Symposium They Printed It!

Throughout the 20the century, artists have used invitation cards, ads, posters and even press releases as artistic media to expand their practice, to question and subvert art and the art world, and as means for self-marketing. Since those materials were cheap to produce and meant for short-term circulation the resulting works weren’t understood as art for a long time. Only recently art history and a number of art institutions started to recognize the key meaning of this practice - and its possible market value. Simultaneously, printed matter is increasingly being replaced by digital media. This full-day symposium accompanying Kunsthalle Zürich's exhibition They Printed It! reflects the lesser known history of artistic ephemera, attempts a contemporary inventory, and discusses how an at times nostalgic relationship to printed material impacts the collection and exhibition policies of art institutions. Artists, curators, art historians and collectors debate the art of communicating and publishing, including the tensions between art, (self-) marketing and critique at stake in the field of ephemera since the 1960s.

Organized by Barbara Preisig (Art Historian, Zurich) in collaboration with Simon Baier (Art Historian / Lecturer Institute for Art History, University of Zurich), Daniel Baumann (Director Kunsthalle Zürich), Michael Birchall (Art Historian and Curator, Berlin / Lecturer Postgraduate Programme in Curating, Zurich School of Visual Arts), Martin Jaeggi (Critic and Curator / Lecturer, Bachelor Media & Art, Zurich University of the Arts), Julia Moritz (Curator Theory and Programs Kunsthalle Zürich), Marianne Mueller (Artist / Head of Specialization Photography, Bachelor of Arts in Media & Art, Zurich University of the Arts), Dorothee Richter (Curator, Author, Film-maker / Head of Postgraduate Programme in Curating, Zurich University of the Arts), Christoph Schifferli (Collector, Zurich), Maja Wismer (Art Historian and Curator, Basel).

The symposium introduces the exhibition They Printed It! Invitation cards, press releases, inserts and other forms of artistic (self-) marketing.

Program (participants info see "biography" below):

10.30–11.00am Daniel Baumann and Julia Moritz: Welcome and introduction

11.00am–12.00pm Barbara Preisig: Communicating productively, consuming critically. Outreach economies in advertising and conceptual art in the 1960s

12.00pm–1.00pm Christoph Schifferli talks to Lynn Kost (Curator Bündner Kunstmuseum, Chur) about his collection and some works in the exhibition

1.00–2.00pm Lunch break: Soup at Kunsthalle

2.00–3.00pm David Platzker (Curator, Department of Drawings and Prints, The Museum of Modern Art, New York): Some Printed Stuff

3.00–4.00pm Michael Riedel (Artist, Frankfurt a. M.) talks to Daniel Baumann about his art practice and some works in the exhibition