Artists Index: Shedhalle Zurich

Shedhalle Zurich (Sønke Gau and Katharina Schlieben, Curators, cultural studies scholars, and authors, based in Zurich)
Katharina Schlieben and Sønke Gau have worked together as the curatorial team for the Shedhalle (2004 – 2009, www.shedhalle.ch); teaching positions at various Swiss art academies; regular publications in art journals and publications, current publications include Spectacle, Pleasure Principle or the Carnivalesque (bbooks, 2008), and Work to do! Self-organisation in precarious working conditions, (Verlag für moderne Kunst Nürnberg,2009). The Shedhalle occupies a niche between different types of institutions. It is neither a gallery nor a museum nor an off-space. Its ‘in between’ status is an opportunity that allows for a versatile approach to exhibition making and that also demands a specific commitment from us. Cultural practices are oriented towards contexts and should be designed for and communicated through specific social-political questions. The Shedhalle understands itself as a place of production, communication, investigation, discussion and distribution, which makes use of various media channels. Curatorial practice as we see it has to bid farewell to the idea of ‘exhibition spaces’ as places where contemporary art is merely presented and instead discover and invent new paths and locations for art. The conceptual and performative redefinition of the idea of ‘exhibiting’ has long been a focal point of the Shedhalle. It is this search for experimental forms of ‘presentation’, which we are interested in - in the sense of "the mental comma instead of the full-stop".