This edition, organized by Anselm Franke, Jennifer Teets and Pelin Tan, showcases a miniature version of Hannah Hurzig’s Blackmarket for Useful Knowledge and Non-Knowledge -an installation for the exchange of expert knowledge, which since 2005 has been traveling to a variety of European cities, each time involving up to 100 experts with a kaleidoscope of individual expertise, gathered around a specific theme, offering knowledge in 30 minute-long, one-on-one sessions, which can be booked for a symbolic price. In Istanbul experts from the curatorial and theoretical field will be sharing their knowledge of “Atmospheric Politics” for just one euro. Explaining how the right or wrong gesture in a given moment can change everybody’s mood and what it is that makes gesture meaningful.
Participating experts will include: Jennifer Teets, resident curator at the Platform Garanti Contemporary Art Center and former chief curator of the Sala de Arte Público Siqueiros, Mexico City.
Mariana Castillo Deball, Berlin-based artist; Pelin Tan, sociologist, writer and editor living in Istanbul; Irene Kopelman, Amsterdam-based artist; Bulent Tanju, professor in Architectural Theory, and writer based in Istanbul; Cevdet Erek, artist living in Istanbul; Brian Dillon UK-based editor of ‘Cabinet’ magazine; Anselm Franke, curator of Manifesta 7 and Extra City, based in Antwerp. Dieter Rolstraete, Brussels-based curator and writer. Erden Kosova, writer and curator living in Istanbul.
“Blackmarket for Useful Knowledge and Non-Knowledge” is a format of the Mobile Academy, a project by Hannah Hurtzig with changing partners located at HAU, Berlin. www.mobileacademy-berlin.com
Though he may today be an art critic and curator, living in Berlin, Franke started his career as an assistant director and producer for various theater and film projects. He subsequently developed new formats of thematic installations and public congresses in Berlin and Hamburg along with Hannah Hurtzig. Since 2001 he has been a curator at Berlin’s KW Institute for Contemporary Art. In 2003, he teamed up again with Hurzig to co-curate projects like ‘Erzatz Radio’ a series of dialogues on ‘Architecture as a Strategic Weapons’ within the project ‘Knock/Knock for useful knowledge’. In May 2004, he organized ‘An Uneven Exchange of Power’, an exhibition by Armin Linke at New York’s Storefront for Art and Architecture. Franke has also widely lectured at art institutions throughout the world.