussion with Hannes Loichinger (art historian, Hamburg), Julia Moritz (curator, Zurich), Ingo Niermann (author, Basel), Phillip Zach (artist, Zurich/Los Angeles)

Culturally pessimistic reports and record prices have been on the agenda for quite some time. Even if the autonomy of the art field has seldom been as endangered as today, it can still be verified with methods of social science. This is contrasted by a number of publications that play on various registers claiming the end of art or regarding its relative freedom as disavowed. The first part of the event will engage with a set of problems against which several recent exhibitions in Switzerland are being discussed. The second part takes a look into the private depths of the market and art: First, raising the question as to what kind of needs are satisfied by art fairs; and second, looking at who is pulling the strings, what these strings are made of, and who they connect. “The Future of Art” is at stake. The aim is to find out how the self contorts, stretches, and controls itself in the plethora of possibilities.