IN CONVERSATION
with Kristina Scepanski
13 November 2014

 

Series of conversations with curators and guests in and around of Cologne about currents projects and questions towards contemporary art

Q: Kristina, you have been the director of the Westfälischer Kunstverein for almost two years now. Which aspects are most engaging on your programming work in Münster?
A: It is always a balancing act to conceive the programming for an arts organization. Exhibitions move between a local public, its long-standing members and an international audience. Many different expectations come together. I would like to present the exhibition "Public Relations / Öffentlichkeitsarbeit" by Liz Magic Laser, among other exhibitions, in light of the question of 'balance'. I'm also planning ahead for the upcoming mammoth project with Camille Henrot, "The Pale Fox", an international co-production, which presents many challenges to a small Kunstverein team (...) During guided tours I often encounter the desire from our public for a guide that helps you 'understand' contemporary art. Why are they (as exhibition visitors) worried to such a degree about this open form of contemporary art, in which they have yet to be, or perhaps never will be, presented with 'a' meaning in which 'a' statement or purpose exist? Where does the fear of this freedom originate?

Kristina Scepanski is an art historian and since 2013 she is director of the Westfälischer Kunstverein in Münster. She previously worked at the European Kunsthalle in Cologne and at the Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen in Dusseldorf. In 2011/12 she attended in New York the Whitney Independent Study Program as a Helena Rubinstein Curatorial Fellow.

Funding and Support
Cultural Office of the City of Cologne

Images
Liz Magic Laser and Kristina Scepanski in Public Relations, 2014
Photo: Manuel Jennen