Why is there again a strong interest among artists in the »museum«? What kind of role are historical images documents, images and artifacts playing? What influence have artistic interventions within museums and on exhibition concepts in the present day? This talk revisits these and other questions of the exhibition »Museum Off Museum« as well as of previous presentations at the Bielefelder Kunstverein. Through a fragmentary program structure, two exhibition periods, lectures and a blog »Museum Off Museum« was investigating in an appropriation and expansion of the museum’s practice, in the museum as an artistic tool as well as a concept for reflection within a global, medialized world. The lecture will reflect on the subjective potential in dealing with history, academic narratives and their representation.

Thomas Thiel is the director of the Bielefelder Kunstverein. He studied Cultural Sciences and Aesthetical Practice in Hildesheim (Germany) and Marseille (France). Thiel worked for In Between, the art project of EXPO 2000 in Hanover and Manifesta 4, European Biennial for Contemporary Art in Frankfurt/Main. From 2004 to 2008 he was a curator and head of the exhibition department at ZKM|Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe. In Bielefeld he curated solo presentations with amongst others Mathieu Kleyebe Abonnenc, David Adamo, Latifa Echakch, Dirk Fleischmann, Luke Fowler, Maryam Jafri, Gabriel Kuri, Maria Loboda, Flo Maak, Gareth Moore, Lili Reynaud-Dewar, Jessica Warboys and Katarina Zdjelar. His thematic exhibitions were dealing with the relation of contemporary art and design (»Beyond Gestaltung«), the relevance of diagrammatic images (»Schaubilder«) or the condition of exhibition making within a global context (»Von A nach B, von B nach P«, »Museum Off Museum«). Thomas Thiel initiated the exhibition series »Subjektive Projections« (2009-2013), which presented current strategies in artistic films online. Thomas Thiel writes regularly on contemporary art and is editor of numerous exhibition publications. His program for Bielefelder Kunstverein has been awarded with the ADKV-ART COLOGNE Prize for Kunstvereine 2014.

The lecture will be in English.