Atelier im Alten Weinberg

How did artists at Atelier im Alten Weinberg navigate the tricky intersection of art and commerce? Atelier im Alten Weinberg, nestled in Stuttgart, has always been a space where artistic creation intertwines with the realities of the art world. In 2024, artist Kathrin Böhm, known for blending art and agriculture, explored this very tension with her project “Art on the Scale of Life.” Böhm’s work challenged the traditional notion of the “scale of art,” pushing it towards the broader “scale of life.” Her projects at Atelier im Alten Weinberg questioned the interplay between artistic pursuits and the practicalities of livelihood. Böhm blurred the lines between art and agriculture, using projects like Myvillages, The Centre for Plausible Economies, Company Drinks, and the Rural School of Economics to examine their shared vocabularies, spaces, economies, and practices. Her work often asks: When art operates on the scale of life, what does that look like? What is the scale of life, anyway? What do we gain, and what do we lose, when these scales shift? Atelier im Alten Weinberg became a living laboratory for these questions. The exhibitions COMPOST. Kathrin Böhm: Turning the Heap and COMPOST: For Future Use showed how socially transformative art practices could be used in rural settings, even when fused with agriculture. Another resident, Ute Fischer-Dieter, also grappled with these ideas. She explored “good Handwerk” (good craft) through intuition and experimentation. Her work at Atelier im Alten Weinberg was a performance, questioning the idea of perfection in our achievement-oriented society. Using existing materials, like discarded fashion magazines, Fischer-Dieter’s process of overprinting, backlighting, and rephotographing challenged traditional notions of resource use and creation. Atelier im Alten Weinberg also fostered a vibrant community of artists, each tackling themes of identity, community, and societal structures. Marcela Majchrzak used food and discourse in her Matriarchalen Volkskküche (MV) project to explore alternative models of collaboration and resource sharing. Meanwhile, Lambert Mousseka used the Atelier to develop “Stuttgart Akt,” a project exploring clothing, fashion, and self-expression through Sapologie. Atelier im Alten Weinberg is more than a building. It’s a dynamic space where artists confront the challenges of their craft, experiment with new forms of expression, and engage with the ever-evolving landscape of the art world.