What Now? 2014 is a two-day symposium organized by Art in General in collaboration with the Vera List Center for Art and Politics. This launches a new series of annual conferences, called to investigate issues arising in the field of contemporary art. This year’s conference is dedicated to Collaboration and Collectivity and organized around three sessions spanning Friday and Saturday, with a keynote lecture presented on Friday evening, delivered by Charles Esche, which will be live streamed here.

In the spirit of philosopher Hannah Arendt, who taught at The New School for many years, the symposium examines collaboration through a politics of place—how the way in which we live and work together directly creates the political landscape we inhabit. In Arendt’s words, “To live together in the world means essentially that a world of things is between those who have it in common, as a table is located between those who sit around it; the world, like every in-between, relates and separates men at the same time.”

Taking this central question of how we work together and how we form communities, What Now? 2014 explores collaborations between artists and institutions while examining the modes and methods of collective action, including positions of disengagement. With collaboration becoming a more prominent form of practice for both artists and institutions, the symposium questions some of the reasons behind this phenomenon—from the desires to produce new projects, knowledge, or research to developing new institutional structures. Through a variety of presentations featuring scholars, academics, artists, curators, and writers, What Now? 2014 aims to generate new think­ing around these issues, including authorship and authenticity as well as modes of collaboration as strategies for social change.

Program
Friday, April 4
4:30–6:00 p.m.
Session 1: Collective Authorship
In terms of institutional collaboration, the session will look at examples of collaboration that involve putting aside one central curatorial/authorial/artistic voice in order to take part in the exchange of ideas and the creation of joint projects. In terms of this collective way of working, how do individuals and/or organizations reach a creative consensus, and how are issues such as diverse local contexts, languages, time differences, and institutional capacities handled?

Is an institution the coming together of people towards shared aims, supported by the creation of a legal entity and situated in a certain place at particular time, or can it be framed as simply the notion of a shared voice? When and what happens in the shift between collective and institution and how does this difference reflect and shape their roles?

This panel will use Art in General’s newly formed partnership APRIL (Art in General, NY; Beirut, Cairo; CAC Derry-Londonderry; FormContent, London; Kunsthalle Lissabon, Lisbon) as the springboard to expand on the central question of their first meeting, What is an Institution?

Moderator: Sarah Rifky, Co-Director, Beirut in Cairo, Egypt

Participants:
Anne Barlow, Director, Art in General, New York
Johan Lundh, Co-Director, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane, Australia
Jens Maier Rothe, Co-Director, Beirut in Cairo, Egypt
Luis Silva/João Mourão, Co-Directors, Kunsthalle Lissabon, Portugal
Pieternel Vermoortel, Co-Founder and Director, FormContent, London, England

6:30–7:30 p.m.
Keynote lecture by Charles Esche (livestream here)

External Link »