Art Expanded. From theory to practice, and back again.
Lecture at MA in Art and Media Practice in the University of Westminster
Guest speaker: Alfredo Cramerotti, curator at QUAD, Derby, presents his art-as-research practice as curator of Manifesta 8 and author of the book Aesthetic Journalism How to Inform Without Informing (Intellect, 2009).
Session format: Visual Lecture. The author will give a lecture illustrated with images of the artworks of M8 and the book followed by Q&A
Abstract: ” My curatorial approach is not about creating new (artistic) knowledge but rather shifting existing modes of knowledge production and distribution. It implies entering a mutual relationship with other systems such as mass media, science, law, architecture or other areas, constantly shifting society’s perception of itself through non-artistic disciplines.
In my most recent curatorial project, the European biennial of contemporary art Manifesta 8, Region of Murcia, Spain, I opened up a space for artists to cross boundaries with the realm of media information and communication, a daunting terrain as opposed as the ‘safe’ environment of art. By creating new sequences of knowledge and generating what I regard as ‘aesthetic journalism’, artists and audiences alike become active participants of the curatorial concept since they become a part of the information chain, of the sequence of knowledge.
The talk will investigate this approach, from the development of the concept to its practical implementation, and will open up to the audience to discuss how hybrid practices – think about biopolitics, sustainable development, experiential reality and other processes that are the sum of different parts of ‘set’ disciplines- are re-constituting us and our world on a daily basis.”
Reading for week 05
Visit the following websites:
- Alfredo Cramerotti’s own website for text and image resources
- Manifesta 8 website
http://www.manifesta8.com/manifesta/manifesta8.home
Download the press dossier
http://www.murciaturistica.es/manifesta8/descarga_en_9.pdf
read about the projects
http://www.manifesta8.com/manifesta/manifesta8.manifesta_artists
http://www.manifesta8.com/manifesta/manifesta8.artists_commissioners
- Curatorial statement
Alcramer, 210. Curating in the context of Manifesta 8: A conversation between ACAF (Alexandria Contemporary Art Forum), CPS (Chamber
of Public Secrets – Alfredo Cramerotti & Khaled Ramadan) and tranzit.org. [online] Available at: http://www.alcramer.net/cms/publications/Curating%20in%20the%20context%20of%20M8_cut_invisible%C2%A0.pdf [Accessed 7 October 2010].
- Cramerotti, A., 2009. Aesthetic Journalism How to Inform Without Informing. London: Intellect.
Full text available as electronic resource in Westminster catalogue
- Aesthetic Journalism: wikipedia entry
http://en.wikipedia/org/wiki/Aesthetic_Journalism
Etivity for week 05
In the blog “An ABC of Aesthetic Journalism” you are invited to choose one letter from A to Z to respond to the book and Fay’s response to it.
http://fayinc.wordpress.com/category/1-about/
“We invite you to engage in the ABC blog by responding to a post/s or by creating your own. You can add to, comment on, critique, extend, oppose or digress from the current content. Responses can take the form of text, image, video, audio or web link. Directly or indirectly consider our opening bullet points in relation to this invitation. Your approach can be academic, artistic, communicative, reflexive, objective or personal. The only rules are that you cannot delete existing content and that responses are indexed in their respective alphabetical category. You will be given the username and password to the blog.” Alfredo Cramerotti / Fay Nicolson
After you post in the ABC blog, post the full text in the TP blog, with a permalink to your text in the ABC blog.
Radio Papesse Interview: Alfredo Cramerotti – Chamber of Public Secrets @ Manifesta8
RADIO Papesse INTERVISTA/INTERVIEW
Alfredo Cramerotti – CPS
15 NOVEMBRE 2010
>>the interview is in English<<
>>English text below<<
Il discorso sulla contaminazione e il dialogo fra mondo mediatico e mondo artistico non è nuovo. In fondo si può sostenere che l’arte, in ogni sua espressione ‘deve utilizzare dei media’ e che questi attingono a piene mani dall’immaginario artistico; è un dibattito che probabilmente non avrà mai fine e che è nato e sviluppato a pari passo con i media elettronici, dalla nascita della radio e del cinema ad oggi.
Ma cosa succede se si parla di ‘industria dei media’? se un insieme di artisti, scrittori, intellettuali viene invitato a confrontarsi con i sistemi della produzione medicata contemporanea?
È quanto hanno fatto Alfredo Cramerotti e Khaled Ramadan insieme al collettivo Chamber of Public Secrets – cps con il loro progetto per Manifesta8.
CPS non è una struttura formale, non ha una data di fondazione o un’agenda prestabilita, è un gruppo trasversale, un ‘meta-luogo’ di discussione e analisi critica ed è uno dei gruppi curatoriali di Manifesta8.
Abbiamo parlato insieme a Cramerotti di CPS, del metodo utilizzato nel lavoro curatoriale, del loro invito a confrontarsi con le strutture produttive dei media per la creazione di progetti artistici.
la musica che accompagna l’intervista è tratta dall’album a bell and a mirror di Let’s drive to Alaska pubblicato dalla netlabel muertepop
–
The contamination and encounter dicourse about the artworld and the mediatic world isn’t new.
It is a never-ending debate born and developed together with the electronic media: form the early days of radio and cinema until nowadays.
But what happen when we talk about the media industry? what happen when a group of artists, writers, intellectuals is invited to deal with the contemporary media industry production system?
It is what Alfredo Cramerotti and Khaled Ramadan did together with the Chamber of Public Secrets – cps collective curating their project for Manifesta8.
CPS isn’t a formal structure, do not have an official founding date or a fixed agenda, is an horizontal group, an ensemble of dicussion and critical thinking and is one of the curatorial teams of Manifesta8.
We talked with Cramerotti about CPS, about their curatorial method, their invitation to deal with the production structures of the media industry for the creation artistic projects.
The music used in this interview is A bell and a mirror by Let’s drive to Alaska published by the netlabel muertepop
Questa opera è prodotta da Radio Papesse, un progetto di Ilaria Gadenz e Carola Haupt
Kunstforum International: CPS for Manifesta 8
Die Europäische Biennale zeitgenössischer Kunst die Region Murcia (Spanien) im Dialog mit Nordafrika
Texte und Auswhal: Susanne Boecker
Fotorundgang: Wolfgang Träger
TVE Metropolis – Manifesta 8
Special Metropolis TV format from TVE Spain about Manifesta 8 / CPS Chamber of Public Secrets
Penetration at Manifesta 8
Penetration at Manifesta 8 / for Northern African artists only
Manifesta
Thierry Geoffroy / Colonel, Penetration Space
until 9 January 2011
San Anton Prison
Cartagena
Spain
1@colonel.dk
www.manifesta8.es
Penetration
A Penetration is the act of an artist placing an artwork within another artist’s existing exhibition.
Manifesta
At Manifesta Biennial Thierry Geoffroy / Colonel is opening his exhibition space for last minute Penetrations.
The Colonel’s Penetration space at Manifesta is reserved only to artists from Northern Africa having pertinent work about today.
The theme of the Manifesta Biennial is: “in dialogue with Northern Africa”
Procedure
To be part of the Penetration, artists from Northern Africa can just come and install their work at San Anton Prison in Cataregna on any day that they have a pertinent art work. Every time they install a Penetration work they are kindly asked to send photographs of their installation to Thierry Geoffroy / Colonel so the blog can be updated and a catalogue created: 1@colonel.dk
Thierry Geoffroy / Colonel has responded to the invitation to take part at Manifesta by the curators of CPS: Khaled Ramadan and Alfredo Cramerotti and is co-working with BIENNALIST
Thierry Geoffroy creates a debating format.
More info on this Penetration:
www.emergencyrooms.org/manifesta/penetration.html
Penetration format
www.emergencyrooms.org/penetration.html
contact
Thierry Geoffroy / Colonel: 1@colonel.dk
Inside-Out: David Rych at Manifesta 8
Art In America – International Review
by Ana Vukadin 10/27/10
Region of Murcia embraces Manifesta 8
The Region of Murcia embraces Manifesta 8 – more than 30.000 visits in the first week
Manifesta8, the European Biennial of Contemporary Art, takes place in the Region of Murcia (Spain) in dialogue with northern Africa, from October 9, 2010 until January 9, 2011
Image: Opening of Manifesta 8 at the former post office in Murcia, venue of Manifesta 8.
© Ilya Rabinovich
http://www.manifesta8.es/ http://www.manifesta.org
+34 868 950 750
contact@manifesta8.es
On October 9, 2010, Manifesta8, the European Biennial of Contemporary Art with its special focus on stimulating the dialogue with northern Africa, opened in the Region of Murcia in south-eastern Spain. Manifesta 8 showcases art from all disciplines featuring multi-media installation, film, performance, dance and music, and makes use of both traditional and unconventional art channels in co-operation with such media outlets as newspapers, radio, television and the Internet.
The event was officially opened by Ramón Luis Valcárcel Siso (President of the Region of Murcia), Pedro Alberto Cruz Sánchez (Minister of Culture and Tourism for the Region of Murcia), Miguel Ángel Cámara (Mayor of Murcia), Pilar Barreiro (Mayor of Cartagena) and Hedwig Fijen (President Manifesta 8/Director Manifesta Foundation).
In the first week Manifesta 8 has counted the record number of more than 30.000 visits by local audience, artists, curators, art professionals from around the globe and over 500 international journalists (source: Regional Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Region of Murcia). Emerging from the experiences gained through former Manifesta Biennials, Manifesta 8 focuses on the concept of collective curating and has been developed by three curatorial teams coming from the most diverse areas of Europe including Scandinavia, the U.K., Central Europe and the Mediterranean as well as the Middle East and the U.S. The curatorial team of Manifesta 8 is composed of ACAF – Alexandria Contemporary Arts Forum (Bassam El Baroni, Jeremy Beaudry), CPS – Chamber of Public Secrets (Khaled Ramadan, Alfredo Cramerotti) and tranzit.org (Vít Havránek, Zbyněk Baladrán, Dóra Hegyi, Boris Ondreička, Georg Schöllhammer).
More than 85% of the exhibited works have been newly commissioned and produced by Manifesta 8, often supported by the most important international cultural bodies, art institutions, museums, art galleries and ministries of culture.
Manifesta Foundation places special focus on sustainability by building networks and creating goodwill in its host regions. “Manifesta 8 is not a social activists group, but many works in the biennial have been conceived in collaboration with unions, political parties, special interest groups, blind associations, the lottery, schools, and other educational services,” says Manifesta Director Hedwig Fijen. “By working with craftsmen, technicians and local professionals, Manifesta creates a greater know-how in the entire region, which remains longer after Manifesta has moved on.”
This is part of Manifesta’s spirit of collaboration, incorporating the use of otherwise discarded examples of local history, namely five previously abandoned buildings – Pavilions 1 and 2 at the former Artillery Barracks and the former Central Post Office in Murcia, the declassified San Anton Prison and the once popular El Parque Restaurant on the highest hill overlooking Cartagena. This is one of the sustainable effects of Manifesta in each of its successive editions. Manifesta leaves behind buildings which were under-utilized in the past, for future use for cultural and social events.
On Sunday, October 10, 2010 the Symposium “Bringing you the answers before you know the question: four positions regarding the idea of a pan-African roaming biennial” took place in Murcia as part of the “Incubator for a pan-African roaming Biennial” initiated in the framework of Manifesta 8. The Incubator is a one-year-long project formed in response to a proposal by two of Manifesta’s curators, Bassam El Baroni and Jeremy Beaudry of Alexandria Contemporary Arts Forum (ACAF), and relates to the motto “in dialogue with northern Africa”. It consists of the symposium during the opening weekend of Manifesta 8, the development of a website, a workshop in April 2011, and the production of a publication in September 2011.
On the same Sunday, October 10, 2010, Toronto-based professor of psychology, John M. Kennedy lectured at MUBAM, Museo de Bellas Artes de Murcia, one of the venues of Manifesta 8, to a large audience on the phenomenon of the blind painter Eşref Armağan whose contribution to the exhibition was curated by Chamber of Public Secrets.
Manifesta 8 – the roaming European Biennial of Contemporary Art is organized by the Manifesta Foundation (Amsterdam) together with the Region of Murcia. Access to all venues and education activities is free. More information on the ongoing education program can be found at: http://www.manifesta8.es/medular and booking via mediacion@manifesta8.es. The Manifesta 8 catalogue in English is available for purchase at http://www.silvanaeditoriale.it.
On the occasion of the opening of Manifesta 8, the next destination of the roaming Manifesta biennial was announced. In 2012 Manifesta 9 will be hosted by the region of Limburg, Belgium.
Curatorview [Alfredo Cramerotti] 
leave a comment