The City is our Factory, by Christoph Schäfer, Leipzig 2010, 306 pages, 28 €, ISBN: 978-3-940064-95-0, Spector Books The City is Our Factory is a visual essay in 158 drawings. In six chapters, the artist Christoph Schäfer develops a rhizomatic history of the urban space: From primordial mud to the “Right to the City” movement […]
Utopian Pulse – Flares in the Darkroom: Salon Public Happiness Ausstellung: 10. – 16. September 2014 Wiener Secession 20. Juni – 16. August 2015 Württembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart Videoccupy (Istanbul), und Esso Häuser – Filmteam (Irene Bude, Steffen Jörg and Olaf Sobczak), Esso Häuser Nachruf von Megafonchor (Sylvi Kretzschmar, Video by Svenja Baumgardt), Der Investor (Die […]
Christoph Schäfer lives in Hamburg. Since the early 1990s, the artist has worked on urban everyday life and the production of spaces for and by collective desires. This interest is mirrored in a wide range of work, that often reflects and sometimes intervenes, in unusual drawings, installations and collective projects. His main contributions include the […]
International Conference ZKM_Media Theater, Admission free Thurs, Feb 27: 7 p.m.; Fri/Sat, Feb 28/March 1: 9.30 p.m. Language: English → Information auf Deutsch → Program → Live Stream As part of the theoretical foundations of GLOBALE, the ZKM, in cooperation with the ifa [Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations], has organized a large-scale conference with approx. […]
” Schäfer’s drawings depict intriguingly bizarre, parallel social situations gleaned from interviews and other encounters, and aim to reimage an aesthetic of community, markedly different to corporatised artists’ impressions in content and execution.” Tom Snow, Afterall “With this in mind, perhaps the most resonant work of the whole biennial was that of Hamburg artist, Christoph […]
Can you imagine another country, where people eat together as a form of protest? The Lady next to me smiles while we indulge in shared food in a public Iftar in Yeniköy Park. More than three hundred people have gathered, an hour away from Istanbul centre by metro and minibus. More than half of the […]
Gerade im Zusammenhang mit den aktuellen Entwicklungen in der Türkei ist diese Arbeit eine grundlegende Erinnerung daran, dass der urbane Raum durch öffentliche Besetzung durch die Bürger – und auch durch Künstler – mitgestaltet werden muss und weder staatlichen Planern noch den überwiegend gewinnorientierten Projektentwicklern und Großkonzernen überlassen werden darf, schon weil sonst der Raum […]
Christoph Schäfer will speak about Gezi Park Fiction St. Pauli at this years’ Creative Time Summit: Art, Place, and Dislocation in the 21st-Century City October 25 & 26, 2013 — NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts
Margit Czenki und Christoph Schäfer speak about “Social Sculpture”, “Production of Desires”, Art as Platform, ContainerUni, and discuss all this with the auf´dience More on the Johanneum website.
“Allerorten regt sich immer stärkerer Protest seitens der Bevölkerung gegen die von Profitgier getriebenen Investoren, deren Luxusbauten zu einer zunehmenden Vertreibung ärmerer Bevölkerungsschichten und somit einer starken sozialen Ungleichheit führen. Erst vergangene Woche versammelten sich tausende Menschen auf dem zentralen Taksim-Platz in Istanbul, um gegen die geplante Bebauung des Gezi-Parks – der letzten Grünfläche in […]
Image above: When the audience leaves the seats and takes to the streets (Nika Riots), drawn in january 2013 – (not included in the current exhibition at Tanas) A small preview to the upcoming Istanbul Biennial: Agoraphobia, curated by Fulya Erdemici 25.05. – 27.07.2013 with: Jimmie Durham, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Freee, Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Lux […]
A Machine of Possibilities: the urban turn, art and the right to the city – Lecture illustrated by hand: Christoph Schäfer (conceptual artist, sparkling draughtsman, educational entertainer, urban writer and uninvited city planner). The talk will be combined with a panel with these fine urban activists and thinkers: Dr. Betül Tanbay (Taksim Platform, academician), Yaşar […]
…und ein herzzerreißender Artikel in der Studierendenzeitschrift oszillograph der Zeppelin Universität: Keine Kompromisse. Egal, was es kostet.
A continuous flow of conversations weaves through the days and the town, thoughts move between classes and continue in bars, a talk in the day might get a reply in form of a belly-dance at night, narrations from hometowns blend in, and stories from Johannesburg, Bombay, Minsk or Havanna echo in the alleys and backyards […]
Technically speaking, this is a lousy video. But a fantastic talk, and an easy introduction to “The City is Our Factory”.
Symposium “Why Design?” HfbK Hamburg 9.2.2012. A 34 Minute lecture by Christoph Schäfer on “The City is our Factory” in English. Plus a short talk with Marjetica Potric. More info on the book: here
Ein Gespräch mit dem in Hamburg lebenden und arbeitenden Christoph Schäfer über Zeichnen als Wunschmaschine, Wege der Stadterforschung und politische Wetterwinkel. http://www.skug.at/article5456.htm
Ulyanovsk Airport, Foto: Christoph Schäfer, November 2010 NOVEMBER 8: I arrive from Moscow in a Saab airplane filled with 25 men and 2 women. While our luggage is packed on a military lorry, I feel like I finally arrived in Russia. Even more so, when a young man in ironed black trousers picks me up […]
Ulyanovsk Airport, Foto: Christoph Schäfer, November 2010 8. November: Ich erreiche Uljanowsk von Moskau aus in einem vollbesetzten Saab-Flieger, gefüllt mit 25 Männern und 2 Frauen. Als auf dem Flugfeld unser Gepäck auf die Ladefläche eines alten Militärlasters verfrachtet wird, bekomme ich das Gefühl, endlich in Russland angekommen zu sein. Umso mehr, als am Flughafen […]
Strolling through Moscow in November, I came across the biggest billboard I have ever seen. The giant timeline is hanging right next to the Kremlin. A panorama of architectures is displayed on it. Neoliberal urban planning mimics stalinist baroque architecture, I learn, and the real estate developers emulate soviet progressivism as well. However, in the […]
Embedded artists vs. interventionist residents It was in the early nineties that I discussed the term “interventionist” for the first time. Curator Sabine B. Vogel had used the term to describe the work of artists she had invited to a group show in the Vienna Secession, Oppositionen & Schwesternfelder. Dan Peterman, Joe Scanlan and the […]