Loving Shedhalle – Abundance

"Loving Shedhalle—Abundance" brings together fifteen artistic positions from the past forty years that are connected to Shedhalle in particular ways. The exhibition activates the archives of Shedhalle and is based on numerous conversations with people who have worked here. "Abundance" honors practices of relating and interweaving as an anti-heroic continuity of collective efforts that manifest themselves in repeated or continuous engagements with the Shedhalle. The invited works and artistic practices support each other and form relations without diluting their own specificities. With exuberant joy, "Loving Shedhalle–Abundance" celebrates not only the archival holdings, but also the very existence of the Shedhalle itself.

For the anniversary activities, we chose the title "Loving Shedhalle." The title is obviously ambivalent: love promises closeness, connection, and solidarity, but at the same time makes us vulnerable and exploitable. As a feminist critique, it refers to unpaid care and reproductive work, which often remains invisible. At the same time, it emphasizes love as a practice that enables relationships and shapes the working methods of the Shedhalle—yesterday, today, and in the future.

The entanglements between the singular works from different eras of the Shedhalle form a fabric of different threads, underpinned by an invisible yet effective layer: the concern. The German word for concern is "Anliegen", derived from the Old High German "Anliogan". It describes processes of approaching, snuggling up. Concerns refer to relationships, to contact, to the sensual, embodied, and lived dimension of artistic practice. They connect things, people, times. 

The histories of Shedhalle began in 1985, when typewriters were hammering away against the Cold War, and continues into the present, which seems like an accelerated actualization of former sci-fi dystopias. In between: fax machines, jungle, street parades, Skype discussions, seapunk subgenres, AI—and, again and again, the question of other modes of production, of power mechanisms inherent in inclusion and exclusion, and thus of the archive. The Shedhalle is a contemporary witness and a place of learning, feeling, and collective reflection—or resonance. "Loving Shedhalle" is thus also characterized by a critical examination of the question of who writes, remembers, or forgets which history(ies). 

In activating and maintaining the archives, we ask ourselves: What can we learn from the past for the future? Practices of study have always been diverse at Shedhalle. Expanded spaces of knowledge have emerged in different media settings, materials, and through the ages, forming an important value as a rich layer in the history(ies) of the art space.

"Abundance" works on the assumption that artistic and curatorial practices have been linked by related concerns, if not by kinship, over the decades. These concerns form the core of each respective practice. A common thread linking all those involved in the Shedhalle is perhaps the concern about the agencies of the arts beyond the realm of art itself. The participating artists bear witness to this through the density of resonant spaces and related concerns across aesthetic means, formats and strategies. 

Relating these concerns to each other in a sensual and material way means keeping an eye on an abundance of possibilities and understanding difference not as a starting point for divisions, but as a place from which relationships are formed. With exuberant joy, "Loving Shedhalle—Abundance" celebrates not only the archival holdings, but the very existence of the Shedhalle itself. 

The event series Confluence—with discussion rounds, guided tours, performances, concerts, listening sessions, communal meals, and workshops—creates contextualizing moments that bring together actors from different times. The publication Loving Shedhalle—Resonance and the website provide important additions and further insights into the exhibition. The Shedhalle archive has been digitized especially for this anniversary and is now available online. The online archive also reveals traces of maintaining, preserving, and behind-the-scenes activities. This is reflected in the title "Loving Shedhalle," which refers to forms of mostly invisible affective labour, acknowledged and celebrated here in the spirit of abundance.