Sara Stevenson

Hi Wenzel! It’s so nice to sit with you again and talk about Ludlow 38. It’s something we used to do quite often. When you think back, did any cultural or political events during your time in New York change your view of our work at the Goethe-Institut and at Ludlow 38? 

 

Wenzel Bilger

For sure the 2016 presidential election. The Obama era had brought a lot of hope—to society as a whole, but also to the arts. By the end of it though, we started noticing how divided the country was. Our way of working, of collaborating with artists, needed to adjust. 

 

SS

In what way specifically? 

 

WB

Very different needs became apparent. It was no longer about the conceptual approaches that were setting the tone in the visual arts or about the hottest artist in New York or Berlin. There were very fundamental questions about the existence and livelihood of people, minorities in particular, about democratic values and mutual respect that we could no longer overlook. There was a much greater need than before to take a political stand. Creating political art became a necessity.

 

SS

I agree. There was a clear shift to the left in the arts and we, too, understood that our work had to be more anchored in society.

 

WB

I’m currently living and working in Latin America, where the social aspects of cultural work have always played a bigger role. What’s interesting to me about the US is how the conversation is shaped, who is allowed to say what, and the questions of memory and cultural appropriation. The discourse in the US has had a lasting impact on the arts worldwide.

 

SS

I remember that back in 2011-12 we often talked about who we are as the Goethe-Institut: whether we should only present German artists or also include artists from other European countries, or international artists at all. We were occasionally taken to task for our attempts to open up the institution in this way. But now we’re faced with this other set of questions: Who is speaking within the institution? And who is the institution speaking to? 

 

 

WB

Our relationship with the Studio Museum Harlem taught me a lot. As a European cultural institution we are, of course, in a completely different position than an American community-based organization. But we asked ourselves similar questions. The Studio Museum naturally posed them in completely different ways: what is Black, and what relationship does an art institution in New York have with the African continent, for example, or even with minority issues in the US? I remember that, in reference to conversations with them, in the foreword to Clara Meister’s publication I wrote that the Goethe-Institut is “post German.” 

 

SS

We’ve come a long way from the more abstract question of identity though. Now we’re primarily concerned with its more tangible aspects: Who do we address with our programs? How can we diversify our audiences? How can we signal that we are here for everyone? Who can we work with and what topics should we work on to expand our audiences? We’re just like other organizations in New York in that regard. 

 

WB

In a city like New York, where the Goethe-Institut is a small organization, we have to consider what’s realistic. The decision to establish Ludlow 38 was a really important step. It was a very specific and specialized space, and so it attracted a very particular audience. That contradicts the desire to reach new, broader audiences. But I still think that it went in the right direction. One of the Goethe-Institut’s problems is that we have such a wide range of projects that we actually would need to do audience development for each one of them. That means that we have to keep asking ourselves who we want to address and what we want to achieve with our projects. It requires an incredible amount of energy, but from an institutional point of view it’s good because it makes us very flexible.

 

SS

Working with different curators every year was challenging in terms of building a solid, diverse audience. Every year there was a new person with new ideas, new exhibitions, new target groups. In recent years I often had the feeling that we were going in the right direction when it came to the exhibitions, but were still a long way from our audience goals. 

 

 

WB

That’s the challenge of a residency program attached to a gallery with ongoing public programs: every curator is expected to establish short-term relationships with certain groups. At the same time, the institution is the element that builds long-lasting relationships with the community, which, I believe, we could have achieved in a second decade. Such connections would have better absorbed the political and social developments in the city than single exhibitions by rotating curators. 

 

SS

Over the years, people came to Ludlow especially when we presented talked-about emerging artists or more obscure, underappreciated artists. When Avi Feldman was the curator in 2018, we didn’t work so much with names but with topics, because his Agency for Legal Imagination was specifically concerned with the relationship between art and law. But since it was less about individual artists, it was much more difficult to bring people to the gallery. 

 

WB

It was interesting that soon after the 2016 presidential election the jury selected a curator who dealt with topics such as racism in Germany. The way Avi connected art with social and political issues was very timely. I was no longer there to see the exhibitions, but from a distance I was impressed. During my time in New York, we had either beautiful yet formal exhibitions that could be a bit naive politically, or they were quite intentionally political, but not always with the necessary background. Avi’s residency brought something that had been missing. 

 

 

SS

Do you have any thoughts about the end of the program?

 

WB

Of course. I can understand the decision, but I also lament it because Ludlow 38 was a very unique program that gave the Goethe-Institut a relevance in New York that it wouldn’t have had otherwise. My predecessor, Stephan Wackwitz, decided to do something really specific, but within this specificity he wanted to give the curators a lot of freedom. As a result, an institution emerged that played a role in New York and in Germany as well. Ludlow became a space that people followed, both at a local and international level. This is really rare in our work, and so naturally it hurts that the program was given up after eleven years. 

 

SS

How did Ludlow’s mission and mode of operating connect with the Goethe-Institut at large though? 

 

WB

It’s important to remember that the more conceptual considerations we made back then as an institution—and in relation to Ludlow 38—were motivated by the Goethe-Institut’s move downtown from the Fifth Avenue townhouse. Ludlow was a kind of laboratory for us to experiment with a new approach to cultural politics. There was a willingness to spend a lot of money on something that might fail; to give relatively inexperienced curators a space in which there was institutional and even political pressure. Our colleagues saw money going to a small gallery space in the Lower East Side and many didn’t necessarily understand what was happening there. But Ludlow became a laboratory for the work the Goethe-Institut can do in cities around the world. It taught me how to work in a way that is audience-oriented while also taking risks. Ludlow was a project that seasoned us—and you, too, I’m sure—both institutionally and professionally. 

 

SS

We worked not for profit in the true sense of the term: financial interests simply didn’t play a role for us or for the curators. That, to me, is Ludlow’s relevance and legacy here in New York. We showed younger generations in particular that it’s possible to be like that as an institution (and as a sponsor); to let things happen, encourage experimentation, not interfere. It wasn’t always easy, and we had to navigate a lot between many different interests, but in the end it was this radical trust that people here received so positively. And many followed our program for several years because of that. But did the institution really intend it to be that way? 

 

WB

Before it became a residency program, Ludlow was a kind of satellite Kunstverein. It wasn’t itself a Kunstverein but it stood for the ideals we associate with it: a democratically organized association that acts like you just described. That’s a stark contrast to most New York institutions, which always have and represent very strong financial interests. 

 

 

Then Ludlow became a residency program, one that was different from the prevalent model where residents use time and space freely. Our relationship with the curators was symbiotic: on the one hand, we had an interest in getting fresh curatorial energy every year, with new ideas, networks, artists, in order to present the latest and best programs in the Lower East Side; on the other hand, these young curators—each for their own reasons—were incredibly excited to work in New York for a year. It was a neoliberal approach, sure, but this alliance was the actual model.

 

SS

A give and take?

 

WB

Exactly. One that both parties gained a lot from in most cases. We can say that it was not for profit, very open, inspired by the German Kunstverein, an uncensored zone with a very wide range of programs, and so on. That’s certainly what the audience saw. But institutionally, it was a kind of quid pro quo of Germany’s foreign cultural policy in Manhattan.

 

SS

Was it a recipe for success? The Goethe-Institut now runs a lot of residency programs, but none for curators.

 

WB

There are travel grants for curators, and some residency programs, such as Vila Sul in Salvador, are also open to curators. These programs really aim to offer a certain amount of freedom to residents and do not require them to produce or present work. The truth, though, is that curators may have long research processes but what they want in the end is to make exhibitions. That’s exactly what Ludlow offered. 

For the sake of deceleration and sustainability, the Goethe-Institut should really concentrate more on these kinds of residency formats and maybe work with fewer people, but let their stay abroad be longer in order to bring them in contact with as many of their local peers as possible. Most of our Ludlow curators, of course, already had lots of contacts in New York. It’s different in places like Bogotá. Here, our role really is to bring people together, and institutionally that requires a lot more. But I believe that kind of work is our future.

 

SS

Ludlow, however, came to an end…

 

WB

Nothing lasts forever. For a long time, we had a great sponsor and we could really do anything we wanted. At the same time, we gave the curators a lot of freedom and had to endure the consequences of that as an institution. Some completely overextended themselves financially. Others didn’t want to pay artists, or only very little, which was at odds with our own values. So there was always a tension when it came to the management of this very particular model. But overall it was a great constellation in which different players came together on various levels—an ideal example of a public-private partnership, I would say. 

 

SS

By the way, which exhibitions did you like the most? Which ones do you think resonated the strongest?

 

WB

That’s a tough question. The special thing about Ludlow was the incredible variety of formats. On the fly, the exhibitions with Maria Loboda and Saâdane Afif come to mind, later then Emeka Ogboh’s exhibition, which had a completely different, humorous dimension, or Keren Cytter’s very off-the-wall summer program. Leaving the gallery space was also great, for example with Johannes Paul Raether, who walked his alter ego all the way to Canal Street and dealt very specifically with the local context. The Making of the Chinese New Working Class was directly related to the neighborhood, but in a very different way. Plus, more unfamiliar projects like Molecular Revolution in Brazil. All in all, it was an extremely broad range and a very international program. Each curator brought their own idiosyncrasies and artist connections with them. The best exhibitions were often those born of long and complex relationships between curators and artists.

 

 

SS

What direction do you think the Goethe-Institut is moving in now as an institution?

 

WB

One of the basic convictions of my work is that the long-term relationships we build and maintain with artists and curators are the pillars of our mission. I really believe that the entire breadth of the discussion about sustainability—social and political sustainability, and the relationship between humans and other species, between humans and their environment—should lead us as an institution to rely more on long-term formats like residency programs that allow people to form deeper relationships with places. I’m saying that from a Colombian perspective, from the so-called periphery, where resources and the environment play a completely different role than in Manhattan. But I think it’s become very clear again, even in Manhattan, that it’s all about respect and making it work together, about complicity and networks of trust. We did that very well at Ludlow, not in every respect, but we did establish solid relationships with nine curators who will remain our partners forever. And the other way around, too: the institution is still there for them. I think there’s something very positive about this give and take. You can call it utilitarian or functionalist, but it’s also about supporting each other in what we do.

 

SS

Among other things, the Goethe-Institut offered our curators the opportunity to learn from this larger-than-life city they were invited to work in. Over the years I really noticed how much they were able to benefit from the mere opportunity to be here in New York, if they wanted to. They came to New York with certain expectations and soon realized that things here were radically different than they had anticipated. Some of them understood that they needed to reposition themselves in society, particularly with regard to communities different from their own. Here, that process started a long time ago and is, of course, ongoing. I believe that the residency also prepared our curators for the social changes arising now in Germany.

 

WB

Absolutely. What the Goethe-Institut can offer is exactly the experience you just described. Our raison d’être as an institution is to enable people to experience being strangers in places as diverse as Ouagadougou, Kolkata, Moscow, and even within Europe. That enriches the professional biography of an artist or a curator immensely. If we can manage to make this a focus of our work, that’s worth a great deal.

 

SS

Thank you, Wenzel. I’ve missed having conversations like this with you!

 

New York/Bogotá, February 3, 2020