I AM FOR AN ART CRITICISM THAT…

stedelijk|symposium
I AM FOR AN ART CRITICISM THAT…
A symposium on the use and influence of arts writing today

Date: Wednesday 28 November 2012, 4 - 9 PM
Location: Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Witte de Withstraat 50, Rotterdam
Entrance fee: € 10,-
Reservations: see www.wdw.nl.

Date: Thursday 29 November 2012, 4 – 6.30 PM
Location: Auditorium, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Museumplein 10, Amsterdam
Entrance fee: Visitors only pay entrance to the museum (discounts apply)
Reservations: It is necessary to make a reservation. You can make a reservation for this event by sending an e-mail to reservations@stedelijk.nl, stating your full name, e-mail address, telephone number, and the name and date of the event which you want to attend.

Prijs voor de Jonge Kunstkritiek Award Ceremony, 29 November, 7.30 – 9 PM
Following the end of the symposium at the Stedelijk Museum

Language: English

The Stedelijk Museum and Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, together with the Prijs voor de Jonge Kunstkritiek 2012, proudly present the symposium I AM FOR AN ART CRITICISM THAT…. During this two-day symposium a large number of international and national experts in the field art criticism and critique will explore and discuss the relationship between art journalism and art criticism, and make a plea for the kind of art critique they advocate. Following the symposium at the Stedelijk, the winner of the Prijs voor de Jonge Kunstkritiek will be announced in the new Auditorium of the museum.

A writer’s toughest critic is her or himself. Even though this adage is often repeated, an understanding of its character is usually reduced to a sequence of private conjectures in the individual writer: have I covered all the details accurately; why this word, or form, and not another; have I made an argument, and if not, why not, and most fundamentally, why am I writing this at all? In order to give a public voice to these questions and to question how value systems and related criteria must be constructed and communicated in order to answer them, the Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam) and Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art (Rotterdam) co-host the symposium I AM FOR AN ART CRITICISM THAT…  On two successive afternoons and evenings—one at each site respectively—an international roster of art writers are brought together – with a focus on the Dutch context and how it translates to an international one.
 
Where criticism is concerned, symposia organized in the field of the visual arts tend to focus on essayistic and academic style. Yet, little attention is given to the wider field of journalism, its relationship with art, and its general influence on shaping public perspective. As a point of comparison, ‘art criticism’ and ‘art journalism’ are by no means homogenous or definitive terms—and yet the two implied practices can be seen to be merging into a singular field where the reporting style is increasingly prioritizing ‘catchy headlines’ over relevant content. Expanding out from this pole, long form arts coverage itself is being reduced to “editor’s picks”, coded rating systems, and short summary reviews, with little space in which to substantiate their claims.  And while blogs, user-generated content, and citizen journalism have carved out new “independent” forums, their very nature forces each to live or die by tweets, re-tweets, likes, and faves. 

As more and more debates are being framed by these formats, and are shaped by these social pressures in turn, now is the time to ask if quick reviews allow opinion to be given without evidence, and if social affirmation can lead to the promotion of posturing over thought.  Likewise, when it comes to the cultural sphere, should objective neutrality be secured and maintained to counter the forces of publicity? Similarly to journalism, also known as the “fourth estate” – most commonly referring to news media or the press at large – should the arts have its own “estate” to hold conflicting interests at bay—be they social or commercial—and if so, what would its standards be? In any case, the issues at stake are larger than they may seem at first. 

Considering that artistic creation —and any form of analyses—requires the development of a strong critical facility, how can these activities advance without a healthy exchange of frequent and well-formed feedback? That is, how are the tools of critical reflection necessary, and how are they taught to us all so as to not only accurately describe a knowledge of things as such, but perhaps more importantly, to cultivate alternative formations of what could be?

The symposium’s title takes inspiration from artist Claes Oldenburg’s 1961 manifesto “I Am for an Art” and just like an art manifesto, a statement intended to shock, inspire or offend, I AM FOR AN ART CRITCISM THAT…, is a symposium that stages various live discussions with the aim to cover, and uncover, the fertile ground between the arts and journalism – between a journalism about and critique of art.

The symposium is organized on the occasion of the 2012 Prijs voor de Jonge Kunstkritiek (Young Art Critic’s Prize), an initiative of de Appel arts centre, the Mondriaan Fund and Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art. The prize is meant to stimulate young art critics and increase the media attention for art criticism and journalism of high qualitative standards. In 2012, the biannual prize is awarded for the third time. The year’s winners are announced during a ceremony at the Stedelijk Museum on Thursday 29 November 2012, from 7.30 to 9 pm, following the second day of the symposium taking place from 4 to 6.30 pm.

This symposium is conceived and organized by Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art (Rotterdam).

Participants symposium:

Ali Akay (Curator and Critic, Istanbul); Ahu Antmen (Critic, Istanbul); Defne Ayas (Director, Witte de With, Rotterdam); Ingrid Commandeur (Art critic and researcher, Rotterdam); Birgit Donker (Director, Mondriaan Foundation, Amsterdam); Maarten Doorman (Professor of Criticism of Arts and Culture, University of Amsterdam); Anthony Downey (Director of Contemporary Art, Sotheby’s Institute of Art and Editor of Ibraaz, London); Hendrik Folkerts (Curator of Public Program, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam); Amira Gad (Associate Curator, Witte de With, Rotterdam); Jörg Heiser (Art critic and Associate editor of Frieze Magazine, Berlin); Adam Kleinman (Independent writer, curator, New York / Rotterdam); Quinn Latimer (Poet and critic, Basel); Aimee Lin (Independent writer & Former editorial director and founding editor of Leap Magazine, Beijing); Carol Lu (Curator, Beijing); Sven Lütticken (Art critic and historian, Amsterdam); Vivian Sky Rehberg (Art historian, critic and Course Director of the Master of Fine Art at the Piet Zwart Institute, Paris/Rotterdam); Peter de Ruiter (Assistant Professor Modern and Contemporary Art, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen); Domeniek Ruyters (Editor in chief, Metropolis M, Utrecht);Marc Ruyters (Editor in chief, H ART, Antwerp); Anna Tilroe (Professor and Honorary Chair for Art and Culture, Radboud University, Nijmegen); Sonja van der Valk (Art critic and founder Domein voor Kunstkritiek, Amsterdam) Hrag Vartanian (Editor of Hyperallergic, New York); Barbara Visser (Artist, Amsterdam); Brian Kuan Wood (Writer, editor and co-founder of e-flux journal, New York).

Program:

Please download the full program of the two-day symposium here.
Note that some parts of the program are still subject to change.