Birgit Sonna, “Der Markt allein kann’s nicht sein,” Süddeutsche Zeitung, February 15, 1996

The Market Alone Can’t Be It
Dirk Snauwaert on His Plans as Head of the Kunstverein

The expectant eyes of the Munich art scene are focused on him: Dirk Snauwaert, the new director at the Kunstverein since the beginning of the year, has recently opened his first exhibition. Snauwaert has come from Brussels, where he made a name for himself as curator at the Palais des Beaux-Arts with theoretically sound but never intentionally unsensual exhibitions. Can the thirty-two-year-old Belgian lead the Kunstverein out of its misery (of dwindling membership)?
SZ: You say that you want to continue the work of your predecessor. However, Helmut Draxler was somewhat unsuccessful in his strongly conceptual undertakings. Is that an inherited liability?
SZ: Mr. Snauwaert, you hardly know Munich. What is your first impression of the atmosphere in the city?
Snauwaert: Seen from Brussels, Draxler’s work was a very interesting proclamation. I was impressed by the attempt to do something other than only spectacular exhibitions. Discussions typically revolve around the same questions: were the exhibitions entertaining, did enough people come? But a Kunstverein has the task of showing new and interesting developments in art. I don’t agree with everything that has been shown here recently. An exhibition should still be an exhibition, of- fer a certain scenario, a certain didactic. It is a very old medium and we know all the tricks. Nevertheless, there are still ways to communicate through it.
Snauwaert: It’s very cold here... No, seriously, the people are very likable. Everything is new to me, so I have to scout the scene first and foremost.
SZ: Do you want to involve Munich artists in your work?
SZ: What comes after Cadere?
Snauwaert: Unfortunately, I’m only familiar with the artists who have an international reputation. As far as the younger ones are concerned, I’ll go and see whether they are good or not.
Snauwaert: I’m showing a collection of important projects that come from the so-called “paper architects” of the seventies, early eighties, works for deconstructivist architecture, and also projects from the Anarchitecture Group. The abstract notion of space, which has always captivated artists, philosophers, and architects, has become an obsession since the sixties.
SZ: In your first exhibition you are showing the Romanian André Cadere, who died in Paris in 1978. Can this artist be counted among the Parisian Situationists in the broadest sense?
SZ: Is it true that you want to put an emphasis on solo exhibitions?
Snauwaert: What Cadere has in common with the Parisian Situationists is a very provocative attitude toward institutions. But he shares the idea of walks, of segmented passages in the urban space, with a lot of other artists of that time. He was perhaps the only truly nomadic artist of the seventies.
Snauwaert: With solo exhibitions, you can better highlight what artists have produced in terms of their own ideas. With themed exhibitions, you need to have a good concept, make a good selection—that takes time.
SZ: It’s not the first time that you rediscover and give a big stage to nineteen-seventies “rebels.” Why this predilection?
SZ: How much prior knowledge of art theory do you expect of your audience?
Snauweart: I wanted to build on the work of Helmut Draxler with this exhibition. The most important thing to remember about these artists from the seventies is that many of them were forgotten because they had no position on the market: artists such as Cadere, who came from the periphery and therefore didn’t stand a chance within our nationalist art history. Today there are a number of young artists who relate to what happened then.
Snauwaert: A very normal interest in art. Someone who can summon the energy to go to a museum already has a certain expectation. I don’t think people are dumb.

Interview: Birgit Sonna