Curating.info

OPEN CALL

SYNAPSE – The International Curators’ Network at Haus der Kulturen der Welt (Berlin)
in the framework of the Asia-Pacific Weeks 2011 (September 6–17)
www.synapse.info


Duration: September 7–10, 2011, with a public keynote speech by Peter Weibel on September 6, 2011

HAUS DER KULTUREN DER WELT invites up-and-coming curators to apply for SYNAPSE – The International Curators’ Network at Haus der Kulturen der Welt. Moderated by international curators, scientists and other experts, the first network meeting of SYNAPSE will focus on the interactions between science and art. Among other questions, it will address how scientific topics can be approached by curators. In interdisciplinary workshops, ten selected SYNAPSE curators and the five winning curators of Meridian I Urban.Curatorial Projects on Health will generate new project ideas. Visits to galleries, museums, and project and exhibition spaces will connect SYNAPSE participants with the vibrant Berlin art scene.

Jury members
• Katja Blomberg (director, Haus am Waldsee, Berlin)
• Yu Yeon Kim (independent curator, NYC and Seoul)
• Osvaldo Sánchez (curator/director, Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City)
• Adele Tan (art historian and critic, Singapore)

Application requirements
The call is open to international up-and-coming curators with initial curatorial experience. Since lectures and workshop sessions will be held in English, applicants must be able to speak and write English fluently.

Facts
An international jury will review the applications and announce the ten selected participants by end of June 2011. Participation in the workshop is free of charge. Each participant will receive a travel subsidy of up to €500. Haus der Kulturen der Welt will support the participants in seeking additional funding and will provide board and lodging for the duration of the workshop.

A project in cooperation with the 4th Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art 2011.
The Asia-Pacific Weeks are supported by the Stiftung Deutsche Klassenlotterie Berlin.

For more information on how to apply, please visit the The International Curators' Network website

Deadline for entries: May 31, 2011

The ICI Berlin announces five 10-months fellowships for the 2011-12 focus Multistable Figures and Complementarity of the core project Tension/Spannung.

Since September 2010, the ICI Berlin has taken multistable figures – Kippbilder – as point of departure for exploring further the topic of its current core project Tension/Spannung. These images not only continue to fascinate cognitive scientists as a form of optical illusions, but they also function as models for probing complex epistemological, aesthetic and ethical tensions.

For 2011-12, the focus is Multistable Figures and Complementarity. The presence of complementary aspects in multistable figures provides an attractive model for the coexistence of different disciplines, systems, discourses, and cultures. At the same time, complementarity is a complex notion that can be understood and function in various ways, capable also of promoting both indifference and conflict. By exploring different ways in which multistable figures and relations of complementarity may function, the ICI Berlin seeks to reflect upon the possibilities and limits of bringing diverse cultures and discourses into productive confrontation beyond indifferent coexistence and violent conflict.

The ICI Berlin invites scholars from all disciplines to link their individual projects to the topic of Tension/Spannung and engage in a joint exploration of the focus Multistable Figures and Complementarity with other fellows at the Institute. We especially welcome applications from individuals who will contribute to diversity and equal opportunity in scholarly research.

The productive exchange between fellows is a central aim of the Institute. Applicants should be interested in a theoretical reflection upon the conceptual and intellectual basis of their projects and in discussing it with fellows from other disciplines. In particular, fellows will be expected to participate in the weekly colloquia, bi-weekly informal meetings, and other activities of the Institute and to be resident in Berlin for the duration of the fellowship.

The fellowships announced are for the academic year 2011-12 (19 September – 8 July). Depending on the degree held, stipends range from EUR 1350 to 1750 per month. There is no age limit, but applicants must have received an academic degree within ten years of the date of appointment.

Interested applicants should consult the application instructions and send their application by e-mail only to the address indicated there. Please note that the ICI Berlin has temporarily suspended fellowships for artistic projects.

For information and the application forms, please visit the ICI Berlin website.

Application deadline: 14 January 2011.

About ICI Berlin: The Berlin Institute for Cultural Inquiry is an independent centre for research and culture dedicated to exploring how diverse cultures can be brought into productive rather than pernicious confrontation. It takes 'culture' in a broad sense to include cultures associated with different identities (such as age, class, ethnicity, gender, nationality, race, religion, sexuality), spaces (such as city, internet, work) or discourses (such as art, economics, law, media, politics, science). It understands 'culture' as a contested and problematic notion and remains open to its various meanings in relation to other terms (such as implicit knowledge, nature, signifying practice, structure of feeling, ways of life).

Haus der Kulturen der Welt invites up-and-coming curators to enter their proposals for site-specific art projects in public space for Meridian | Urban. Curatorial Projects on Health.

Meridians – imaginary lines running from pole to pole, connecting one region with another – help us map the world. In traditional Asian medicine, the meridian system is an invisible network that provides the body with vital energy. Although Western science has not yet acknowledged its existence, the meridian is our starting point for targeting questions of balance and imbalance.

Curators are invited to propose artworks for the city center of Berlin. The projects should address the relationship between art and health, referring to its implications for contemporary urban life and challenging our idea of human nature. Creating a map of the city and detecting its pulse, the projects of Meridian | Urban will be presented in public spaces in Berlin during the 8th Asia-Pacific Weeks (September 6-17, 2011). Selected participants will be invited to a workshop in the framework of Synapse, the international network for up-and-coming curators at Haus der Kulturen der Welt.

Organization and partners:
Haus der Kulturen der Welt is a place for international contemporary arts and a forum for current developments and discourse. It presents artistic productions from around the world, with a special focus on non-European cultures and societies. Visual arts, music, literature, performing arts, film, academic discussions and digital media are all linked in an interdisciplinary program that is unique in Europe. Haus der Kulturen der Welt plans and coordinates the cultural section of the Asia-Pacific Weeks Berlin in cooperation with the Berlin Senate Chancellery and local and international partners.

Application requirements:
The call is open to curators with initial curatorial experience in the field of public art. At least one member of each project/group (curator or artist) must be Berlin-based, and at least one member must be able to demonstrate a link to the Asia-Pacific region.

Deadline for entries: September 17, 2010
Please submit your application digitally (pdf file of max. 9 MB) to meridian.urban -at- hkw.de
Only electronic applications in English will be accepted.
In order to apply, please send the components of your project proposal as listed below.

Components of project proposals
1. Application form with personal details
2. Detailed concept of the project with visualization in the form of sketches, photos, plans, etc.
3. Suggested venue in the Berlin city center and a sketch of the site
4. List of participating artist(s) and curator(s) including brief CVs
5. Report of previous curatorial projects
6. Schedule for development and realization
7. Financial plan

Selection procedure:
An international jury of curators will review the project proposals and announce up to five selected projects by October 2010. Each selected project will receive a financial subsidy for production costs of up to EUR 20,000 as well as logistic support. The selected participants will be invited to a preparatory production meeting in Berlin (up to one week) between late October and December 2010. Groups will be asked to send a single representative.

Jury members: Katja Blomberg (art historian, Berlin) | Yu Yeon Kim (curator, NYC and Seoul) (tbc) | Osvaldo Sánchez (curator, Mexico City) | Adele Tan (art historian, Singapore)

Contact: If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact meridian.urban -at- hkw.de

Meridian l Urban. Curatorial Projects on Health takes place in the framework of the 8th Asia-Pacific Weeks, September 6-17, 2011. The Asia-Pacific Weeks are supported by the Stiftung Deutsche Klassenlotterie Berlin.

It's the first of the month again! Hard to believe it's November already. Time for the November edition of Pick 'N Mix, my monthly annotated list of bite-sized items that have captured my attention recently.

• "CURATE OR DIE" is the title of a series of discussions at KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin.
  "The focus of classical museum work seems to have changed in the past fifteen years. The balance of exhibiting, collecting, researching, and conserving activities has shifted towards a marked concentration on exhibiting. Both the public eye and possible sponsors tend to privilege the spectacular potential inherent in exhibitions. In collaboration with the Berlin-based Bureau des Arts Plastiques, KW Institute for Contemporary Art is planning a series of panel debates addressing these and related questions. Curate or Die seems to be the only possible future perspective."
  The two remaining talks in the series are taking place November 29 and December 10 at K-W.


• A recent article by the Washington Post asks the question: Is There a Future for Old-Fashioned Museums? It focuses primarily on the story of the "Newseum", a new museum being erected in downtown Washington, while a copy is simultaneously being "built" in the online platform of Second Life. It has not yet been decided if this virtual copy of the museum will go fully public, but if it does, it will allow a global audience to have some experience of the museum. The article explores the notions of emotional attachment and collective experience that we have when visiting physical museums, which pose a series of questions as to the similarities and differences to the way we share experiences online. As well, the article looks at the ways success is measured for museums and how this is changing.
  
  

  Maxwell L. Anderson, CEO of the Indianapolis Museum of Art says: "The root of the problem is that there is no longer an agreed-upon method of measuring achievement. Half a century ago, art museums were largely measured by a yardstick comparable to that applied to libraries of the time: the size and importance of their collections." But today, he argued, art museums increasingly "are to their detriment places that privilege entertainment over learning."
  
  This year, in the journal Curator, he argued, "The message has been conspicuously entrepreneurial: we can be compared with theme parks, so we matter."
  
  He calls for measures of success that focus on the visitor's experience of the "resonance and wonder" of artworks -- "an intangible sense of elation -- a feeling that a weight was lifted."

  
  Anderson's words remind us that while some of these buildings may be architectural or technological marvels, what really impacts audiences is personal and collective perceptions of the contents of museums - in other words, the fruits of labour by artists and curators.
  


• An old webcast came to light via bellebyrd's blog: "Global Curating in the 21st Century" was a panel discussion held in 2003 at the Walker Art Center, as part of "How Latitudes Become Forms: Art in a Global Age".
  
  "Five visual arts curators discuss art in a global context. Participants are: Kathy Halbreich, Director, Walker Art Center; Vishakha Desai, Senior Vice President/Director, Galleries and Cultural Programs, The Asia Society; Hou Hanru, Paris-based, independent curator-critic; Paulo Herkenhoff, independent curator and critic (Sao Paulo); and Latitudes exhibition curator Philippe Vergne."
  
  You can access the stream of the panel discussion by clicking here.


• File under slightly unusual curatorial careers: being a curator of a hotel's art collection. Jennifer Phelps is the curator at the Chambers, a luxury hotel in downtown Minneapolis, USA.
  
  

  "My first job was to catalog everything and use the floor plans to place it in the rooms," Phelps said. "That was fun, like a puzzle, because there are 60 rooms, and each got two or three pieces, depending on whether it was a suite or a single. "
  
  One recent addition is a bronze sculpture by British artist Gavin Turk. It sits in a hallway near the hotel's banquet rooms and looks like a pile of black plastic garbage bags stuffed to overflowing with trash. It's Phelps' job to tamp down the ire of outraged hotel guests who stumble upon it en route to a soiree.
  
  "They call up, furious, because they're having a party and what are we doing with garbage bags dumped in the hallway?" she said. "When I tell them it's art, they burst out laughing."

  
  

A lighthearted note to end this month's Pick 'N Mix on, I'm sure you'll agree!