Christoph Schäfer
Hamburg artist Christoph Schäfer’s conceptual installations are based on precise observations of everyday urban life. His subjects are urbanism, youth culture, theme parks, fashion, grey market and revolt. Travels and experimental workshops in Delhi, Dakar, Bangalore and Ulyanovsk have contributed to his development of tools for decoding urban life. In 150 watercolour-pencil drawings, his new book, Die Stadt ist unsere Fabrik [The city is our factory], tells an unusual story of the city, from the primaeval sludge up to the 2010 Recht auf Stadt [Right to the City] movement in Hamburg. His work in the Park Fiction collective in St Pauli was already marked by theoretical urbanist ideas, as were his film installations Revolution Non Stop and Hoang’s Bistro. Schäfer’s works have been shown at exhibitions including documenta 11, and he holds lectures and courses in places as different as the Hamburg Gängeviertel [artists’ squatter district] and the Boston MIT.
Exhibitions
2012 Topographie der Gemeinheit, raumsichten-kunstwegen, Grafschaft Bentheim. 2011 Disobedience Archive, with Park Fiction, MIT, Boston. Living as Form, with Park Fiction, Creative Time, New York. Künstlerische Kommunikation und Intervention im sozialen Raum, rotor, Graz. 2 oder 3 Dinge, die ich von ihr weiss – Ästhetische Positionen zur Stadtentwicklung, MAP Projekte, Düsseldorf. 2010 Auslaufendes Rot – Anti-Monument für die Rote Ruhrarmee, B1/A40, RUHR.2010, Essen, Dortmund. raumsichten: Vorzeichen, Städtische Galerie Nordhorn. 2009 Public Garden – Public Generation, Neuer Aachener Kunstverein. Pudel Art Basel Kunstmarkt gegen Gentrifizierung, Golden Pudel Klub, Hamburg. 2008 Saloon La Realidad – Filiale Hasselbach, im Tal, Kunstverein Hasselbach. Katastrophenalarm, with Margit Czenki, NGBK, Berlin. 2007 Shrinking Cities, Museum of Contemporary Art, Detroit. 2006 City of Glass, COLAB Gallery, Bangalore. Wild Capital, Kunsthaus Dresden. 2002 documenta 11, with Park Fiction, Kassel. Ökonomien der Zeit, Museum Ludwig, Cologne; Akademie der Künste, Berlin; Migros Museum, Zurich.
Publications
Auslaufendes Rot – Die Rote Ruhrarmee und die Imagecity, Spector Books, Leipzig 2012.
Die Stadt ist unsere Fabrik – The City is Our Factory, Spector Books, Leipzig 2010.