THE CORNER AT WHITMAN-WALKER
A conversation with Ruth Noack about the potentialities and difficulties to run an art center in a healthcare institution
Wed 16 February 2022, 5 p.m.

 

Access: vaccinated or recovered plus booster vaccinated plus tested negative (quick test).

Language: German

"At the end of 2019, I was invited to start building a new kind of space, a cultural center embedded in a LGBTQ and HIV focussed healthcare institution. This did not happen just anwhere, but in the capitol of the US. What were the ideas, strategies, ethics of The Corner? What kind of struggles and what kind of plans did we have?" (Ruth Noack)

Ruth Noack (1964) is a curator, art historian, writer, passionate teacher, and mother of two children. From 2019-2021, she was Executive Director and Curator of The Corner at Whitman-Walker in Washington, D.C. Noack curated documenta 12 with Roger M.Buergel (2007). Recent exhibitions include The Mental Body (2021), Stay Alive to Life. Resilience in Times of Covid (2021), See You There. Making History at Whitman-Walker (2020), When We First Arrived..., on the testimonies of children detained at the US-Mexico border with DYKWTCA (2020) and the exhibition series Sleeping with a Vengeance, Dreaming of a Life (2018-20). She has authored a monograph on Sanja Iveković, edited Agency, Ambivalence, Analysis. Approaching the Museum with Migration in Mind (2013), published numerous essays on feminist topics or contemporary art, and lecured internationally.

"The Curatorial Unknown" is a series of meetings dedicated to curatorial practice initiated by Temporary Gallery Cologne and prepared in collaboration with a group of curators and institutions from Cologne and the region. The meetings are open to everyone interested in curating.

The event is also part of the project “and only the birds fly first class...“, which invites reflection on the structures of the art system and possible reactions to them. Its aim is to go beyond ordinary criticism of the mechanisms of the art scene and present progressive ideas and solutions. The title of the project comes from the song “Mr. Nichols“ by Coldcut and Saul Williams, which is a very apt description of the emotional state of despair, disorientation and the need for turnaround in order to achieve a world in which “only the birds fly first class“, i.e. a world without inequalities. The project is curated by Aneta Rostkowska, director of Temporary Gallery.

Image
See You There: Making History at Whitman-Walker, 2020

Funding and support
Kunststiftung NRW
Kulturamt der Stadt Köln
Hotel Chelsea
Deltax Wirtschafts- und Steuerberatungsgesellschaft mbH