Symposium: The Art Review: Most Wanted, Most Neglected

The one-day symposium focuses on the crisis of the art review. How do we deal with the most wanted and at the same time most neglected form of writing within the art world? The current situation will be assessed in talks and panel discussions.

Organised by Kunsthalle Zürich in collaboration with Pro Helvetia and Office for Contemporary Art Norway, in dialogue with Critical Writing Ensembles.

Hosted by LUMA Westbau

Current schedule:

1:00 Welcome by Daniel Baumann (Director and Curator Kunsthalle Zürich)

1:30 Introduction by Marianne Burki (Head of Visual Arts Pro Helvetia, Zürich), Diana Campbell Betancourt (Chief Curator Dhaka Art Summit, Dhaka), Katya García-Antón (Director Office for Contemporary Art Norway, Oslo)

2:00 Keynote lecture by Mike Sperlinger (Professor of Writing and Theory, Oslo Academy of Art)

2:45 Coffee break

3:00 Lecture by Belinder Dhanoa (writer and artist, Delhi)

3:45 Lecture by Mustafa Zaman (artist and writer, Dhaka)

4:30 Coffee break

4:45 Lecture Ellinor Landmann (Editor for Culture, Swiss Radio and Television, Basel)

5:30 Panel discussion with Crritic (Daniel Morgenthaler, Aoife Rosenmeyer; both Zurich) and Brand-New-Life (Lucie Kolb, Judith Welter; both Zurich), moderated by Julia Moritz (curator, Zurich/Berlin)

6:30 Apero/Launch PROVENCE magazine (Tobias Kaspar, artist, Riga)

Critical writing is an initiative which was started by Pro Helvetia in Switzerland in 2013 with a series of workshops with various writers. One strand developed into The Critical Writing Ensemble, curated by the Office for Contemporary Art Norway, focusing on South Asia and planning to expand. The other strand developed as Crritic! touring across Switzerland over the last couple of years. Leading on from these iterations, Kunsthalle Zürich will host a day of presentations and discussions on art criticism through the lens of the review, taking place on Saturday, May 6, 2017, within the context of its current exhibition Speak, Lokal (on view through May 7, 2017).

This group show at Kunsthalle Zürich focuses on how artists worldwide investigate and broach local conditions and their ambiguity. The highly contested territory of the Local is perceived both, as a place of autonomy and liberation – mainly by way of precision – and, at the same time, an instance of nationalism, provincialism, and commercialism; in short: a powerful fiction.

The symposium takes place on the final weekend of this exhibition, a moment of conclusion – and review. This symposium focuses on the genre of the review in art criticism, as it harbors a similar potential of both liberty and rigor, as much as insularity and capital. Art reviews are also mourned as a vanishing format in the ever tougher media-market of art. And yet it is precisely through the lens of the review – its specific demand and supply within public relations(hips), and the particular activity of reviewing as a critical practice – that broader questions of contemporary art criticism may best be addressed:

How to speak about art today? How to write for the here and now? How to simultaneously look back and/or elsewhere? And how to imagine the review of tomorrow – or to prepare it consequentially – an inevitable institutional responsibility of the future?

“I never met anybody who said when they were a kid, I wanna grow up and be a critic.” – is a quote by comedian Richard Pryor which serves to announce PROVENCE magazine’s final issue Criticism Now, to be launched on the special occasion of this symposium. True for curators too, we think, and invited two teachers of writing: Interested in artists undermining the distinction between artwork and critical commentary, Mike Sperlinger’s (Oslo Academy of Art) keynote lecture will introduce the notion of re-viewing alongside various historical reference; Belinder Dhanoa (Ambedkar University, Delhi) will share her rich and diverse insight into the intersections of art writing and art making subsequently.

Initially trained as a printmaker, also Mustafa Zaman’s art practice has become closely intertwined with art journalism. We’ll be eager to hear about the nuances in form and content from Bangladesh. While Swiss Radio editor Ellinor Landmann’s will expand the usual limitation of discussions on art criticism to word and image (print) towards the particular possibilities of radio reviews (sound); and Lucie Kolb and Judith Welter will tell us about the brand new possibilities of digital art reviewing (multi media), as is the challenge of brand-new-life.org, or quality in general.

The concluding panel discussion will be opened by Daniel Morgenthaler and Aoife Rosenmeyer who, by the name of Crritic!, are challenging themselves with workshops for a better exchange between art critics. They did it with us, in preparation to this symposium – and would like to discuss, with you!