14 Local is not Parochial
CC: BRITTA PETERS works as a curator with a focus on art in public space. Since 2018, she has been the artistic director of Urbane Künste Ruhr, a decentralized institution for contemporary art in the Ruhr region. Previously, she was curator of Skulptur Projekte Münster 2017 in a team with Kasper König and Marianne Wagner and, in addition to various freelance projects, director of Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof in Hamburg from 2008 to 2011. For the years 2020–2022 she is a member of the jury for art in public space in Vienna.
Is Atze Schröder a Local Artist? AN ESSAY ABOUT RESIDENTIAL STREETS, REGIONAL VEGETABLES AND INTERNATIONAL EXCHANGE Text: Britta Peters Translation: Good and Cheap Art Translators
Roderick Buchanan, The Hexagon Pitch, Ruhr Ding: Territorien Urbane Künste Ruhr 2019, Photo: Henning Rogge
I recently happened to read that the comedian Atze Schröder, the Ruhr icon par excellence, has been living in Hamburg for years and is very happy there. Well, would you look at that! Is he still considered a local artist now, or has he become someone else overnight for his local fans? A Hamburg big cheese? This snippet likely also caught my eye because, as the director of the institution Urbane Künste Ruhr, I am frequently faced with discussions about the regional origins of the participating artists. Once, I wearily tried to counter the conflict by referencing the actual participation of Ruhr-based artists and groups in the last few projects. For contrary to the perception of a few – who are all the more vociferous for it – they are not a minority, and due to the site-specific work and the number of collaborations, there is already a strong grounding in the region. As I recited this list, the conversation ended up on the following track: a good ten artists living in the Ruhr region,
as well as the acknowledgement of one who had already died, and yes, this artist counts too: he lives in Leipzig now, but he was born and raised in Duisburg. As soon as I said it, it felt one hundred percent wrong. I had entered into a game whose rules were not only inscrutable but above all absurd. Thinking in terms of categories of origin as a criterion for inclusion or exclusion inevitably leads to a dead end one way or another – and all the more so with regard to spatial and cultural migration movements that are even greater than from Duisburg to Leipzig or from the Ruhr to Hamburg. Unless the information on a curriculum vitae is filled with content, it remains meaningless. The various environments and influences to which a person is exposed can only be understood as potential shaping factors. They say nothing about the intensity and nature of someone’s experiences, and certainly nothing about the quality of potential art projects.
