[spectre] The Mousetrap (conference on dealing with institutions in contemporary curatorial practice) [u]

[Geert Lovink [c]]

> From: "Aneta Szylak" <aneta.szylak at wp.pl>
>
> The Mousetrap
> An international conference on dealing with institutions in 
> contemporary curatorial practice
> Dedicated to the memory of Rube Goldberg
>  
> WYSPA Institute of Art in Gdansk
> October 15-16, 2005
>  
> Organized by Wyspa Progress Foundation in Gdansk
> and Büro Kopernikus in Berlin
> www.wyspa.art.pl
> www.buero-kopernikus.org
>  
> Participants: Barnabas Bencsik, Nicolas Bourriaud, Sebastian Cichocki, 
> Hedwig Fijen, Maria Hussakowska, Maria Lind, Dorota Monkiewicz, Sune 
> Nordgren, Nicolas Schafhausen, Barbara Steiner, Jaroslaw Suchan, 
> Andrzej Szczerski, Thomas Wulffen
>  
> Conference curators: Aneta Szylak, Andrzej Szczerski
>  
> “Institution” became a keyword in the debates on art and art theory. 
> At the same time, artists started to confront the institution 
> critically. In their eye, “institution” was perceived as the 
> embodiment of art-world power but also as a world-on-its-own, waiting 
> to be deconstructed. In contrast to anti-institutional movements in 
> the 1960s, the contemporary reflection was pronounced in new 
> post-conceptual language. Besides, artists no longer wanted to abandon 
> the institutions, but rather reflect on how to enter into a dialogue 
> with them. The principal task was to negotiate and not to avoid.
>  
> The term “Mousetrap” in this context is being used in conjunction with 
> Rube Goldberg’s machine project, which influenced the imagination of 
> many, starting from artists and ending with computer game creators. 
> The very idea of big and funny machinery that accomplishes a little 
> appears to be a good metaphor for the ambiguity with which the art 
> institution is being seen today.  The entrapment of the artists or the 
> curator, and sometimes even the artwork, in the context of a 
> complicated and structured institutional engine is more than a shared 
> conviction. It is a commonplace. But there is a treat inside the trap 
> that makes it also alluring and attractive. The question we are asking 
> through the conference is the position of the curator working within 
> the institutional structure and outside it. How can one overcome the 
> obstacles of institutionalization? Are there any subversive strategies 
> that allow the independent curator to collaborate with such a 
> structure? What about an independent becoming a part or even the head 
> of an institution? How can the artists circumnavigate the boundaries 
> of an institutional framework? And what about new concepts and 
> examples of institutions, anti-institutions or quasi-institutions?
>  
> There is a good portion of new and innovative projects or older 
> institutions getting a refreshed image in the reaction to the 
> collapsing institutional décor. Regardless of that, the availability 
> of funding for spectacular institutional projects puts art 
> professionals into the game between fulfilling public expectations and 
> realizing individualistic ideas. Focusing on this cultural phenomenon, 
> “The Mousetrap” brings together curators working within and outside 
> these structures, as well as art theorists and historians. Many of 
> them share their expertise between the fields of theory and practice. 
> The intention of the conference is to give an insight into today’s 
> reflections and practices in encounters with institutions.
>  
> Located intentionally at Wyspa Institute of Art in Gdansk – an 
> experimental and quasi-institutional environment for contemporary 
> visual culture – the conference appears in Poland in the context of an 
> ongoing local debate about the contemporary art museum in Warsaw and 
> the regional collections of contemporary art, which are to be the 
> nuclei of future local museums. Within the plethora of conferences, 
> this particular one is intended to be the theoretical and practical 
> point of reference for the debate, bringing a more international 
> voice, and to mine the conventional ideas and strategies in this 
> field.
>  
> [i] Rube Goldberg was the American cartoonist “who drew intricate 
> diagrams of very complicated and impractical contraptions that 
> accomplished little or nothing (1883-1970)” See Reuben Lucius Goldber 
> at www.answers.com