Hacienda is a new exhibition space located in Zurich’s Seefeld neighborhood. Co-organized by Arthur Fink, Fabian Marti, and Oskar Weiss, it follows in the vein of artist-run or “off” spaces that are a part of the city’s artistic scene. Taking on a salon-like atmosphere and including a library reading room, Hacienda opened recently with a new project by Basel-based artist Hannah Weinberger in its main exhibition space. Here members of the collective discuss the gallery. Weinberger’s show runs August 25 to October 12, 2013.
THE SPACE is located in an apartment in a small townhouse that serves as a residence for international students. The New York–based architect C. Wassmann helped us develop a system of mobile walls. This innovative architecture helps us to preserve the space’s context of domesticity while enabling artists to change and rearrange the gallery according to their needs and preferences.
The artist Karl Holmqvist provided the design for Hacienda’s logo. The name of the space is a reference to a reference. It’s inspired by the famous Manchester dance club, which in turn borrowed its name from an excerpt in Ivan Chtcheglov’s seminal Situationist text “Formulary for a New Urbanism.” Chtcheglov uses the hacienda as a metaphor for a new kind of urban locality whose structure is not subordinate to any monocultural process, economic or otherwise. His essay presents a new kind of sphere where stories and symbols coalesce and produce new categories of polyphonic signifiers. In the wake of christening our place this summer, we realized that we shared this founding narrative with Pentti Monkkonen and Liz Craft’s Paradise Garage, a Venice Beach art venue that took its name from the late-1970s and ’80s New York dance club. Needless to say, we’re very excited to welcome Monkkonen to Hacienda this spring.
To inaugurate this project we invited Basel-based artist Hannah Weinberger to make a show. She also co-runs the Elaine art space in Basel. Her exhibition, “LOOKING FORWARD,” marks the beginning of her long-term cinematographic study. She is showing footage negotiating the conception and creation of a possible full-length film. The exhibition consists of five screens displaying assemblages of selected film loops. From the reception of this footage, the artist will draw inspiration for the work on her upcoming film.
This October, we will present a survey of work by the Swiss artist Anton Bruhin, whose atelier is conveniently located a few doors down the street. Bruhin is engaged in the fine arts as well as Swiss music and poetry. A new perspective on his work points to its familiarity with the lineage of well-known Swiss artists Jean-Frederic Schnyder and Markus Raetz. Simultaneously we will organize a sale at his studio.
— As told to Aram Moshayedi