CURATING AND RISK

Wiped out from the Armory? Looking to stay local this weekend? This coming Saturday our friend’s over at Moore College will be presenting their third symposium on the practice of curating…

Curating and Risk: A Day of Conversations
March 13, 2010, 9:30 am - 5 pm
Curating and Risk: A Day of Conversations is the fifth in a series of public conversations about issues and ideas in contemporary curatorial practice. Through a series of grouped conversations with a roster of distinguished panelists, we will examine multiple ways in which curatorial activities can interrogate and engage risk. In this time of insecurities, rather than turning toward safety, what is a risky project/idea—financial, political, artistic, intellectual, aesthetic, moral, organizational, conceptual, administrative—for curators and artists? Is there creative release in the pleasure of ideas when risk is embraced rather than avoided? How do you access the successes and failures of risky projects? Or has risk become simply trendy? What is really at stake? And for whom?

Featured panelists: SHERYL CONKELTON Philadelphia based curator, formerly curator at Temple Gallery/Tyler School of Art, Museum of Modern Art, NY and Los Angeles County Museum of Art; DAVID DEMPEWOLF co-founder of Marginal Utility gallery and the zine Machete, Philadelphia, PA; HOMER JACKSON interdisciplinary artist, Philadelphia, PA; RUBY LERNER President and CEO of Creative Capital, New York, NY; AARON LEVY Executive Director and Chief Curator, Slought Foundation, Philadelphia, PA; LANA LIN and LAN THAO LAM New York based interdisciplinary collaborative artist team (LIN + LAM); RADHIKA SUBRAMANIAM Director and Chief Curator of the Sheila C. Johnson Design Center at Parsons the New School for Design, New York, NY; NATO THOMPSON Chief Curator at Creative Time, New York, NY; RICHARD TORCHIA artist and Director, Arcadia University Art Gallery, Glenside, PA.

Video interludes previewing Project 35, an international video exhibition of historic and contemporary works selected by 35 curators from around the globe. Project 35 is produced and circulated by iCI (Independent Curators International), New York.

Moderators:Janet Kaplan, Professor of Art History and Director of Curatorial Studies, Moore; Lorie Mertes, Director and Chief Curator, The Galleries at Moore

RSVP by March 8, 2010. Admission FREE and open to the public. Pre-registration via email is requested. For more information and to RSVP: 215-965-4027; kaplan@moore.edu or mailto:orgalleries@moore.edu

iCI Is So Great!

Independent Curators International has become THE hotbed of interesting curatorial discourse. For months PEI has posted information of their tremendous Curator's Perspective series of lectures and now they have graced us with another incredible resource: DISPATCH. iCI describes this site as:

DISPATCH is ICI’s new online publication that publishes a curator’s point of view on current developments in art. Practitioners based in different cities around the world are invited to use DISPATCH as their virtual base for a month, building their research over time through text, image, and video. Taking advantage of the interactive platform, DISPATCH will also allow for comments and feedback from readers around the world, allowing for the development of a dynamic curatorial network.

This month takes you on an extensive tour of Mexico City’s intersection of education, pedagogy and art – all from the comfort of your office computer.

It’s PEI highly recommended:

http://www.ici-exhibitions.org/index.php/dispatches/

And, of course:

THE CURATOR'S PERSPECTIVE


María del Carmen Carrión
Wednesday, March 107-9 pm
New York University , Steinhardt School of Education
Einstein Auditorium (1st Floor), New York City
María del Carmen Carrión is an Ecuadorian curator, writer, and cultural advisor. She is co-founder of ceroinspiración, an exhibition and residency space in Quito, where she recently curated the exhibition PACO GRUEXXO vs EL HOMBRE FOCA. In 2009, she designed Ecuador’s National Grants System for the Arts. Between 2005 and 2008 she worked as Associate Curator of New Langton Arts, a non-profit gallery in San Francisco.

ArtStars*

Get to know the Toronto art scene!!!
http://artstarstv.com/

PEI MARCH EXHIBITIONS PICKS

Time for another installment of PEI's Exhibitions Picks, our monthly feature highlighting exhibitions of exceptional interest.



New Museum
Skin Fruit: Selections from the Dakis Joannou Collection
March - June 2010
We’ve seen the cover of the Brooklyn Rail and it’s finally time for the controversial show to open. Over 100 works by 50 international artists, all drawn from the collection of Greek magnate Dakis Joannou, one of the world’s leading collections of contemporary art. Guest-curated by Jeff Koons.



The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum
Paying a Visit to Mary
2008 Hall Curatorial Fellowship
January to June 2010
Paying a Visit to Mary is organized by Canadian curator Maxine Kopsa, a resident of the Netherlands, who is the second recipient of the Hall Curatorial Fellowship. Paying a Visit to Mary refers to a line from Tell Me, a 1979 play about language by French artist Guy de Cointet that questions how reality is perceived and interpreted. Like the play, the exhibition explores language as it relates to personal narrative and contemporary storytelling. Constructed as a “call and response” between different voices represented by a group of carefully selected contemporary artists, Paying a Visit to Mary tells a romantic, conceptual, and highly specific story of our time and our present human condition. The exhibition is seen as a conversation amongst both the artists and the audience with whom their work engages.



The Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis
Sean Landers: 1991-1994, Improbable History
January - April 2010
The first survey of the early work of New York-based Sean Landers. Since the 1990s, Landers’ work has been one of the most captivating enterprises in contemporary art, as a practice that has long gamed sincere attempt to map the boundaries of human-nature and the self. This exhibition proposes that Landers’ formative body of work, produced from 1991-1994, was one that defined the artist, the persona, and the conceptual conceits that he has cultivated and enriched over the course of his twenty-year career. The show presents an overview of the artist’s oeuvre including text works on paper, photographs, paintings, sculptures, and diaristic calendars, with a focus on his performative videos shot in the studio.



Whitney Museum of American Art
2010 Whitney Biennial
February - May 2010
This year marks the seventy-fifth edition of the Whitney’s signature exhibition. While Biennials are always affected by the cultural, political, and social moment, this exhibition “simply titled 2010” embodies a cross section of contemporary art production rather than a specific theme. Balancing different media ranging from painting and sculpture to video, photography, performance, and installation, 2010 also serves as a two-way telescope through which the Whitney’s past and future can be observed.

New in the PEI Reading Room

Come on in and READ ‘EM!

30 Seconds off an Inch @ The Studio Museum

This survey has brought together contemporary artworks by a group of artists who, having absorbed the lessons of U.S.-based Conceptual art and identity politics, imbue their respective practices with a critical sense of play and irreverence adopted from Fluxus, Arte Povera, Gutai and Neoconcretism, among other international movements. 30 Seconds takes the singular practices and conceptual methods of black artists active on the West Coast in the late 1960s and early 1970s as a starting point—work that inspired a bodily engagement in conceptual practice. Presenting approximately one hundred works by dozens of artists, the exhibition will provide an overview of a generation of artists who use a variety of media, including photography, video, large-scale sculpture, figurative painting and site-specific installations. 30 Seconds aims to show how this group of artists engages with the body and race in clever, subtle and astute ways.

Shovel in a Hole by Urs Fischer

Text by Massimiliano Gioni, Jessica Morgan, Bice CurigerShovel in a Hole includes over two-hundred images of the Swiss artist Urs Fischer’s work, and features essays by Massimiliano Gioni, Jessica Morgan, and Bice Curiger. This catalogue is published in conjunction with Fischer’s solo exhibition at the New Museum, “Urs Fischer: Marguerite de Ponty,” curated by Massimiliano Gioni. Best known for his unexpected transformations of everyday objects and his lack of allegiance to any one style, Fischer consistently projects a sense of transience and existential uncertainty. This catalogue is an indispensible resource, including installation views and studio shots that cross-reference Fischer's thought processes. Shovel in a Hole was conceived by designer Scipio Schneider in close collaboration with the artist.

Hey Hey Glossolalia (BEFORE) and (AFTER)

A two-volume publication with a section curated by Adam Pendleton and contributions by over 40 major contemporary artists, including Tauba Auerbach, Mark Beasley, Nicholas Bullen, Adam Chodzko, Cerith Wyn Evans, Chris Evans, Ryan Gander + Bedwyr Williams, Liam Gillick + Tirdad Zolgadhr, Will Holder, Mark Leckey, No Bra, Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, William Pope L., Sun Ra, Rammellzee, Rigo 23, Frances Stark, Ian Svenonius, Javier Téllez, Mark Titchner, Vert, Robert King Wilkerson, Carey Young, and more.

Gabriel Orozco @ MoMA

With a body of work unique in its formal power and intellectual rigor, Gabriel Orozco emerged at the beginning of the 1990s as one of the most intriguing and original artists of his generation. This volume, designed in collaboration with the artist and presented on the occasion of his retrospective at MoMA, offers a comprehensive examination of Orozco's career from the late 1980s to the present. Critical essays provide new approaches to grounding Orozco's work in the larger landscape of contemporary art; they are complemented by a a richly illustrated chronology that combines biographical information with focused discussions of selected objects. Each entry pays particular attention to Orozco's material practice and introduces the artist's own reflections on the work he has created.

RUBELLS TO OPEN D.C. MUSEUM

Looks like Mera and Don Rubell are set to open a new, 20,000-square-foot private museum, this one in Washington D.C. The art power-couple’s CACG Holdings partnered with development firm Telesis to snag a vacant building in Southwest Washington for $6.5 million, according to the Washington Post. The new development, which sits across the street from the Rubell-owned Capitol Skyline Hotel, will include a hotel and residencies, in addition to the museum.

The site was formerly owned by the Corcoran Gallery of Art, which had plans to move its College of Art and Design to the location. According to the Corcoran’s chief operating officer Fred Bollerer, the sale became necessary when a deal with a developer fell through. The location had been purchased by the Corcoran in 2006 for $6.2 million. The search for a suitable location for its art school continues.

ICI Curatorial Intensive

A training intensive for aspiring curators
Building on its history as a hub for curatorial ideas, ICI is supporting a new generation of curators to develop exhibition proposals. The Curatorial Intensive is a short-term, low-cost program taking place this June in New York for emerging curators across North America. From an open competition, 6-10 individuals will be selected to come to New York and work with some of today’s leading curators and artists. Through a rigorous schedule of workshops, discussions and critiques, as well as site visits to local institutions and artist’s studios, each participant will be led through the process of developing an idea for an exhibition into a full exhibition proposal.

After the New York phase of the project is complete, ICI will continue working with participants long-distance to finalize their proposals. The Curatorial Intensive has been organized in partnership with the CUE Art Foundation, who will provide their virtual gallery as a platform for participants to publish their proposals online so that broad publics, as well as the hundreds of institutions with which ICI works, can view the final proposals.ICI is uniquely positioned to establish The Curatorial Intensive, having worked with a wide range of curators to develop innovative traveling exhibitions. In 35 years ICI has organized 116 shows, which have been presented in 570 institutions in 47 states and 23 countries worldwide, and experienced by nearly 6 million people.

The Curatorial Intensive was developed by ICI’s Executive Director, Kate Fowle, who recently joined ICI after working as the International Curator at the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing. Prior to her time in China, Fowle spent 6 years in San Francisco at the California College of the Arts, where she was the director of the MA Program in Curatorial Practice, which she founded in 2002 with Ralph Rugoff.

Teachers & Advisors
Dan Cameron (Founding Director, Prospect New Orleans); Kate Fowle (Executive Director, ICI); Matthew Higgs (Director and Chief Curator, White Columns); Eungie Joo (Director and Curator of Education and Public Programs, New Museum); Maria Lind (Director, CCS Bard); Nicola Trezzi (US Editor, Flash Art); and Fred Wilson (artist).

Program Timeline
Application Deadline: March 12, 2010
New York Program: June 6-15, 2010
Proposals Published: July 15, 2010

Application Guidelines
Applications must include a 300-word description of an exhibition idea the applicant would like help in developing. Submissions should include an exhibition concept or key idea, and any artists that the applicant is considering.

Also required is a current resume, plus a 1-2 page letter of intent that outlines why applicants want to participate in The Curatorial Intensive, as well as an example of a recent exhibition that has made an impact on the applicants.

Applicants must be over the age of 21. Current graduate students are not eligible to apply for The Curatorial Intensive.

Fees & Scholarships
The program fee is $1,500. This covers local travel and admissions to museums and other institutions. Participants will be responsible for covering their travel expenses to and from New York as well as accommodation. In its commitment to make The Curatorial Intensive accessible to individuals from diverse economic backgrounds, ICI will offer full or partial scholarship packages to several program participants.

Individuals interested in applying for scholarships will need to submit an additional letter which addresses the following questions: 1. What are your future educational and career goals? 2. How specifically would The Curatorial Intensive help you to achieve those future educational and career goals? 3. Because this scholarship is partially awarded on need-based criteria, please explain the specific nature of your past or current financial challenges.

For More Information / To Send Application Materials
ICI (Independent Curators International)
799 Broadway, Suite 205
New York, NY 10003
T: 212.254.8200 x 26
F: 212.477.4781
education -at- ici-exhibitions.org