Stefan Römer

With DeConceptualize – Zur Dekonstruktion des Konzeptuellen in Kunst, Film, Musik, Stefan Römer presents—after Strategien des Fake (2001) and Inter-esse (2014)—his third theoretical book, which was made possible by the Berlin Artistic Research Grant Programme. Römer shows how formerly self-defined Conceptual art is being stripped of its emancipatory power by means of institutional administration: The application of principles of entrepreneurship and academization deprive it of its epistemic potential—the unification of theory and practice. In contrast, Römer practices self-exploration, self-defense, and self-empowerment in deconceptual writing as notation, essay, image, and material. His deconceptualization of art contrives, by means of a multi-layered critique of the usual discourses, a new kind of artistic REALsearch.

Funded by the Berlin Artistic Research Grant Programme and by Berlin’s Senate Office for Culture and Europe

STEFAN RÖMER (*1960) is an artist and art theorist. He initiated the politically activist art collective "FrischmacherInnen", was awarded the AdKV Prize for Art Criticism in 2000, and has held professorships at various institutes. There is an extensive web archive for his essay film Conceptual Paradise (2006).