Projects 2003

Admission free but places are limited
Registration deadline is 18 August, 2003, phone: +46 31 615022
biennal ( at ) kultur.goteborg.se


The noun that proliferates in contemporary art commentary is that of the “project”. Everybody is doing a project, part of some project or finishing a project. Nobody, it seems, is creating art. But what does it mean to involve oneself in a project? What does it mean to involve someone else in a project? Moreover, what is created when art is a project? At least as popular a design for artistic practice is the process. In the process, just as in the project, distinctions between the outside and inside disappear. In both the project and process, the artists enter a zone of indistinctness and experience the paradoxical relationship between inclusion and exclusion.

Art is, in principle, a process in which any subject might take part. Art is in this sense a question of engagement and of commitment – an individual ‘vehicle’ that has a collective import with effects beyond the mere transmission of recognized knowledges. The mystery to artists and art institutions is that so few choose to do so, that is, to take part in art. The problem could be put differently, like the economist Joan Robinson once put it, “There is only one thing worse than being exploited by capitalists, and that is, not being exploited by capitalists.” This is indeed how the lack of engagement is explained by many, especially by decision-makers concerned with the financing of art. Parliamentary politics, building on economic objectivity condemns public opininion in advance to ratify what seems necessary, which is, in this case: more spectators. The confusion made here is one of mixing spectators, or audiences, with actors. The problem art is facing today is not foremost the problem of the audience. The task art is facing is: to perform an act that transforms spectator into actor. Nothing short of such a commitment will do. Commitment is always mediated by speech. But, on what conditions can speech be considered effective?

This is the question broached in the seminar pArt which considers the contemporary crises of engagement which is characterized, precicely, by a loss of confidence in the effectiveness of committed speech.


Participants:
Gustavo Aguerre (FA+): artist, curator, Stockholm: Strategies for Survival
Kristina Ask, art worker, Copenhagen: Re/aktion
Jakob S. Boeskov, artist, Copenhagen: My Doomsday Weapon
Jean de La Ciotat, art consultant and writer, La Ciotat: Don't Think Project, Think Process
Ivet Curlin, curator, Zagreb: What, How and for Whom
Jani Leinonen, artist, curator, consultant, Helsinki: Distribution of Experiences
Suzana Milevska, curator, Skopje: Relations/relativity
Livia Paldi, freelance curator and critic, Ljubljana: East Art Map: History as a project
Milica Tomic, artist, Belgrad: (no title)



A Critical Forum organised by Nordic Institute for Contemporary Art (NIFCA) in collaboration with 2nd International Biennal for Contemporary Art: Göteborg (AGAINST ALL EVENS). Programme
planned by Tomas Ivan Träskman and Marita Muukkonen.

For further information:
Elisabeth Rees, phone: +46 31 615022, biennal ( at ) kultur.goteborg.se
www.biennal.goteborg.se

• pArt: Introductions