Author: MK

Categories
Art & Culture

Is Blogging (a valid form of) Art Criticism?


Akinci – Image courtesy Art Amsterdam

I’m taking part in an experiment, the Art Amsterdam Medialab, at this year’s Art Amsterdam art fair. The Art Amsterdam Medialab is produced by Art Amsterdam, Domein voor Kunstkritiek, and De Groene Amsterdammer. With 133 galleries from Europe, North America and Asia participating, Art Amsterdam is the largest contemporary and modern art fair in the Netherlands. The mission of the Art Amsterdam Medialab is to utilise a team of bloggers to report on the fair, ask critical questions, and take part in a debate about the definition and positioning of art criticism.

We’ll be posting our interviews and reports on the blog, so keep an eye on it, and also follow my Twitter feed as well as the Twitter accounts for the Medialab project, for Art Amsterdam, and for the Domain for Art Criticism. You can also track the Twitter hashtag #AA11.

If you are in town, a highlight will be the debate we’re holding on Thursday the 12th of May, at 13.00 at the Art Amsterdam fair. The debate is entitled Is Blogging Art Criticism?

The primary reason for the debate is to examine the shift of art criticism from traditional media to blogging and other social media, and another reason for this debate is that the major Dutch arts funder the Mondriaan Stichting rejected financing the Art Amsterdam Medialab experiment, as in their view, blogging is not art criticism.

Fortunately, the Mondriaan Stichting wants to elaborate on that in this debate. Madeleine van Putten of the Mondriaan Stichting will talk about their arguments and visions with director of Nest/reporter Eelco van Lingen, editor-in-chief Kunstbeeld Roos van Put. Yours truly, Michelle Kasprzak, and new media journalist/NRC blogger Ine Poppe represent the active, at-the-coalface side of critical blogging. This quick and dirty debate of an hour will address issues like blogging as a proper medium for art criticism, and the dangers and the possibilities as criticism expands in this manner.

Hope to see you at Art Amsterdam! If there are any angles you think would be interesting for us to cover, please drop me a line or comment on this post.

Categories
Urban

My First Foray into Foraging

As part of the The Middle Kingdom of Weeds Festival (World Wide Festival of Psychogeography and Foraging 2011) I met up with a group of people to do a wander around Amsterdam Sloterdijk and forage for food. The walk also had a caloric analysis angle, wherein we’d weigh what we had foraged at the end and contrast that with the calories expended by foraging. The walk was hosted by Wilfried Hou Je Bek and Theun Karelse.

We used one of Wilfried’s .walk algorithms to direct our walking pattern. We each had a piece of paper with the algorithm on it, which was loosely based on the behaviour of the ghosts in Pac-Man. Embodying the spirit of Blinky, Inky, Pinky, and Clyde, we ventured off in search of things to eat in among the underpasses, roundabouts, highrises and industrial estates of this area of Amsterdam. I’ll admit, I was a little sceptical that we would find anything tasty.

But in the end, we did. We found numerous edible green things, including an abundance of wild rocket. Our teams also found a cousin of garlic, wild carrot, unripe sloeberries, and places where raspberry plants were thriving (but no berries today, unfortunately). We mapped some of these finds on the Boskoi Android app so other foragers can find these things.

We met back with the other team at the station and tallied up our goods. We determined that if we had to live off the day’s haul, we’d certainly starve. Key to better nutrition would be getting our hands on some nuts and berries, and adding a little hunting and fishing to the mix. I took some of the wild rocket home and was keen to eat it for lunch, and also compare it to the bag of rocket I had just purchased at Albert Heijn the day before.

Taste testing revealed that the store-bought rocket was considerably milder in flavour than the wild rocket, which had a wonderfully peppery bite. I sautéed the wild rocket with a bit of olive oil and some of the garlic-like stuff we had harvested. Very, very delicious. I think I might have to go back and forage some more.

View all photos here.

Categories
Art & Culture

My FutureEverything 2011 picks

Meme Topology by sosolimited

I’m gutted that I’ll be missing FutureEverything in Manchester next week (11-14 May). For the lucky ones going, I thought I’d highlight the things I’d be bee-lining to if I was there.

OK well hang on, for those of you who have just tuned in, let me back up and say what FutureEverything is: an annual four day extravaganza of live music, art premieres, inspiring talks, club nights and events. In short, Fun with a capital F, but you can also sell it to your bosses as professional development and get them to send you.

On to this year’s programme! I wouldn’t miss talks by Sally Fort, Keri Facer, Chris Speed, Ela Kagel, Juha van ‘t Zelfde, and Kars Alfrink. (More info on the conference here). I’d be sure to check out the Steve Reich and Warpaint gigs, and would also be spotted at the ultra-intriguing Handmade event, a day devoted to contemporary craft, digital hacking, and DIY culture. In fact digital craft and maker communities seem to play a big role in the programming this year, which I think is great.

Anyway. Sigh — I can’t go. Hope you’ll be blogging and tweeting madly so I can have a taste of the experience.

Categories
Art & Culture

Lovely Flanders (Stupid, Sexy Flanders*)


[NRS] # s.p.o.r.e.s_2 by Frederik de Wilde

BAM (Flemish Institute for visual, audiovisual, and media art) is an organisation based in Ghent that “provides information, and encourages development and networking” and “encourages collaboration and exchange between Flemish organisations and institutions abroad and tries to increase the interest in and knowledge of the Flemish art scene”. Their International Visitor’s Programme is a key component of their overall activities, with several invitations extended each year to foreign art professionals. I was fortunate enough to be invited and had a bespoke programme created for me that extended over four days and four cities in Flanders this February.

For the four days, Brussels was my base and I travelled throughout the region either by car with my gracious host, Nele Samyn from BAM, or I used the extensive Belgian train system. Nele was a great guide who designed a perfect programme for me, and answered all my general questions about the cultural situation in Flanders in between the scheduled meetings.

It’s going to sound like a bit of a cop out, but there were so many things that I saw and people that I spoke with that making a big list of it would be a bit meaningless. So I’ll just single out some highlights that are easy to summarise:

In terms of commiserating with colleagues, it was a great pleasure to meet Eva De Groote at Timelab, and see what’s cooking there with their lab and their artist in residence programme. It was inspiring to visit Netwerk, a terrific and fairly large centre for contemporary art in the fairly small town of Aalst (home to fewer than 80,000 people). I greatly enjoyed dining with artist Frederik de Wilde, hearing all about his fascinating work (and getting some free Dutch lessons on the side). Going to Argos resulted in a lovely chat with Paul Willemsen, then spending a solid hour in their galleries being blown away by “Sea of Tranquillity”, a piece by Hans Op de Beeck. I had a fabulous time at the Artefact festival in Leuven, especially the opening night and a group meal with several of the artists and festival curators. I had previously seen the work of Koen Vanmechelen in Den Haag, and I was very keen to meet him. Despite busy schedules all round we managed to meet for a great discussion over coffee in Leuven. BAM makes all your wishes come true!

I walked away from my brief visit to Flanders with a head full of artworks and a pocket full of business cards, but I also departed with a new conviction: that every country should have a programme such as this. This quick and intense introduction to the art scene in Flanders was invaluable to me as a curator. I saw dozens of artworks, attended a festival, viewed many individual shows, had studio visits with several artists, and met a number of fellow curators. It was a packed four days that I could never have organised on my own. I also now feel like I have a good grip on the aspects of the Flemish art scene that are relevant to me as a curator, something that can only be accomplished due to the bespoke nature of the programme. A generic version of this programme with a one-size-fits-all approach just wouldn’t work as well. I hope that BAM continues this programme long into the future, and that other places adopt their exemplary model.

Cross-posted to Curating.info.
* Couldn’t resist the Simpsons joke.