Enchanting Reification

Looking at one’s own production in biographical terms – about how to produce imaginary tools and instruments and using such in even difficult issues like applying epistemological gains into the present time production practice, or dealing with failing and with recovering, or finding out if something lost could indeed be recovered by performing cultural activity as art or writing, or even asking how to apply even some quite simple self help tools in highly competitive situations. Asking how they could be practiced and used as tools in artists every day lives and daily art practices, the lecture will make attempts to outline basic concerns with some semi-theoretical motives of temporality and productivity.

Josef Strau lives in Cologne since a year after years in New York interrupted due to Corona related visa restrictions. Under the title The Mephisto Hours , he presented most recently an exhibition at Galerie Buchholz in Berlin in 2021 and in 2020 had a solo exhibition at the Kunstverein Rheinlande und Westfalen, Düsseldorf named Spirits and Objects and How Non-Productive Love is Sometimes Contained in Them . Strau has as well published as writer in different publications and art magazines and in his own books and many independently produced publications. He was also the organizer of Galerie Meerrettich at the Volksbuehne, Berlin and cofounded collaborative companies like Montezuma , The Metaphysical Store and Single Moms in New York and Mexico City.