The first Artegiro Residency for Authors and Curators takes place in May 2017 in Conzano with the project by curator and critic An Paenhuysen and artist Wolfgang Muller. An and Wolfgang will work towards concluding their book, The Science of Misunderstandings. An Paenhuysen and Wolfgang Müller collaborate since 2010, when they curated together a show at the Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum of Contemporary Art, Berlin, about Valeska Gert, a quite forgotten Berlin proto-performer of the 1920s. Two years later Paenhuysen and Müller curated an exhibition at Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien titled Gesture Sign Art. Deaf Culture / Hearing Culture, presenting art forms operating at the interface of deaf and hearing culture. More projects followed and in 2016 they presented Choir at Eigen + Art Lab Berlin, in which whistling tea kettles were the main performers.
For the Artegiro Residency for Critics and Curators, May 2017, An Paenhuysen and Wolfgang Müller work on an artist book project that will be published by Verbrecher Verlag, an independent publishing house in Berlin. On the occasion of the 60th birthday of the artist, they will create a conversation between curator / art critic and artist based on visual juxtapositions and short texts that highlight artistic concepts that define his art making from the beginning of the 1980s, when he started the post-punk artist band Die Tödliche Doris until now. Wolfgang Müller has been called a “researcher of misunderstandings”. The Science of Misunderstandings explores the occurrence of misunderstandings and investigates the structures underlying their emergence. The tool of this science is research and in the book project the emphasis will be on the method of research in artistic thinking.
The Artegiro Residency will give the opportunity to do the final brainstorming and conceptualization of the book project. Publication will be Fall 2017. Ideally also a larger exhibition will follow. During the residency in Conzano, Piedmont, Paenhuysen and Müller will present an evening on the topic of taste in art accompanied by an exhibition, and would be happy to go into a vivid discussion with the Conzano community. Italy, the country of classical art where so many young artists used to go for their grand tour, seems to be a perfect setting to ask the question of good and bad taste and its societal implications.
The Artegiro Project with its focus on collaborative thinking will have an important role on the realization of the project. The residency allows for it to develop and flourish from a location that invites for a tranquil reflection to take place. The hope is also to keep up an ongoing exchange with Artegiro Project that goes beyond the publication of the book and pushes forward a critical engagement with art in society. An Paenhuysen participated in May 2016 in the exciting research forum Art and (de) colony of the COCOAA Project, and this residency is a significant follow-up to bring the discussion on art history and its contradictions forward.