Talks
Lea Schleiffenbaum
Artistic Production Reconfigured: Actor Constellations and Knowledge Exchange in the New Patrons Model
12 December 2025
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Situated beyond the confines of museums and galleries, public art projects depend on collaborative networks of artists, civilians, municipal staff, administrators, and other intermediaries. The presentation traces these actor-constellations through the example of New Patrons, offering a historical overview of the organization’s origins in France in the early 1990s and the concept behind its model. It then turns to a close analysis of two projects initiated and implemented through New Patrons’ Berlin office: Sasha Waltz, In C (2022) in Marl (North Rhine-Westphalia) and Sol Calero, Casa Isadora (2022) in Schwarzheide (Brandenburg). Operating from a central office but working across diverse locations, New Patrons collaborates with local partners, administrations, and residents. The presentation considers the nature of these collaborations and the shifts they bring about in the roles of curator, artist, and spectator/participant.
Lea Schleiffenbaum is an art historian and independent curator, currently pursuing her PhD at the University of Reading. Focusing on public art projects, her work engages with collaborative processes as well as the articulation of individual and collective needs and their reflection in contemporary art. As a mediator for the New Patrons, she realized projects with Sasha Waltz in Marl and Sol Calero in Schwarzheide. As a curator, she has worked with a range of institutions, including Weltkunstzimmer Düsseldorf, Marta Herford, and the Museum of Utopia and Everyday Life. Together with Friederike Fast, she curated the Lantz’scher Sculpture Park in Düsseldorf in 2022. She is currently working on a project with Lina Lapelytė in Eisenhüttenstadt.