Participants: Hanan Benammar, Anna Dasovic, Aziza Harmel, Anneke Ingwersen, Sarah Jones, Liu Yi, Marianna Maruyama, Quenton Miller, Sofia Ocana Urwitz, Abner Preis, Kim Schonewille, Tommy Soro, Larraitz Torres Zumelaga, Silvia Ulloa

All guests / meetings:

Liverpool: Paul Sullivan at Static

Arnhem: Nishant Shah, Simon Ferdinando, Olav Velthuis, Stephen Wright, Jakob Jakobsen, Marsha Bradfield & Neil Cummings/ Critical Practice, Rene Gabri and Ayreen Anastas, Brett Bloom / Temporary Services, Anthony Iles / Mute, Tone Nielsen / Kuratorisk-Aktion.

New York: Tom Miller at Proteus Gowanus, Project M-float at IDEAS CITY, Natalie Jeremijenko, Robert Kloos at The Dutch Consulate, Tom Finkelpearl at The Queens Museum, Tania Bruguera at Immigrant Movement/Arte Util, Steven Rand at Apex Art, Chus Martinez at El Barrio Museum, Katie Neff and Amy Whitaker at Sotheby's, REV, Yona Backer at Third Streaming, MOMA, 16 Beaver, Jeffrey Raven at the High Line, Sal Randolph, Museum of the American Indian, launch e-fluxjournal #44 with Carlos Motta, Gregg Bordowitz, Malik Gaines, Pati Hertling and Eileen Miles, Nato Thompson at Creative Time, WAGE at Artistspace, Flux Factory, Lauren Haynes at Studio Museum Harlem, Anton Vidokle and Julieta Aranda at e-flux, Gregory Sholette at Gotham Centre.

Introduction

The focus of this project will be on art and economy, looking at artistic practice and curatorial positions whilst investigating models of sustainability. With the increasing loss of state and public monies, privatization is becoming more and more prevalent and almost an accepted means with neo-liberal governments. How will this affect the culture industry, an expansive sector that is increasingly incorporating other fields of inquiry, along with their financial systems and structures of support, in processes of art-related activities ?

Every month our guests (artists, curators, theorists, economists, etc.) will introduce their manifold approaches that reflect our changing times. These will range from the institutional (museum, biennial, kunsthal, kunstverein) to private initiatives (galleries, art fairs, salons) to artist run spaces. What examples are already out there that can provide inspiration ?

In which ways can we best navigate through the various markets, plausible artworlds and alternative economies in order to produce engaged works that are connected to greater society? Encompassing a range of models we will investigate contemporary art and its economies: attention, reputational, gift, debt, community, informal, collaborative, performative, post-industrial, human. We will also explore contemporary arts relationship to its existent and well-known financial models (patron, gallerist, dealer, state) along with its present and future predicament in a post-Fordist society: dematerialization, cognitive labour, precarity, semio-capitalism, creative industries, crowdfunding, symbolic and social capital. In doing so we will attempt to answer questions in regard to art's function, its presence in the public sphere but also its present instrumentalisation.

From Month To Month

Here

Read more about how this project is embedded in the  First Year Course Structure 2012-2013.