FORUM SEMINAR
THE ARTIST AS PRODUCER
What is the social role of art, and what status does art hold in today's knowledge society? What characterises the artist role as a producer today?
With a financial crisis as backdrop, an endangered grant system and the current "work- and income survey for artists" as a startin points, we would like to examine the characteristics of the roles of art and artists in our society. In two lectures and a debate we want to discuss the artist role in the light of general changes in society, and specifically in relation to changing organisastions of the work life.
The title of the seminar is inspired by Walter Benjamin's text The Authour as Producer from 1934. In a time marked by severe ideological conflict he demeanded the artists to announce their class sympathies and acknowledge their role in society. In this seminar we would like to hightlight different aspects of the artist role, and what it produces in the society.
This breakfast seminar, produced by BKFH and UKS, is part of BKFH's faglig forum and is composed by Toril Johannessen and Åse Løvgren.
Programme:
10.00 Coffee and breakfast
10.30 Introduction by Toril Johannessen and Åse Løvgren
10.45 Eivind Slettemeås: Luxury precariat & 3% Community
What does the fact that three percent lives off the market in the art world, and the rest believes that is good enough reason to live as luxury precariat? What parts of and how is the field of art in general influenced by formal and informal organisation; collectively, financially and hierarchically? And how is this organisation met with alternative models for art production?
11:30 Erlend Hammer: Art and experience economy
Art's role in the market economy is usually seen as an open critical space, but at the same time we know that painting is boosted whenever the economy is going well, while conseptual and critical strategies are explored in recessions. The artist is a participant in a broader community ecconomical reality, and the role of the artist is frequently related to other changes in how the market views work.This focus is however often tied to the artist role as producer, and is to a lesser degree tied to the viewer as consumer. Hammer will look at examples from contemporary art in the context of notions of experience economy, performative consumption and consumption of information.
12.15 Discussion and Q&A
12.45 The end
About the speakers:
Eivind Slettemeås, artist and authour of the recently published Kunst og prekaritet (Art and precarity, Torpedo Press, 2008), connects the artists's organsiation and financial conditions to a group in the working life which consists of voulnerable - precarious - occupations where the demand to be flexible, poorly paid and have few possibilities to organise is striking.
Erlend Hammer, currently writing his PhD in art histiry at the University in Bergen, will talk about how the artist role has changed in line with neo-liberal demands, where the production of knowledge in art can be compared to experience economy, and relational aesthetics is the art equivalent to event planning.
Welcome to the breakfast seminar The Artist as Producer at Hordaland Art Centre November 8th, 10: 30-12:45. Open to all, free, and including breakfast.
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This seminar is supported by Bergen Kommune, seksjon for kunst og kultur
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