KOW, the gallery that I co-founded and whose programme I have primarily curated, is a private enterprise. But it is also a space for creating public moments and visibility. Since 2009, alongside our exhibitions, we have hosted numerous public events with diverse audiences: discussions, conferences, concerts, performances, readings, and book releases. Each exhibition opening is also a public event and sometimes a celebration. In fact, a gallery like KOW serves as a nexus between private and public interests, discourses, and economies, both in terms of its claims and functions.

The New Patrons are, alongside KOW, my second major project of the last almost 20 years. At its core, it is a cultural-political project “from below,” or rather from civil society, that neither stems from artistic autonomy nor from party or government politics, but from the needs and ideas of citizens. I have played a key role in establishing this program in Germany.

After years of research, Mario Pfeifer brought this film project to fruition, in which I was involved from the screenplay to the editing. The film received the Hessian Film Prize in 2023 and – even more importantly – the German Human Rights Film Prize in 2024. The death of asylum seeker Oury Jalloh in police custody in Dessau became one of the largest judicial scandals in Germany. Despite all efforts to cover it up, Mario Pfeifer revisited the case and, with his film project, provided new evidence. That police officers actually murdered Oury Jalloh, which seems to be the only plausible conclusion, is still being denied by the judiciary, politics, and the media to this day.

In 2018, I was asked to develop a concept for documenta 15. I had already tried several times to transfer the methodology of citizen-commissioned art to different biennial formats. But documenta meant a different scale. I held out little hope that my proposal would go through, but it was interesting to develop this plan. In truth it was rather utopian and it would actually have taken ten years instead of five to create what I had in mind. As the “face” and front person of d15, I was able to enlist Bruno Latour, a long-time partner of the New Patrons. I would have worked behind the scenes. As we know, the selection committee then decided in favor of Ruangrupa. Since the public never heard about my idea, I am documenting it here.

Again / Noch Einmal – Film Project (2018)

In Again / Noch Einmal (2018), Mario Pfeifer deals with an incident that has become so typical for Germany: In May 2016, there was an unpleasant scene at the checkout of a supermarket in Arnsdorf (near Dresden, Saxony). The young man Shabaz Al-Aziz, who had fled Iraq to Germany in 2015, wanted to return a faulty SIM-Card…

At the site of the Jahrhunderthalle Bochum, Olu Oguibe installed a universal call to the youth of all nations in three languages: German and English, the most widely spoken languages in Europe, and Romani, the language of a large minority that represents one of the earliest migrant groups in Europe.

In 2018, I represented the interests of Olu Oguibe as a gallerist – and found myself caught in a severe art conflict. After dirty campaigns, the sudden dismantling of the work, and the ensuing complicated negotiations, Oguibe’s obelisk – primarily thanks to the involvement of citizens of Kassel – was permanently rebuilt and is now a landmark of the city.

In 2013, I began carrying the idea of art on commission from citizens to other countries, sometimes in collaboration with Goethe Institutes, sometimes at the invitation of third parties, and occasionally on my own initiative. Argentina, India, Iceland, Cameroon, Lebanon, the Netherlands, Sweden, Tunisia, USA. In these countries, I have met potential partners, sought mediators,… Continue reading International New Patrons Initiatives (2013–today)

Santiago Sierra’s competition entry for the highly controversial Monument to Freedom and Unity was disqualified in 2012 due to a “formal error” by the jury. I developed the proposal together with Sierra and document it here.

In the early 2010s, I collaborated with architect and urban planner Arno Brandlhuber on various projects. Here is a brief summary.

Am 16. und 17. Oktober 1998 fand in der Alten Handelsbörse Leipzig dieses Symposium statt, an dem ich parallel zu meinem Studium gemeinsam mit Marcel Bühler zwei Jahre lang gearbeitet hatte. Wir waren sehr jung und unerfahren – aber es gelang uns, selbstorganisiert das erste große Kunsttheoriesymposium in Ostdeutschland seit der Wende zu entwickeln und zu veranstalten. Ich erfand den Begriff der “Interkontextualität”, der inhaltlich im Zentrum stand. Im Anschluss an dieses Projekt war mir klar, dass ich als Vermittler (Kurator) weiterarbeiten würde, nicht länger als Künstler.