Symposium: On Collecting, Transactions in Contemporary Art

National Museum of Wales in partnership with g39

Speakers:
Sorcha Dallas, Director, Sorcha Dallas Contemporary Art, Glasgow
Ute Volz , Director, Halle 14 Leipzig
Karsten Schmitz, Founder of the Federkiel, Leipzig
Ellen Mara De Wachter, Exhibitions Curator, Zabludowicz Collection

You are warmly invited to take part in a symposium event investigating the market for contemporary art in Wales organised by Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales and g39. The event will consider how Wales could develop its market to cater for tastes in the new wave of contemporary work being produced in Wales, and how we can engage with this developing market as individuals, businesses and artists.

Chaired by Mermaid and Monster, the contemporary art agency for Wales, On Collecting welcomes internationally renowned guest speakers from a range of institutions, organisations and private collections including Ellen Mara De Wachter , Sorcha Dallas, Ute Volz , and Karsten Schmitz.

This exciting event will use examples of how cultural ecologies have developed in towns and cities that are geographically at a distance from ‘the market’, and how such an ecology could develop in Wales. Forming part of the Contemporary Art Society’s National Programmes for the National Network, this event is free and will benefit those who are interested in the UK’s art markets beyond London.

Ellen Mara De Wachter has been the exhibitions curator at the Zabludowicz Collection since 2007. In addition to curating the exhibitions programme, she is responsible for the publishing arm of the collection, editing exhibition catalogues and the collection website. Outside her work at the collection, she writes for arts publications and catalogues, has lectured at universities including the Royal College of Art and Teesside University, and occasionally curates independent exhibitions and projects. She holds an MA in Curating Contemporary Art from the Royal College of Art, London (2007), an MA in History of Art and Contemporary Art Theory from Goldsmiths College, London (2003) and a BA in Philosophy from the University of Warwick (1998). Her art writing blog The Pictured Word is at http://ellenmaradewachter.blogspot.com/

Karsten Schmitz was born in 1967 and studied economics. In 2000, together with his wife Tina, a designer, Karsten Schmitz established Stiftung Federkiel, a foundation for contemporary art and culture. Its main project is the support of the former Leipzig Cotton Spinning Mill, the Leipziger Baumwollspinnerei, which has been revitalised with arts and culture since 2001. In order to enhance the focus on contemporary art at Spinnerei, the Federkiel Foundation developed the non-profit project HALLE 14 in the biggest production building on the site. Today HALLE 14 has become a unique art centre which remains a home for Karsten Schmitz as patron and collector and for the artists he has supported over the years. Karsten is also involved in ecological and educational topics, in 2007 he was co-founder of an integrative Montessori school in Munich. In 2008, together with two partners he started Soil & Energy gGmbH, a social business developing and implementing sustainable energy concepts for rural areas.

Sorcha Dallas graduated from the painting department at Glasgow School of Art in 1998. Between 1999-2004 she co-founded and curated the moving gallery Switchspace, which delivered a programme of exhibitions showcasing Glasgow-based artists at varying stages in their careers, in ever-changing disussed spaces throughout Glasgow. The support and interest Switchspace generated evolved into the establishment of a permanent gallery space by Sorcha offering a sustainable support structure for a new generation of emerging artists based in the city. The gallery currently represents thirteen artists on a local, national and international level, in commissioning, exhibiting and purchasing opportunities.

Ute Volz, born in 1973, studied “German as a foreign language”, English linguistics and American cultural studies in Freiburg and Munich, Germany. She started her professional life as project manager in a company for educational software for children and young adults, and became a project developer and manager for arts, culture and education on a freelance basis in 2006. Since 2007, Volz has been managing director of the non-profit art centre HALLE 14 in Leipzig, Germany. For the past four years, she has been working on the professionalisation of this revitalising initiative started and supported by Karsten Schmitz and the Federkiel Foundation. HALLE 14 is a 20,000 sqm, former production building in the Leipzig Cotton Spinning Mill that is being converted into a flourishing multipurpose centre of contemporary visual arts. Today it holds three large exhibition spaces, an art library with approximtately 40,000 books, an art education programme and several workshops and storage spaces. The renovation of the building is part of the development.

This event is free, to book please contact Heidi Evans, National Museum Cardiff on (029) 2057 3148

Images (top to bottom); image taken on a research trip to HALLE 14 earlier this year in preparation for the event by Lucy Byatt and g39; ARTfutures 2008, photo by Jonathan Rose; image from research trip to HALLE 14


Links:
g39
Sorcha Dallas Gallery
Halle 14
Federkiel – Baumwollspinnerei
Zabludowicz Collection