Hordaland Kunstsenter

Through this seminar we wish to explore the overall theme for B-open 2010, To produce an art scene, by following historical lines and by initiating a discussion on art and the mechanisms at play on the art scene. The invited speakers represent both the local art scene in Bergen as well as other international contexts, and will give diverse views on the theme. The focus will be on the art and the framework it is produced within. We wish to show the positive and energetic art scene of Bergen and Hordaland, however not by praising the local or being self-centred.

By addressing how art is in a constant state of being produced, we want to look at art and art production in a social perspective and examine the mechanisms within the field of art. How is the art scene organised? What conditions are needed to create a lively art scene? What competence exists and what distinguishes the projects initiated? And of course: How does the interplay between the different actors on the art scene affect what art is actually being produced?

Thursday October 28: 14.30-16.45 (Norwegian and Swedish)
Friday October 29: 10.00-16.30 (English)

The B-open seminar this year will take place in Tårnsalen at Bergen Art Museum.

Registration: b-open[a]kunstsenter.no
Price: 300,- (to be paid at the door)
The seminar is free for students and participants at B-open 2010

THURSDAY OCTOBER 28
14.30: Welcome by B-open
14.45-15.30: Frode Sandvik (curator, Norway)

Ginseng and luke warm tea –the Bergen art scene in a historical perspective
By Frode Sandvik (curator, Bergen Art Museum, Norway)
Sandvik will discuss the formation of young art communities in the 1960s and 90s Bergen, respectively the artist initiatives Gruppe 66/Finnegårdskretsen and Gallery Otto Plonk; how they each in their own way have influenced the Bergen art scene and to what extent these models are comparable to the current situation. The lecture is based on Sandvik's research for the exhibition BGO Vol1, which he is co-curating.

Questions

15.45-16.30:
From source of inspiration to production site – Reflections on Western artists' changing views on the Far East
By Love Jönsson (writer an design- and craft critic, Sweden)
How is art and the artistic expression influenced by the geographic location where the production of art takes place? Jönsson will talk about outsourcing of art production, as exemplified by the fact that many Western artists today produce ceramics and sculpture in China. Does it imply increased diversity or rather uniformity? What moral implications are to be considered?

Questions

16.45: End

FRIDAY OCTOBER 29
10:00: Welcome by B-open

10.15-11.00:
The audience as producers
By Maaretta Jaukkuri (professor and artistic director, Norway)
On the art scene it is the task of institutions and other public and private organizations to mediate art, which means that if any of these is a part of the art scene their audiences are also part of it. Jaukkuri will discuss the role of the audience based on her own experiences as director and participant on the art scene. Discussions on the role of the audience has changed during the last decades as artists continually develop new “privileged viewpoints” for their works; and categories and phrases such as participatory art, the audience as producers and relational aesthetics have been created. How does one attend to the more passive viewer, and how is this too part of creating an art scene

Questions

11.15-12.00:
The art scene and the building of insitutions: Douala
By Goody Leye (Artist, Cameroon)
Leye will talk on the establishing of the Art Bakery in Bonendale, Douala, and art space for art production and mediation in Cameroon, as well as in Africa. Leye will also discuss aspects of the audience and publics for which the art is produced. He knows both the European and African art contexts well, and has through his work found individual ways to reach his goals, both artistically and structurally.

Questions

12.15-13.15: Lunch

13.15-14.00:
Learning from Philanthropy
By Kit Hammonds (curator, England)
Hammonds’ presentation will concern the imperatives within the cultural economy that have opened the door to social practices and educational remit of contemporary art. Rather than looking at those artists who utilise pedagogic and public engagement within their work, this study will propose a parallel current that has allowed this new form of aesthetic engagement to emerge within the museum and gallery. This alternative reading begins with cultural policy that, for better or worse, inscribes an educative function onto art. Such policy emerges in the twentieth century and finds its origins in the work of philanthropists at the end of the nineteenth century, when many of today’s arts institutions are established. In parallel to this discussion the paper will propose that these developments emerge from a schism in the social function of the artist as technology increasingly takes over the role of
visual representation.

Questions

14.15-15.00:
QUALITY. POWER. LANGUAGE.
-Definitions of quality. And the power of definitions
By Gabrielle Haga (MA in theatre studies, Norway)
Is linguistic power exercised in the definition of artistic quality? If so, to whom does this language and power belong? That is, who defines what is good art and bad art? In an art world that now exists with fragmented and mixed genres and artistic expressions, how is the concept of quality handled by artists and by the Norwegian cultural authorities? Gabrielle Haga has through interviews and analysis of documents attempted to determine trends in the definition of categories, how we talk about quality, how to formulate artistic quality in writing, and what is interpreted as the qualitative characteristics in arts projects in the field of performing arts; in funding applications and in reports from the Parliament.

Questions

15.15-16.00:
Back to School!
By Sonia Dermience (curator, Belgium)
Dermience will talk about The Public School, which she co-started with the curator collective Komplot in Brussels 2009. Originally started in Los Angeles, it is a school with no curriculum that has opened branches in eight other cities on the initiative of local organizations. The classes and the themes discussed at The Public School happens upon request from the public, and an openness to trans-disciplinary practices and engagements in order to re-think i.e. ethics, aesthetics, politics, education and subjectivity is at the core of the concept. Dermience will discuss examples of classes made in Brussels during the last year and why and how Komplot have internalised an already existing project and made it to their own. She will also address how The Public School relates to the global and the local art discourse, asking: As the art scene and the production of art is globalised, is the art discourse becoming generic? Given that it is, what is the relevance of actually meeting up, physically, to discuss and to learn?

Questions

16.15: Summary by B-open
16.30: End

Biographies:

Sonia Dermience (b.1971), curator, Brussels. Founded Komplot in 2002, a curatorial collective concerned with nomadic creative practices, trends of specialisation and the infiltration of private, public and institutional space. Projects such as The Public School, Vollevoxor Architecture of Survival explore new terrain in relation to objects, spaces, artists and the public. She has conducted extensive research into post '68 collaborative art practices in her native country of Belgium; organising seminars and making two documentary films (under the pseudonym Catherine Vertige) in collaboration with Kosten Koper. Komplot founded The Public School in Brussels, November 2009, in a joint venture with a residency program for artists and curators at Brussels’ culture lab Nadine that is now continued in Komplot's new venue.

Gabrielle Haga (b. 1983), Oslo. Holds an MA in theatre studies from the University of Oslo, with the thesis Art and power. An analysis of the power of language in definitions of the quality of art. Also educated market economist from BI - Norwegian School of Management, 2008, and BA in Aesthetic studies from the University of Oslo. In 2005 she was an assessor and researcher with Danseinformasjonen, Dance Information Norway. She has also worked with and been acting at Agder Teater, Fjæreheia, and co-produced Skral Music Festival in Grimstad between 2003 and 2008.

Kit Hammonds, freelance curator and writer, as well as a tutor on the MA Curating Contemporary Art course at the Royal College of Art, London. In 2004 he established Publish and be Damned; an annual self-publishing fair for artist produced magazines, fanzines and journals. Publish and be Damned also includes an itinerant public library and occasional events and performances. From 2005 to 2008, he was a curator at the South London Gallery.

Maaretta Jaukkuri (b. 1944), professor and artistic director of Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo. She has been involved in the production of a number of both Nordic and international exhibitions for the last thirty years. Between 1990 and 2007 she was the senior curator at the KIASMA in Helsinki, and she also co-curated the major international sculpture programme Artscape Nordland. She has also been curator for the Nordic pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 1988, the European section of the Saõ Paulo Biennale in 1998, Skulpturbiennalen in Oslo and Lillehammer in 2001 and Lofoten International Art Festival in 2006. Since 2004, she has had a position as Professor at the Faculty of Architecture and Fine art in Trondheim.

Love Jönsson (b. 1975), writer and educator, Gothenburg. Jönsson is a critic and teaches at the School of Design and Crafts at the University of Gothenburg. He has curated several exhibitions, including Tendenser:Transmission at Gallery F15, Moss, 2007. As a writer, he has contributed to over fifty exhibition catalogues and books, and was editor of the anthology Craft in Dialogue: Six Views on a Practice in Change (Stockholm, Iaspis 2005). President and publisher of Paletten, the oldest active art journal in Sweden.

Frode Sandvik (b. 1976), art historian, Bergen. Sandvik has been curator at the Bergen Art Museum since 2007 where he has been project manager and curator for Fiona Tan - Mirror Maker (2006), Kjell Bjørgeengen / Aernoudt Jacobs (2007), In Paul Klee magical garden (2009), LudvigEikaas - retrospective (2009), and co-curator of BlodigAlvor- Norwegian art in the 1980s and BGO Vol1 (both 2010). Sandvik has written texts and interviews on contemporary Norwegian art, including the monograph LudvigEikaas (Labyrinth Press, 2009).

Goddy Leye (b.1965), artist, Douala. Leye’s works have been featured in exhibitions such as Africa Remix (2004-2007), the 7th Bamako Biennale, Mali (2007), Sao Paulo Biennale (2002), Dak’Art (2000) and Havana Biennale (2000). He is a former resident of the Gasworks Studios, London (2008) and the Rijksakademie, Amsterdam (2001-2002). In 2003, Goddy Leye founded the Art Bakery, an artist residency programme housed in his own studio in Bonendale, near Douala. Art Bakery provides local, regional and international artists with the intellectual and material means to develop their artistic practice, with an emphasis on multimedia art. In 2006, Exit Art, a Grand Tour organised by Art Bakery took Cameroonian artists from Douala, through Lagos, Cotonou, Lomé, Accra, Ouagadougou and Bama to the Dak’Art Biennale.

Curated by Toril Johannessen and Anne Szefer Karlsen on behalf of B-open.