[oberlist] IT* call: Enter the Artworld? Marginal Establishments, Cooptation and Resistance - Giant Step symposium

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---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: [artacontemporana] Fwd: Open Call for Contributions at the first
Giant Step symposium
From:    "Daria Ghiu" <daria.ghiu at gmail.com>
Date:    Mon, April 16, 2012 7:47 pm
To:      artacontemporana at yahoogroups.com
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vessel <http://www.vesselartproject.org/>
       Open Call for Contributions at the first Giant Step symposium
 *Giant Step 1: Enter the Artworld? Marginal Establishments, Cooptation and
Resistance*

* *

* *



Confirmed speakers:* artleaks, Bureau of Melodramatic Studies*, *Charles
Esche*, *Viktor Misiano*, *Dan Perjovschi, Francesco Scasciamacchia*

* *

*Bari, Italy, 12th – 14th of June 2012*
Organizer of the conference:* vessel*

*More information:* http://www.giant-step.org



Partners:* European Cultural Foundation*, *Van Abbemuseum*, *Galeria
Labirynt*, *MOSTYN | Wales*, *vessel*,* Politicized Practice Research Group
(Loughborough University)*, *The Romanian Institute for Culture and
Humanistic Research of Venice
*



Giant Step is a project organized for the purpose of discovering the place
of the institution within contemporary culture. It involves two
internationally established institutions, *Van Abbemuseum* *| The
Netherlands* and *MOSTYN | Wales*, and two that are less connected to a
rigid institutional structure, *vessel |* *Italy* and *Galeria Labirynt** **|
**Poland*. The main goal of this project is to establish possible roles
that institutions could play in the cultural production of a specific area,
in order to respond to the needs of the area itself. Taking into account
the current political, economic, and social conditions, Giant Step aims to
articulate institutional (ideal) types, which are put into a critical
dialogue with existing institutions within the framework of four “nomad
symposia”.

The context in which *Giant Step 1: Enter the Artworld? Marginal
Establishments, Cooptation and Resistance *takes place* *is shaped by the
city of Bari and the region of Apulia, Italy. Both have a very strong and
well-defined identity connected with their history, traditions and
geographic position. They are currently undergoing a process of deep
transformation in the contemporary art infrastructure and consequently can
be seen as a microcosmic example for the tensions between the sociocultural
specificity of “marginal” places and the dominant ethos of contemporary
art. In the last two decades, the latter has been increasingly shaped by
the powerful neo-liberal economic order and inherited its contradictions
and paradoxes. On the one hand, it gave birth to a globalised space for
self-realisation, circulation and freedom, while on the other hand it
reinforced rigid protocols, norms and principles of security and public
control, which increasingly purged possibilities of collective and public
resistance. We acknowledge that, when addressing the process of co-opting
marginal geographic areas into the art world, a literal recuperation by
contemporary artists of the anti-institutional, queer, anti-war artistic
activism of the 60s and the 70s cannot produce a critique of the
paradoxical and multifaceted ethos of the contemporary era. A pure
critique, one that is confrontational and oppositional, is not effective
anymore: there is a need to reframe the notion of critique. We ask,
therefore, which tactics can be adopted by artists, curators and critics in
order to simultaneously embrace and disclose the dichotomies operating in
the global era? How is it possible to effect change rather than imposing
internationally recognised models of criticism and protest? And given that
the art field is structurally articulated by processes of
institutionalisation, how is it possible to re-imagine the notion of the
institution, since our minds and bodies are the places in which the
institutionalisation imposes its pervasive necessity to produce economic
values? How is it possible to configure the institution as a place of
public encounter where citizens can deploy their desire to ‘react’ or
‘revolt’? Our intention is to construct a forum in which different
interests and positions are represented. We propose a sustained reflection
about the potential of a rhizomatic realm articulated by transversal
alliances of cultural and artistic energies stemming from geographical
margins.



We invite proposals for papers of 20 minutes from academics, unaffiliated
researchers, activists and artists, welcoming individual papers as well as
group panels that respond to these and other conceptions that address the
issue institutional criticism. The language of the conference is English.
Possible research questions include, but are not limited to:



- What is the role and the function of the art institution today, given the
deep social-economic and cultural changes which have occurred in the last
20 years?

- How does the legacy of institutional critique inform actual artistic and
curatorial practices and how does it contribute to the re-location of
critique within institutions?

- How is it possible for the art institution to imagine and preserve its
autonomous space for critique under the pressures of the contradictory
logic of late capitalism?

- What is an economic, cultural and social margin and what is the possible
function of an art institution operating within?

- What political and artistic practices can such spaces propose as
alternative to the logic of the art world?

- Are the notions of radicalism and dissent still applicable to artistic
criticism?

- What are the means and methodologies for determining the success and
viability of systems of critique within specific contexts? How could
contextualisation, as a methodology, be a tool for opening up a space for a
more effective response to the dominant cultural context?

- How is it possible to retrieve political value (rather than assumed moral
good) from horizontal collaboration, when collaboration itself is precisely
what post-Fordist capitalism seeks to valorise? How can ambiguity create a
space for criticism?



*Applications and enquiries: *please send a short proposal (up to 300
words) with bio to Vlad Morariu (v.morariu at lboro.ac.uk) who will also
respond to all other enquiries.

*Deadline for submissions: *9th of May 2012

The conference is free of charge.



*More information:* http://www.giant-step.org


      vessel <http://www.vesselartproject.org/>

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