04 May 2012

Artist Lecture: Renata Stih & Frieder Schnock in Erlangen

Stih & Schnock are Berlin based conceptual artists, exploring how memory functions in the social sphere and how it is reflected symbolically in urban spaces. In their work they question the ambiguity and ambivalence of social sculpture and introduce how the intrusion of art in public space affects everyday life through their projects, which include: TIME ISLANDS, an art-in-public-space project for the Nelson-Mandela-School in Berlin (2011); the decentralized memorial Orte des Erinnerns / Places of Remembrance in Berlin--Schöneberg (1993), Einladung/Invitation – U2, Berlin Alexanderplatz (1997/98), The City As Text (2007), German Federal Art Foundation.

Stih & Schnock also focus on art collections as places of collective memory, intervening in the field of institutional critique. These projects include: Show Your Collection, Jewish Traces in Munich Museums (2008); The Art of Collecting - Flick in Berlin (2004); their curatorial concept LIFE~BOAT, which they developed at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, MA (2005-08); the environmental installation Who Needs Art, We Need Potatoes for the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart (1998-2008), and a corresponding video program for the media façade of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb, Croatia (2011/12).

Lectures and dialog performances are an integral part of their art work.

Professor Renata Stih teaches art and technology, film and media at the Beuth University of Applied Sciences in Berlin (since 1991). She was short listed as president of the Hochschule der Künste in Stuttgart (2004) and has studied art at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Karlsruhe (1982). She had a grant at the Cité des Art in Paris, the Berlin Art Grant, the Rockefeller Fellowship at the Rockefeller Research Center in Bellagio/Italy.

Frieder Schnock is a Rockefeller Fellow; he has studied art and art history at the Akademie der bildenden Künste Karlsruhe / FU Berlin / HBK Braunschweig where he received his PhD in art history on Land Art and Richard Long. He also worked as a curator in public and private collections (such as at the Museum Fridericianum in Kassel). Frieder Schnock has been teaching visual studies at Beuth University of Applied Sciences in Berlin for many years and is the managing director of the Bildungswerk, BBK/ artist assiciation Berlin.

Stih and Schnock were multiple artists- in- residence and have also lectured at major universities, including the Zuercher Hochschule der Kuenste, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, Harvard University, Princeton University. They have recently been named the Freund Fellows at Washington University, Sam Fox Graduate School of Art in St. Louis for 2012-2013, where they will create an exhibition for the St. Louis Art Museum in 2013.

Stih & Schnock have exhibited at numerous European and American galleries and museums including: CTRL Space, Center for Art and Media (ZKM), Karlsruhe, Germany (2001-2002); RAF. KW/ Kunstwerke - Institute for Contemporary Art Berlin, Joanneum Graz / Austria (2005); Reality Bites, Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University, St. Louis (2008); Krimiseries, Museum London/Ontario (2010); Capital Offense: The End(s) of Capitalism. Beacon Arts, Los Angeles/ USA