The Office for Curatorial Care & Collective Experiment was founded on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the Atelierhaus Quartier am Hafen in Cologne Poll. The alumni of the curatorial support programme, Wilko Austermann, Lisa Bensel, Anne Mager, Linda Nadji, Jari Ortwig, Michael Stockhausen, of the Quartier am Hafen, have jointly developed a critical-reflexive format in two phases for the anniversary year of the Atelierhaus 2021. In the spirit of “I prefer not to”, this format not only wants to fill the exhibition space anew, but also to discuss and test contemporary art in interaction with social developments and necessities in a processual, sustainable and studious way with about 15 artists and other guests.

Phase 2, 10 September – 24 October 2021

The second phase was characterised by a weekly, growing exhibition in the Q18 space. The artists took up the pre-formulated themes and create works in dialogue with the Atelierhaus. Can “the” exhibition – a concept of associative cold stages, competition and stagnation – be transformed into exchange processes of warmth, friction, dynamics, flat hierarchies and supporting bonds? What resources (financial, spatial, temporal, intensity or attention) would be needed? What would be our, and above all art’s, adequate standards of sustainable resonance? These questions are not new. But they require constant reflection and re-examination…

The BÜRO has dedicated itself to the following topics:

I Working conditions and value

(‘Lived’ Work, Improving Working Conditions and Structural Transformation, Questioning Social Attributions of Relevance and Digital Process Control, I prefer not to, Ethics?).

II Hybrid spaces of collective as well as sustainable resonance experience

(Collective work, non-linear processes, hybrid systems, synchronicities, digital discourse and resonance spaces)

III Learning & mediation

(Outreach & community involvement, co-creating spaces of relevance of everyday life into resonant spaces for artistic as well as social concerns, socio-economic politics of exhibition making, digital “narrowing”, learning instead of teaching)

Phase 2: 10 September – 24 October 2021

With: Luca Bosani, Céline Berger, Julia Bünnagel, Roberto Uribe-Castro, Leah Corbett & Thomas Wells, Cristina Cott Negoescu and Vanja Smiljanic.

We are looking forward to BÜRO’s return to curatorial care and collective experimentation. After phase one had to take place largely as a digital discursive format, exchange on site and in the space is particularly important to us.

Phase two of BÜRO starts on 10 September with an installation performance by Luca Bosani.

The dates and artists at a glance:

10 September, 7 pm: Welcome Luca Bosani. Performance

12.09., 4 p.m.: Talk with Luca Bosani

17.09., 7 p.m.: Welcome Céline Berger

19.09., 4 pm: Talk with Céline Berger

24.09.-26.09.: Open studios in the Quartier am Hafen (Fri 18-21 h, Sat 14-18 h, Sun 14-18 h)

Open Office with Luca Bosani, Céline Berger, Julia Bünnagel and the BÜRO curators”.

01 Oct, 7 pm: Welcome Roberto Uribe-Castro

03.10., 4 p.m.: Walk into German history and across the Rhine

08.10., 7 pm: Welcome Leah Corbett & Thomas Wells

10.10., 4 pm: Talk with Leah Corbett & Thomas Wells

15.10., 7 pm: Welcome Cristiana Cott Negoescu

17.10., 4 pm: Talk with Cristiana Cott Negoescu

22.10., 7 p.m.: Welcome Vanja Smiljanić

24.10., 4 p.m.: Talk & Goodbye