…the encounter between works of art and home. about the magic things that are happening in the domestic box.
On a less common morning in May 2014, I went out to drink my coffee in the beautiful backyard of the house where I had been staying overnight. There was another guy in the yard who I talked to. I invited him to the show I was going to present with Alice Pons that evening in the first edition of a house festival. The name of the festival was Hors Lits; the place where I spent the night was called
Pictures belong to audience members of HomeFest 2020 May 20, 2021 One year after the state of emergency, the metaphor pictures sent by the audience of HomeFest 2020 tell an »at home« story of their own. The front door viewer. A woman with two children. A »Pilot« pen. An empty page in an agenda and a closed diary. Baby bottles and children in front of a screen. A hammock hanging on the balcony. The plastered splint for the left leg.
In 2016, artist-curators Anna Buyvid and Anna Khodorkovskaya organized the Worldwide Apartment and Studio Biennale, a decentralized biennial held in artists’ studios and apartments and apartment galleries around the world for two months. Many artists took part in WASB. Another biennial with the same space-specific coordinates, artists’ studios, and apartments is #00Bienal de la Habana 2018, the initiative of independent artists from Havana who wanted to offer an alternative to the official biennial that was not held that year. The
During my last days in Havana, I visited curator and researcher Yanelys Nuñez Leyva, one of the main organizers of #00Bienal de la Habana. Her mother made a strong, sweet coffee that is typical in Cuba. Shortly thereafter, artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, the other central figure of the biennial, joined us. Together they established the Museo de la Disidencia en Cuba (The Cuban Museum of Dissidence), which recontextualizes the concept of »dissidence.« We ate fruits, salami, and bread and
Until 2013, when I didn’t get to work as a performer on a biennial project, Venice, Italy, was never a destination on my bucket list. Why should I travel to a place that everybody wants to visit? La Serenissima has long been a ghost town, with no inner life, whose rhythm and culture have adapted to the hordes of tourists who grind down its bridges. I was very happy when I discovered places and events that have nothing to do
Mladen Stilinović, the famous Croatian artist, never had a studio. This was the main reason to organize about a dozen exhibitions between 2003 and 2010 in the apartment in which he lived with his wife Branka Stipancić. Stilinović started to show his works in the domestic space in 1978, when he set up the exhibition Register of My Work 1970–1978. He hung his works in different rooms and the hallway and projected his films to show the audience what he
It was twelve o’clock when, after many days of delays and hesitations, I decided to press the key on the website of a low-cost German company. I seemed to have heard a click when 580 euros disappeared from my bank account. It took me some time to fall asleep. In the sky of the mind, a plane was pulling a banner with You’re going to Cuba! I fell asleep after a while and, guess what, when I checked my mail in the
Almost one year ago I was in the living-room of an apartment in Berlin, talking to Johanna Gilje, one of my temporary flatmates. In that flat, every day at 8.17 pm, from two speakers fixed in the walls you can hear one minute recorded from the previous day, a project called Minute/Year by two artists Kovacs and O’Doherty, which lasted for the whole year 2017. After I told her about my research, I found out that there’s a very strong punk
Poems by Jasmina Al-Qaisi (1-8, 12-15)/ Poems by Jean-Lorin Sterian (9,10) 1. Her inner sucker Took over our left hands And reminded me of the excuse I have To hide my inner sucker: I did not study history of art, I say to him And what I know of drawing Is from the lovers that drew me My inner sucker replies: I, naïve, like you But show me only to your loved ones. A poem inspired by the lecture-performance The
Do you know that feeling looking out your window, secretly peeking into the lives of strangers? You don’t do that? Then give it a try. It’s exciting to consider the stories that might lay behind the curtains. I’m sitting on my windowsill right now, wondering if the man and woman – window on the third floor right in front of my couch window – are professional TV critics or just love watching TV? No, not now. Today, I am not
For this entry of Homemade Culture Jean-Lorin Sterian interviewed Mark Salvatus from Manila, the founder of 98B – which started in his appartement. Jean-Lorin Sterian: How did you start 98B? What was the inspiration? Mark Salvatus: I’m living in a small apartment in Cubao in Quezon City, north of Manila. It’s also the studio where I work. In November 2011, after returning from a residency program in Yokohama, Japan, I invited Mayumi Hirano (now my wife), a researcher and curator
This lorgennale, the festival in charge of the endogenous art happenings inside private homes, spiced up Stuttgart’s cultural scene May 24–28, 2017. lorgennale is a festival initiated by Solitude fellow Jean-Lorin Sterian and co-curated with Paula Kohlmann in Stuttgart, until very recently, a host in the now-defunct project space LOTTE – land of the temporary eternity. The festival was entirely financed and supported by Akademie Schloss Solitude. lorgennale anchors performances, concerts, lectures, and exhibitions in the intimacy of local residences.
I arrived in Stuttgart on the third day of lorgennale festival, curated by Jean-Lorin Sterian, a friend and a current fellow at Akademie Schloss Solitude. We met during my cultural journalism residency in 2016. I arrived on Friday evening, dropped my stuff off at Solitude, and ran to the city to catch the 7pm performance. Over three days, until the last day of the festival, I saw most of the performances, which were in German. It was difficult for me
What was your inspiration for starting this project? It all started when one of us, one day saw a poster in the streets of Amsterdam where it read something like »theatre+ concert at Paul’s house«, following the address. Those lines worked out like a »click«, and the thought was, »wow, it is possible to present artistic proposals at someone’s house?«. From that to the concept of CONDOMÍNIO Festival it all happened very organically. After some thought and research done, and
lorgennale Zagreb – In Six Rooms The pilot edition of lorgennale was organized in Zagreb/Croatia. The next one is coming to Stuttgart from May 24th to 28th, 2017. There will soon be an open call for people who want to open their houses for an art event. room no. 6 the sixth room was the most beautiful. because it was in a big apartment in the center of zagreb. because I’ll be living here for three days, the last days.
»Where others see a living-room, I see a stage.« Researcher, writer, artist, and performer Jean-Lorin Sterian organizes a shifting art festival hosted by various domestic spaces across European cities: lorgennale. In this blog, he shares his experiences and insights visiting apartments, organizing events, discovering new artistic potential. What is contained in the four walls? The unconscious of a society? In addition to the blog, an interactive map collects homemade arts and culture events worldwide. Soon the artistic experiments will happen