[artinfo] TOGETHERNESS

[FRANKFURTER KUNSTVEREIN]

TOGETHERNESS - OPPORTUNITIES AND LIMITATIONS IN INTERNATINAL ART EXCHANGE

ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen) panel 
discussion on cooperation in international art 
exchange with Susanne Gaensheimer, Marcel 
Odenbach, Françoise Vergès, and Carla Zaccagnini, 
chaired by Tobi Maier

The title of this panel discussion includes a 
reference to sociologist Richard Sennett's book 
"Together: The Rituals, Pleasures and Politics of 
Cooperation". Sennett proposes that cooperation 
is a basic mode that enables collaborative 
interaction, joining "people who have separate or 
conflicting interests, who do not feel good about 
each other, who are unequal, or who simply do not 
understand one another. The challenge is to 
respond to others on their own terms."

This discussion will address questions such as 
which conditions bring us together, and which 
cultures of togetherness can we establish? Which 
institutional structures are necessary, and how 
can we shape our encounters on a friendly basis? 
What are the forms and dynamics of intercultural 
collaboration? Where do we come up against 
limitations, and what can we learn from open 
cooperation? What is the role of biennials as 
venues for international exchange, and what are 
their various local effects? Do they reflect 
independent cycles of cooperation and 
legitimation? What can ifa do as a mediator 
between these contexts?

The panel members work internationally in art and 
culture, representing artistic, practical, and 
theoretical perspectives. Together they will 
explore the practices of cooperation.



Speakers:

Susanne Gaensheimer is a curator and art 
historian and lives in Frankfurt am Main. Since 
2009 she is the director of the MMK Museum für 
Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt am Main. In 2013 she 
is the curator of the German Pavilion at the 55th 
Venice Biennale (for the second time after 2011).

Tobi Maier is a curator and writer and lives in 
São Paulo. He has been curator at the Frankfurter 
Kunstverein, curatorial advisor to Manifesta 7 in 
Rovereto, and curator at Ludlow 38, the downtown 
satellite for contemporary art of the 
Goethe-Institut in New York. He was one of the 
associate curators for the 30th Bienal de São 
Paulo (2012).

Marcel Odenbach is an artist and lives in Cologne 
and Cape Coast, Ghana. Since 2011 he has been 
professor at the Düsseldorf Academy of Fine Arts. 
He also teaches as visiting professor at the 
National Film and Television Institute in Accra. 
ifa is presently preparing a new exhibition of 
his works: "Marcel Odenbach. Stille Bewegungen. 
Tranquil Motions".

Françoise Vergès is a political scientist and 
lives in Paris. She is Consulting Professor at 
the Centre for Cultural Studies at Goldsmiths 
College in London. Verges was project adviser to 
the Créolité and Creolization, platform for 
Documenta11 (2002). Between 2002 and 2010, she 
was the academic co-curator of the Museum of the 
Present project on the island of Réunion. Vergès 
has also directed the program "The Slave" in Le 
Louvre for the La Triennale 2012 in Paris.

Carla Zaccagnini is a visual artist and lives in 
São Paulo. She has taken part, among others, in 
28a Bienal de São Paulo (2008), 2da Trienal 
Poligráfica de San Juan America Latina y El 
Caribe (San Juan, 2009), and Modelos para Armar: 
Pensar Latinoamérica desde la colección MUSAC 
(Leon, Spain, 2010). Zaccagnini works also as 
writer and curator. Currently she is a fellow of 
the KfW Stiftung at the Künstlerhaus Bethanien in 
Berlin.

							FRANKFURTER KUNSTVEREIN
			Steinernes Haus am Römerberg
Markt 44