Jakob Schillinger (JS) was the 2013 Curatorial Resident at Ludlow 38. He spoke with editor Sarah Demeuse (SD) in January 2020 from Berlin. 

 

SD

Hi, Jakob, I’m glad we’re connecting. The way I’ve been starting these conversations is by looking at the end of the residency. Was there something that you still wanted to do but ran out of time to realize, so to speak?  

 

JS

Basically, I felt like I wanted to stay another year because that year went by so fast. I felt very much at home in the neighborhood and in the downtown art scene. You learn the small, everyday aspects of programming a space. Ludlow 38 was a very specific structure because it looked like an independent artist-run space, but at the same time, it was part of this large German institution which has its own bureaucratic structure. So there’s a lot you can learn in the process. 

 

SD

Was there something specific you felt an urgency to do?

 

JS

There are several specific shows that I thought about during the residency, and then there just wasn’t enough time. You arrive with preconceived ideas and then you make adjustments, but there isn’t so much time. At a more personal level, I regret not finding a better way to show Eric Angles’s work. He taps into the legacies of conceptual art and relational aesthetics. The way in which the work circulates is determined by rules: it cannot be shown in a solo show, for example. There is always a protocol. At Ludlow, his sculptures functioned as seating for Helke Bayrle’s show—they weren’t presented as artworks in their own right. After the show I wanted to find another way to highlight his work more in a second exhibition. 

 

 

SD

Thanks for sharing that; the personal angle is very important. If you think back to the year you were at Ludlow, was there something you enjoyed the most—an event, a program? Or maybe something that you felt resonated well in the context?

 

JS

The first exhibition that I organized, with Peter Wächtler, was special. We worked together very closely. It was an intense and extremely rewarding process in which he produced an important work that is still very dear to me. It was a significant show, not only for me but also for the development of Peter’s practice. But overall, I got a lot out of the entire year and out of each individual project. The following show, with Adrian Jeftichew, was formally and conceptually very interesting. There was a huge papier-mâché nose, with hair hanging out of the nostrils, and stuff all over the place. That show was just weird: it was formally attractive and repellent at the same time. Talking to gallery visitors was fun because people somehow felt pulled in by the weirdness of it. There were a lot of jokes, too, but you were never really sure if you were getting them. I could go on…

 

SD

Since we’re going through the shows now: were most of the exhibitions you organized solo shows?  

 

JS

Yes, mostly solo shows, focused presentations of new work by people whose work I had encountered in or around Berlin. Even though I didn’t care so much about the Goethe-Institut’s cultural mission, it made sense to present work that I was interested in and that wasn’t already so visible in New York. Plus, I really enjoy working with artists, so I made a point of trying to facilitate new productions for each show. 

 

But you asked earlier what I thought resonated most in the context. That depends on what metric you’re considering. For example, the Peter Wächtler show got significant press coverage and it generated a lot of attention, which also helped me a lot. People were talking about it and a lot of people came to see it. With the Helke Bayrle show, several people were there more than once and spent hours watching the videos. I find that quite unusual and it made me very happy. 

 

 

I also organized a parallel track to the exhibitions, which resembled a mini-TV series of five episodes. The idea was to make a fictionalized narrative about the art world’s backstage and to use the gallery space and the different exhibitions as a setting for parts of the series. The aim was to wed institutional critique with a popular format. I wanted to bring different artists together to make something collectively, according to a defined division of labor. Each episode had a different director, some artists would be operating the camera or making the music, others would have their work on display in the show, others might appear on camera. Two artists, Jay Chung and Q Takeki Maeda, were interested in writing the screenplay based on interviews that I had been conducting about Ludlow and its genesis, but also about all kinds of art world dynamics. I spoke with curators, artists, artist assistants. Jay and Q abstracted structural configurations and dynamics from these testimonials and then extrapolated those into a fictional script. It was definitely an interesting process.

 

SD

And then it was screened as a film, I remember, at Anthology Film Archives.

 

JS

It was supposed to be available primarily online because I wanted to reach a different, broader audience of the kind that watches a random TV show just to chill. In the end, it turned out to be more experimental than I had envisioned, which was not so surprising given all the artists that were involved. We did a premiere at Anthology, but the main forum for the series was online. 

 

SD

You already spoke a little bit about the New York art scene in 2013, but were there certain contextual events that shaped your work or that impacted how you thought about what you were doing? I spoke with your predecessor, Clara Meister, yesterday and she mentioned the optimism she experienced because of Obama’s re-election. I wonder if there was something similar during the time that you were there.

 

JS

It’s a difficult question. Digitization had reached another threshold in terms of the importance of iPhones and Instagram. But that’s not something that I directly responded to with my program. Before 2013, with Occupy Wall Street following the financial crisis, there had been a kind of enthusiasm. But by the time I was in New York, it had become pretty clear that things would basically continue as before. The idea for the TV series came from this sense of loss; it had a residual dimension of institutional critique, or at least it suggested that the art world’s backstage is as interesting as a lot of exhibitions and artworks. 

 

SD

You were an integral part of this TV series collective. You also mentioned neighbors or people coming by several times to see the same exhibition. Was there any sense that you had joined a specific local community?

 

JS

Definitely. That’s why I said earlier that I really felt at home. I felt part of the downtown/Lower East Side community. I was working in the gallery all day, and I had friends living nearby, friends working in galleries nearby, who just stopped by all the time.

 

SD

Did you also live in the Lower East Side?

 

JS

I lived in SoHo, so I would just walk over. 

 

 

SD

Were there other places, people that became regular parts of your life in the Lower East Side? 

 

JS

I interacted with a lot of people outside the art world, of course. Even though this kind of everyday contact in New York can be quite stimulating, I didn’t specifically cultivate any particular relationships. In that sense, I was very much inside the art world bubble. Maybe the only exception would be the cat from the Chinese bakery next door but I think it was a one-sided relationship—the cat couldn’t have cared less about me! I was very fond of it.

 

SD

You never know with cats! I have a more macro-view question. The funding structure of this initiative is unusual in the sense that it is a private-public joint venture; you get public funds from a European country to run a space in the Lower East Side. I wonder how you negotiated your own curatorial voice within that framework.

 

JS

I’m not sure, it sounds like you’re trying to get at something very specific.

 

SD

Well, for example, you want to do something at Ludlow but it probably requires some bureaucracy or administrative language to get things off the ground the way you had envisioned. You are spending the German taxpayers’ money, after all. I wonder how you worked in that structure. Maybe it was easy for you because you had previous experience with that type of constellation. You would think that in a small space like Ludlow, where it’s just two or three people collaborating, everything is very fast and very dynamic. But despite appearances, I’m sure Ludlow 38 wasn’t really like a small artist-run space. 

 

JS

You just said it all. You need to get everything approved. That was a bit of a surprise for me in the beginning. 

 

SD

I have a small follow-up question because you already mentioned something to this effect: there is this idea that somehow there is a relation to a national identity. You said that you didn’t care so much about the cultural mandate, but I wonder how you negotiated this idea of German-ness.

 

JS

Obviously I was the German-ness, right? But in Germany the idea of national identity and of nationality always has to be very explicitly problematized or at least challenged. So the curators didn’t have to be Germans, they just had to have experience working in Germany. There was absolutely no requirement to show German artists or themes. In that sense, you’re totally free at Ludlow. I mostly brought in European artists or people I had met around Berlin and Brussels. I saw the residency as an opportunity to organize a program with artists I was interested in.

 

SD

We started out talking about the end, and you said that you had finally learned how to make things run and I wonder if you could…

 

JS

Yes, in the beginning it was super hard but I gradually felt more at home. 

 

SD

What does it mean to feel at home?

 

JS

Primarily, it meant feeling part of the community. In a more practical sense, if I needed someone to build a specific kind of wall, I knew who to call; if I needed a film location, I knew who could hook me up with one for free and on the fly. 

 

SD

I see—practical troubleshooting. Was there another learning curve? Was there something that you learned, besides how things are done?

 

JS

It’s really hard to pin it down. First of all, I learned a lot about art and about specific artists, but that’s maybe something that’s not so specific to Ludlow. Probably the most impactful learning experience had to do with this TV series. Initially, it was an idealistic project. Working collectively sounded good to a lot of people and that was encouraging. But as it turned out, it was actually really hard because so many people were involved and had a stake in the project. Even if you only count each episode’s director and the screenwriters, that’s already seven people working on parts of a larger whole, with many interdependencies. In the end, it became a thing that nobody could really control. 

 

SD

That’s a worthwhile insight about a specific way of working. Given that Ludlow also somehow promises professional development, pushing your career forward, I wonder if there was something that shaped you as a professional from then onward? Maybe you became interested in certain practices more than others, or perhaps certain formats of working curatorially became more prevalent?

 

JS

I actually want to add one postscript to the last question. I’ve worked in various institutional settings. It was very interesting to see how different kinds of structures work and what you can do within them. In hindsight, I learned a lot from that, too. 

 

 

To your other question about professional development: I was able to realize my ideas in a venue with good exposure and good resources. That was a great opportunity. Nevertheless, during that year I decided to pursue a PhD because I had certain intellectual interests and specific questions that I wanted to delve into. So that was a bit of a shift. I do miss working with artists and organizing shows a lot, and I hope I’ll be able to do that again soon. 

 

SD

Ludlow is now closed, as you know. Do you have any thoughts about the program ending?

 

JS

It will be missed.

 

SD

In what way?  

 

JS

I have very fond memories; for me it was great, even though it was often very demanding. I’m very grateful for the experience. It would have been interesting to see it continuing to evolve because the program did change quite a bit since its inception. First it was more about institutions, the Kunstvereine Glossary Kunstvereine: , and then it became more centered around individuals.

 

SD

That’s a good assessment. I want to give you back to your evening, but thank you so much, Jakob.

 

JS

No, thank you, Sarah. It was very nice talking with you. Say hi to everyone.

 

SD

Yes, I agree, and will do!