Curatorial School Malta | Guest Speaker: Alfredo Cramerotti: Curating and Contemporary Art as Social Practices
Curatorial School Malta
September 2018
Alfredo Cramerotti: Curating and Contemporary Art as Social Practices
What I do as a curator is to develop and present statements through the combination of works of art and/or artistic practices that, in my view, ‘connect the dots’ about this or that social, cultural, political or aesthetics matter.
In this context, I have found myself working in a pattern of modes. Sometimes taking a more authorial role and developing concepts and frameworks, some others becoming a conduit for ideas not mine, but translated and transformed by the visual authors. Some other times, facilitating what was already there, and simply heightening the impact or making sure the audience’s experience was in focus. Thus, as a curator, the work undertaken is less about the “what” and more about the “how”.
PART ONE
Keynote: “Conditional Readiness” The Curator and Artist as Social Shaper.
Abstract:
The main idea to discuss is that what a cultural practice does through the audience’s simultaneous experiences shifts from what is represented and originally intended, to a relational-driven form of interaction. This contact stabilizes, only temporarily, a form of mediation that triggers provisional meaning.
We can roughly equate the agency of art with being prepared for something, a “conditional readiness” (MacKay 1969), which implies that one’s understanding of a message is not limited to what to do (in response to it), but is expanded to include what one is ready to do if certain circumstances arise; more an unconscious preparation for an exploration rather than a conscious setting off for a journey.
Meaning is produced neither by the ‘sender’ nor by the ‘receiver’ of the message; it is formed by a readiness to relate to external factors, in terms of ‘performability.’ The agency of art (both in its making and its curating state) therefore arises less from the act of contextualizing and interpreting what we see, and more from the internalized suggestions for possible actions to take; what this performance fosters is a context where we interpret and ‘make sense’ of artistic acts by what they do, the functional aspect.
Examples include a presentation of a few artistic and/or curatorial practices delivered by Cramerotti such as the Maldives Pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennial 2013 and MOSTYN’s History Series Audience Development Programme 2014-17; and artist’s work such as that of Fernando Garcia-Dory, Sarah Pierce, Wochenklausur, the Craftivism movement initiated by Sarah Corbett, Assemble, and others.
PART TWO
Workshop: The Social, Humanitarian, Historical, Scientific as Art.
Day 1 – Participants are invited to develop and present to the group their answers to a set of questions, such as: What does beauty has to do with, for instance, climate change, migration, mental or physical conditions? What is our understanding of aesthetics in relation to ethics? How do we tackle social themes that lend themselves awkwardly to a presentation in the (critical) visual realm?
Day 2 – Starting with case studies such as the Maldives Pavilion and other experiences by the participants, the group will relate their respective projects and highlight what worked and what did not, and why.
Day 3 & Day 4– Based on the brief proposals sent in advance, participants are invited to present to the group their next project plan (exhibition, residency, online platform, public programme, architectural or design commission, educational initiative, symposium, workshop, etc.). This will be a practical, project management-focused ‘tool kit’ that can be used to refine their specific plans.
Day 5 – Alternative scenarios: Could each participant’s project be produced somehow else? Is its digital platform following the concept and the execution, or preceding it? Is the range of artworks / artists / partners / speakers leading to unexplored territories or consolidating an prefigured approach?
More information here.
Sean Scully: Standing on the Edge of the World at Hong Kong Arts Centre | Press Coverage
Forewords | Hyperimages and Hyperimaging
This collection of short essays sometimes dances around issues and takes an oblique approach to the subject of the hyperimage, nevertheless serving to augment our understanding of the idea. What is unique about this book is thirty five pieces of writing, now approaching one theme, which, due to the nature of the commissioning of the individual texts, all enter the subject from different points, with differing influences and different spatial/temporal considerations.
Not only has the accumulation of the texts taken place over time, traversing projects, artists and locations; it has also occurred in tandem with technological developments which have served to shape much of our activity, both quotidian and also professionally as cultural producers.
MOSTYN x DRAF (David Roberts Art Foundation): Upcoming Exhibitions
She sees the shadows
July 14–November 4, 2018
In Addition
Editions by artists
March 3, 2018–February 27, 2021
Louisa Gagliardi / Josephine Meckseper
Opening November 16, 2018
MOSTYN
12 Vaughan Street
Llandudno LL30 1AB
United Kingdom
www.mostyn.org
www.davidrobertsartfoundation.com
MOSTYN, Wales UK is pleased to present a group exhibition of works by over 40 contemporary artists from the David Roberts Collection, marking the first off-site collaboration by David Roberts Art Foundation (DRAF).
Magali Reus, Parking (Legs At Eye Level), 2014. Courtesy the Artist and David Roberts Collection. Photo: Plastiques.
She sees the shadows
Works by: Caroline Achaintre, Horst Ademeit, Fiona Banner, Sara Barker, Phyllida Barlow, Neil Beloufa, David Birkin, Karla Black, Carol Bove, Martin Boyce, Lea Cetera, Susan Collis, Thomas Demand, Jason Dodge, Boyle Family, Theaster Gates, Isa Genzken, Rodney Graham, Harry Gruyaert, Jeppe Hein, Marine Hugonnier, Pierre Huyghe, Matthew Day Jackson, Tatsuya Kimata, Rachel Kneebone, Elad Lassry, Bob Law, Nina Beier & Marie Lund, Kris Martin, Marlie Mul, Nika Neelova, Man Ray, Magali Reus, Pietro Roccasalva, Analia Saban, Erin Shirreff, Monika Sosnowska, Oscar Tuazon, Gavin Turk, Franz West, Douglas White
Curated by Adam Carr (MOSTYN) and Olivia Leahy (DRAF)
Gallery 3, 4 & 5
“She sees the shadows… she even counts the tree-trunks along a promenade by the shadows, but sees nothing of the shape of things.”(1)
In 1886, a 22-year-old woman in Lyon saw the world around her for the first time. Objects instantly recognisable by touch were hard to distinguish with her new sight, and shadows appeared more concrete than solid forms. Her doctors described the sudden strangeness of familiar environments, and her singular experience of the world as a newly-sighted person.
In his 1932 book Space and Sight, Marius Von Senden collated the patient’s experiences alongside testimonies of similar cases dating from 1020 to the present. These captivating accounts, which later inspired writers including Maggie Nelson and Annie Dillard, express how something familiar can show a previously unacknowledged beauty when seen in a new way.
She sees the shadows is a group exhibition of works from the David Roberts Collection that resonate with the ideas found in Space and Sight. Each artist has re-conceived day-to-day objects and materials in unexpected ways—a bench, plug socket, grate, section of railing or broom—inviting viewers to see alternative qualities and narratives therein.
Each of the works in a collection, like the testimonies compiled by Von Senden, speak of personal experiences and moments. She sees the shadows is accompanied by a new publication with responses to the project from writers Orit Gat, Claire Potter and Sally O’Reilly and artists David Birkin, Jason Dodge, Marine Hugonnier, Marlie Mul, Magali Reus and Douglas White.
(1) M. Von Senden (trans. P. Heath), Space and Sight: the perception of space and shape in the congenitally blind before and after operation, 1932, Methuen & Co. Ltd.: London, 1960.
In Addition
Participating artists from July 2018:
Nina Beier, Sol Calero, Gabriele de Santis, Alek O., Jonathan Monk, Simon Dybbroe Møller and Marinella Senatore
Gallery 2
Each participating artist has produced work using paper and has been asked to reconsider the traditional model of producing an edition, where each version of a work is identical. Although appearing formally similar, each In Addition piece will offer deviations and nuances that set apart each edition as a unique work, thereby playing with ideas of the original, the copy and work made in series.
In Addition is permanently installed as an exhibition in MOSTYN’s Gallery 2, and will change shape over time as editions are purchased and as further artists participate in the future. MOSTYN is a charity registered in the UK and proceeds from the sales of the editions will be invested back into the gallery’s exhibition and engagement programme.
Louisa Gagliardi / Josephine Meckseper
Gallery 3, 4 & 5
Opening November 16, 2018, solo exhibitions by Josephine Meckseper and Louisa Gagliardi, curated by Alfredo Cramerotti (Director, MOSTYN) and Adam Carr (Visual Arts Programme Curator, MOSTYN), which are the first for both artists in a UK public institution.
CenSAMM Symposia Series 2018 – Centre for the Critical Study of Apocalyptic and Millenarian Movements
Alfredo Cramerotti and Michael Takeo Magurder for Apocalypse in ART: The Creative Unveiling
The word ‘apocalypse’ originally indicated an ‘unveiling’, and the speaker in the Book of Revelation is a ‘seer’. This is perhaps one of the reasons that this ancient text (and others like it) have generated such a ferment of creative responses in the visual arts – as well as those other non-visual strands of the arts which have their own way of engaging our mind’s eye.
The rich variety of types of artistic unveiling (visual, musical, dramatic, literary) makes an engagement with the creative arts a deeply valuable way of understanding and appreciating the idea of apocalypse, alongside more traditionally academic modes of enquiry.
This conference seeks to explore our relationship to art, its practice, its study and what the arts unveil to us. As artists or as audiences of art we can be profoundly transformed by our encounters with artistic creativity; indeed, we can find ourselves using the language of revelation to describe such encounters, regardless of our individual faith, religion or beliefs. Mark Rothko is quoted as saying, “the people who weep before my pictures are having the same religious experience I had when I painted them.”
Thursday June 28th
9.00 – 9.30 Registration and coffee
9.30 – 9.40 Welcome
9.40 – 10.40 Keynote Speaker: Christopher Rowland, Dean Ireland’s Emeritus Professor of the Exegesis of Holy Scripture, University of Oxford: ‘John Saw these things Reveald in Heaven On Patmos Isle’: the Book of Revelation anticipates Blake’s Apocalypse.
11.00 – 11.30 Kip Gresham, Master Printmaker at The Print Studio, Cambridge: In the shadow of Durer.
11.30 – 12.00 Elena Unger, Department of Art and Critical Studies at Goldsmiths University of London: Desert Time: The Silence at the Heart of Apocalypse
1.00 – 2.00 Keynote Speaker: Michelle Fletcher, Research Associate on The Visual Commentary on Scripture at King’s College London where she is also a Research Fellow. Author of Reading Revelation as Pastiche: Imitating the Past (London: Bloomsbury, 2017): Visualising the Apocalypse as a Thing of the Past
2.30 – 3.00 Jonathan Evens, Associate Vicar, Partnership Development, St Martin-in-the-Fields, London: A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall
3.00 – 3.45 Round table discussion with artist, Michael Takeo Magruder and Alfredo Cramerotti (Director of MOSTYN Wales and curator of “De/ coding the Apocalypse”)
3.45 – 5.00 Tour of “De/coding the Apocalypse” by Michael Takeo Magruder and tour of the Panacea Museum.
Friday June 29
9.00 – 9.30 Registration and coffee
9.30 – 9.40 Welcome
9.40 – 10.40 Keynote Speaker: Eleanor Heartney, author and journalist, contributing editor to Art in America and Artpress, New York: Revelation as Inspiration: The American Apocalypse
11.00 – 11.30 Rebekah Dyer, PHD candidate, School of Divinity, University of St Andrews: Reserved for Fire: Creative fire performances at David Best’s Temple and Shetland’s Up-Helly-Aa festival
11.30 – 12.00 Lilla Moore, Lecturer at BA programme in Mysticism and Spirituality, Zefat Academic College and Cybernetic Futures Institute (UK): Technoetic Aesthetics of Revelation and Transcendence – The Horse in the Mind
1.00 – 2.00 Keynote Speaker: Natasha O’Hear Lecturer in Theology & Visual Art at ITIA, University of St Andrews. With Anthony O’Hear, author of Picturing the Apocalypse: The Book of Revelation in the Arts Over Two Millennia (Oxford University Press, 2015): Visualising the Biblical Vision
2.30 – 3.00 Massimo Introvigne, Managing Director of CESNUR, the Center for Studies on New Religions: Filming the Age of Kingdom: The End Times and the Movies of The Church of Almighty God
3.00 – 3.30 Matthew Askey, artist, curator, and Anglican priest. Currently serving as school chaplain at Southwell Minster, Nottinghamshire’s cathedral: The Cross and the Zombie Apocalypse: Two Images for our Time
3.30 Closing comments.
Shezad Dawood & Mike Perry // In Conversation at MOSTYN
Saturday 23 June, 2018
12 Vaughan St | Llandudno | LL30 1AB | UK
11am Exhibition Tour | 2:30pm Conversation with Artists
The two artists, currently showing at MOSTYN, each address contemporary issues around environmental sustainability and the impact of human activity on our natural world.
Forms of Tension
Ewa Axelrad // Profile of the Artist
By Alfredo Cramerotti
THE SEEN
Download the full Artist Profile here
Evgeny Antufiev Organic resistance: body and knife – crossing the border | Press Coverage
MOSTYN
18 November – 18 February 2018
Guardian Guide | Exhibitions Openings: Evgeny Antufiev, 24 November 2017
Mousse Magazine | Evgeny Antufiev: “Miles of Creativity” at Mostyn, Llandudno, November 2017
The Artists Information Company | NOW SHOWING #228: The week’s top exhibitions, 15 January 2018
Daily Post | Creative Surprises to be found around town, 29 December 2017
Daily Post | Spotlight on local arts and crafts, 12 January 2018
https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FITVWales%2Fvideos%2F1492338550813332%2F&show_text=0&width=476“>ITV Wales Coverage, November 2017
Alfredo Cramerotti in conversation with Francesco Jodice Italian Cultural Institute, London
Francesco Jodice, What We Want, Phi Phi Ley, R18, 2003
Saturday 19 May 2018 | 6pm
39 Belgrave Square SW1X 8NX
The exchange between the artist Francsco Jodice and the curator Alfredo Cramerotti is centred on the question of “fragments”. What we usually expect is a linear explanation of the phenomena we encounter (in the Western philosophical tradition) but in reality there are areas of our existence that we can only give meaning to by approaching them in a circular way.
The snapshot of a system (in this case, a given society) is also the snapshot of the people who compose it, and especially of the artist who works on “giving sense” to that system in which he is living.
For the Love of Air Liquid
Opening exhibition 18th – 30th April 2018, Chamber of Public Secrets’ new media art production and exhibition space, Media Art Research Center (MARC), Antalya
Fernissage 18th April 2018 at 17:00 – 19:00
Artists: Ferhat Ozgur, Stefano Cagol, Ursula Biemann, Oliver Ressler, Khaled Ramadan and Hanna Ljungh
Curated by Khaled Ramadan and Alfredo Cramerotti
For the love of air liquid
Water’s impact on human happiness
I his book, Blue Mind, biologist Wallace J. Nichols published the surprising science showing how being near, in, on, or under water can make us happier, healthier, more connected and better at what we do.
Nichols analyzes the emotional, behavioral, psychological and physical connections that keep humans so mesmerized by water. He studies seas and oceans, lakes and rivers, and even swimming pools, and urges people to get closer to water if they wish to change their neurological, psychological and emotional experiences. Nichols draws on science, art, and narrative, as well as plenty of experience, to explain his blue mind in detail. Not just what it is, but how we can enter into this state, and, perhaps most importantly, why we should do so.
In order to know why water is one of our sources of happiness, or even a source of misery, we need to observe and analyze a very complex social science in conjunction with natural science: human relation to nature and the natural.
When we intend to shape nature, it changes and influences our living conditions. Due to this out-of-balance climatological interrelationship several vital elements of our survival are being affected. Water is becoming scarcer in some parts of the world while in other parts people suffer from the extra quantities of water falling from the sky or pumping from underneath.
In the scenarios of the world’s water bodies, only 3 percent of the water on the earth’s surface is fresh and drinkable, while 97 percent of the water is salty. The 3 percent fresh water is shared amongst the billions of the world’s population. Water shortage will soon hit cities and towns across the world, and the problem is increasing as populations are increasing. Industrialization and pollution are causing damage, and the greenhouse effect is having a negative impact, which leads to climate change that directly affects water sources. In an increasingly crowded and congested world, water supply has become scarcer and more contaminated.
Waste from industries and human settlements in most underdeveloped countries are drained into rivers and seas, leading to dying oceans. A good example of this is the Mediterranean Sea. Another example is one of Asia’s longest rivers, the Mekong River, where thousands of people have settled by the riverbank. The same analogy can be applied to the Nile River in Africa and to other rivers across the world. Lakes, rivers, seas and oceans used to be a source of human happiness and prosperity, but mass contamination, overfishing, and water scarcity have reduced many of them to transportation highways.
The exhibition,For the Love of Air Liquid, presents an opportunity to address the issue of water in a time of a crashing climate. The works of the invited artists examine our fascination with the water scene in detail. They are dedicated to helping us understand and enjoy a selection of contemporary art that provides inspiration and knowledge.
Curators
Khaled Ramadan and Alfredo Cramerotti
More information here.
Curatorview [Alfredo Cramerotti] 
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