autonomie + funktionalisierung der kunst

In contrast to the previous West German art centre of Cologne, Berlin in the 1990s offered available primeval wastelands, empty spaces and undefined interstices that were an essential moment in the development of artistic productions and practices. Of formative and exemplary importance were the slowly contouring urban cultural policies, their discourse and participation practices, as well as the economic and political concepts that promoted the arts, art projects and artists in various forms and used them, among other things, for the representation of the German capital. [1]

• Autonomie und Funktionalisierung, research project, Institute for History and Theory of Design at the University of the Arts (UdK), Berlin, 2017-2019. A cultural-historical-aesthetic analysis of the concepts of art in the visual and performative arts in Berlin from the 1990s until today. Focuses on four strands of artistic practice: political art, art as social work, participatory art, and art as a form of knowledge/artistic research. Initiated by Judith Siegmund. Events. Conference. Publications. [2]

• Sabeth Buchmann, "Zwischen Projekt und Bartleby: Tunix im Widerspruch", in Wiedersehen in TUNIX! Ein Handbuch zur Berliner Projektekultur, eds. Anina Falasca, Annette Maechtel, and Heimo Lattner, Berlin: eeclectic, 2018. (German)

• 

• Annette Maechtel, Das Temporäre politisch denken. Raumproduktion im Berlin der frühen 1990er Jahre [Thinking the Temporary Politically. Space Production in Berlin in the Early 1990s], Berlin: b_books, 2020, 448 pp. Along the spaces, groups, discourses, media and fields of practice that the heterogeneous constellation Botschaft e.V. produced in the six years of its existence from 1990 to 1996, the book draws a differentiated picture of the production of space in the period of the early 1990s in Berlin. The book is the documentation of a process, an analysis, but also a manifesto of a temporary production of space in the context of art and the city. Based on PhD thesis (HGB Leipzig, 2018). TOC. Publisher. Video talk (2017). Book launch. Review: Conrads (TAZ). (German)

• Birgit Eusterschulte, et al., Neuverhandlungen von Kunst. Diskurse und Praktiken seit 1990 am Beispiel Berlin, Bielefeld: transcript, Jul 2020, 148 pp. TOC, Introduction. Publisher. (German)

• 

• Knut Ebeling, Annette Maechtel, Heimo Lattner (eds.), Never Mind the Nineties. Eine Medienarchäologie des Kunststandorts Berlin, Hamburg: adocs, and Berlin: Eeclectic, Mar 2021, 146 pp. Excerpt. Contributions by Ulrike Steglich, Stephan Geene, Bettina Allamoda, Waling Boers, Mo Loschelder, Manuel Zimmer, Carl Hegemann and Bernd Frank. Publisher. Publisher. Seminars. (German)

• Birgit Eusterschulte, Christian Krüger (eds.), Involvierte Autonomie. Künstlerische Praxis zwischen Engagement und Eigenlogik, Bielefeld: transcript, Jul 2022, 230 pp. From different disciplinary perspectives, the contributors to this volume explore the contradictions of a false juxtaposition of autonomy and engagement and redefine differentiated strategies and heteronomous interconnections of artistic practice against tendencies of one-sided functionalisation. Based on the project's closing conference. Publisher. (German),(English)