Non-Participation and ArtLeaks

Thanks to ArtLeaks for re-posting the call for submissions to Non-Participation.

http://art-leaks.org/2012/11/19/non-participation-call-for-submissions/

About ArtLeaks: “ArtLeaks is collective platform initiated by an international group of artists, curators, art historians and intellectuals in response to the abuse of their professional integrity and the open infraction of their labor rights. In the art world, such abuses usually disappear, but some events bring them into sharp focus and therefore deserve public scrutiny. Only by drawing attention to concrete abuses can we underscore the precarious condition of cultural workers and the necessity for sustained protest against the appropriation of politically engaged art, culture and theory by institutions embedded in a tight mesh of capital and power…” Read on

Their archive of Cases and the site in general is an invaluable resource. Read their guidelines and, if you can, submit your case to ArtLeaks as well.

Archive of “Canceled” at the Goethe Institut, for David Horvitz’ “How Can a Digital be Gift?” – Through 12/21

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Canceled: Alternative Manifestations and Productive Failures
curated by Lauren van Haaften-Schick

Archive of the exhibition included in:

The End(s) of the Library: David Horvitz
How Can a Digital be Gift?
11/08/12 – 12/21/12
Opening: November 8, 6:00-8:00pm

Goethe-Institut New York
72 Spring Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY

theendsofthelibrary.com

The End(s) of the Library is a series of artist commissions taking place at the Goethe-Institut New York library from October 2012-June 2013 organized by Jenny Jaskey. For the first of these projects, David Horvitz will address the role of digital rights management (DRM) within the library’s infrastructure. Working with a group of artists and independent publishers, Horvitz will attempt to make a generous donation of artist books to the Goethe-Institut library in digital format. His gift will be contingent upon these materials being available to library users for an unlimited timeframe and without restriction for edition size. Both of these aspects of e-books – their length of use and number of copies – are currently limited within the e-book system, in which each book is understood as a singular object. Horvitz’ project, entitled How Can a Digital be Gift?, will explore the challenges of the digital format to the library’s circulation model, emphasizing the important role played by third-party distributors who provide the online platforms necessary for sharing digital content. With these platforms, libraries no longer own the books in their collections, but rather subscribe to them as rented data.

To carryout his project, Horvitz will be in residence at the Goethe-Institut New York, integrating his collecting and digitization work into the library’s everyday existence. He will maintain an active blog documenting various aspects of his project, and will embark upon an extended conversation with the Goethe-Institut library staff and their information providers. In celebration of the artist books donated to the Goethe-Institut, Horvitz will host a special event and book launch for BFFA3AE by digital publisher Badlands Unlimited, the Los Angeles-based music group Lucky Dragons, and Andrew Beccone of the Reanimation Library on Monday, November 26, 2012 beginning at 7 p.m.

David Horvitz (b. 1983, Los Angeles) is a New York-based artist whose work shifts seamlessly between the Internet and the printed page. His participatory practice, which often involves close collaborations with other artists, as well as a web-based audience, considers strategies of information circulation and the impermanence of digital artifacts. Horvitz work has been included in exhibitions at The Kitchen, New York; Art Metropole, Vancouver; Or Gallery, Vancouver; and New Museum, New York, among others.

The End(s) of the Library is a series of commissioned installations, lectures, performances, and workshops that consider the state of the library with Julieta Aranda, Fia Backström & R. Lyon, David Horvitz, Christian Philipp Müller, and The Serving Library taking place at the Goethe- Institut New York Library from November 8, 2012 – June 21, 2013. Organized by Jenny Jaskey, the contributors will address how previous library configurations have given way to new forms and revised values in the digital age, emphasizing the fact that the library is neither a monolithic system nor an abandoned utopia, but an ever-contested site demanding new readings of its organizational frameworks: an institution whose ends are without end.

The program is free and open to the public. For a full schedule of exhibitions and events, please visit theendsofthelibrary.com. For general information call (212) 439-8700 or visit the Goethe-Institut New York online at www.goethe.de/newyork.

Non-Participation in the L Magazine

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Thanks to Corinna Kirsch at the L Magazine for sharing my invitation to submit to Non-Participation.

Protest Much? Participate in “Non-Participation”

From Kirsch’s article:

“For all the critics out there, Brooklyn-based curator Lauren van Haaften-Schick has a project just for you. All you need to do is send her a letter.

Van Haaften-Schick’s latest project, Non-Participation, ‘will be a collection of letters by artists, curators, and other cultural producers, written to decline their participation in events, or with organizations and institutions.’ She can’t do all the legwork on her own, so if you’ve ever had a beef with organizations and institutions, send her your submission.

We here at AFC plan on submitting our petition against Sotheby’s, the auction house that locked out its art handlers for nearly a year. But with the definition of “letter” left vague, we could also submit a handful of things like reviews, tweets, emails, or anything beginning with ‘Dear _____.'”

The deadline for submissions is December 31.

Non-Participation: Call for Submissions

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Dear artists, writers, curators, musicians, and others,

I am seeking submissions for a new project, Non-Participation.

Non-participation

The project, Non-Participation, will be a collection of letters by artists, curators, and other cultural producers, written to decline their participation in events, or with organizations and institutions which they either find suspect or whose actions run counter to their stated missions. These statements are in effect protests against common hypocrisies among cultural organizations, and pose a positive alternative to an equally ubiquitous pressure to perform. At the heart of the project is the notion that what we say “no” to is perhaps more important than what we agree to.

Historic instances and examples include: Adrian Piper’s letter announcing her withdrawal from the show Reconsidering the Object of Art: 1965-1975 at LA MoCA, stating her opposition to Phillip Morris’ funding of the museum and requesting that her criticizing statement be publicly shown; A letter from Jo Baer to a Whitney Museum curator canceling an upcoming exhibition on the grounds that her work was not being taken seriously because she is a woman artist; Marcel Broodthaers open letter to Joseph Beuys questioning the relationship between artists and exhibiting institutions; and, just recently, critic Dave Hickey‘s public announcement of his “quitting” the art world.

I am now collecting your letters of non-participation, which will be compiled as a publication, with other activities surrounding the project to be determined.

Please send copies of your letters via email to lauren@laurenvhs.com.

With your submission, please indicate whether or not you wish to remain anonymous. All names and contact information can be omitted or made public, depending on your preference.
Also, feel free to include any other details or background information which could illuminate the situation, as you see fit.

The deadline for submissions is December 31.

In terms of my own work, this project is a natural extension of my last exhibition, “Canceled: Alternative Manifestations & Productive Failures.”
The idea for “Non-Participation” came up many times over the course of the exhibition, and now I would like to see it come into being.   Please feel free to pass this along to anyone else you think may be interested.

And of course, let me know if you have any questions, thoughts or suggestions.

Thank you in advance!

All my best,

Lauren

Catalogue for “Canceled: Alternative Manifestations & Productive Failures” available through Half Letter Press

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Greetings!

I’m very proud to announce that the 2nd edition of the catalogue for the exhibition Canceled: Alternative Manifestations & Productive Failures at the Center for Book Arts is now available for sale through Half Letter Press! The Chicago-based Half Letter Press is a publishing imprint and an experimental online store initiated by the artist group Temporary Services. As a great bonus, every order will include a free copy of Temporary Services’ “Why the Exhibit was Canceled” booklet, which was featured in the exhibition as a take-away.

I’ve been a huge fan of HLP and Temporary Services for years, and many of their works have been a great influence on my own projects and thinking. If you haven’t read it cover to cover already, spend some time with their print and online publication “Art Work: A National Conversation About Art, Labor, and Economics.,” from 2009. An enduring classic for good reason.

Some recent reviews of “Canceled: Alternative Manifestations & Productive Failures”

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Though it came down over the summer, the exhibition at The Center for Book Arts in New York just got one more review in Frieze. Thanks to all who came to the opening and talks. Here are some snippets of the write-ups:

Frieze:

“As the title of the show suggests, these controversies might have been a greater means of stirring debate than any exhibition or work alone could have done. Yet more importantly, a secondary theme emerged from ‘Canceled’: how artists make stands not only against censorship, but as a refusal to self-sacrifice in the name of easy, if not chimerical, success. Conflating this issue well beyond the normative sphere of art, the exhibition cumulatively asked: what kind of chilling effect would be produced if Baer and, with her, more artists caved in and said, ‘yes, please’ to any powers that be?” – Adam Kleinman

Artforum.com:

“Some remarkable artifacts come to the surface in this extensive trawling: a one-of-a-kind collaged mailer from the artist Cameron to Berman; Hans Haacke’s personal copy of his monograph Werkmonographie, which documents his inspired struggle with the Guggenheim in 1971… At times the curatorial conceit can be a bit baggy: Seth Siegelaub’s books-as-exhibitions from the 1960s are a form of rejecting the gallery’s physical space, but they have little rapport with the conflict that animates most of the other selections. The curator, Lauren van Haaften-Schick, suggests in an accompanying essay that that the exclusion of contested artworks from exhibitions represents “ultimately productive failure,” which reminded me of the chestnut “fail better” from Samuel Beckett’s last novel, Worstward Ho (1983). Beckett was fairly black about about one’s prospects in the end (hence that title)—“Canceled” leaves one with a much more generous feeling about the possibility of failure.” – Zachary Sachs

Hyperallergiac.com:

“Today, there is a much greater reluctance to present work that is either politically or socially challenging to funders. There’s also a deep conservatism regarding work that is potentially offensive, particularly to the kind of people who populate museum and foundation boards. The flip side, however, is that we are all also becoming savvy cynics who know too well that controversy itself can be a goal for some artists and institutions. Hungry for attention or dollars, these people present work that is superficially controversial, often containing pornography, biological matter, live animals or religious iconography, but the art contains no real meaning or critique. So we find ourselves in a time when less truly risky work is commissioned and displayed, but there is an abundance of the tropes of controversy. And these tropes are often quickly co-opted by ad agencies to generate new products or brand identities for corporations and companies that are anything but politically radical. Thankfully, the curator of the show, Lauren van Haaften-Schick, has chosen artistic work that has clear rigor behind it. This provides the opportunity to examine the results of cancellation not as simplistic controversies but rather as complicated narratives of creation and rejection.” – Alexis Clements

L Magazine:

““Canceled”: Alternative Manifestations and Productive Failures, which chronicles an idiosyncratic history of terminated art exhibitions and projects whose reputations endure through printed materials, deftly explores critical dynamics of power and authority while generally skirting trite examples of First Amendment flag-waving. With a compact presentation at the Center for Book Arts (through June 30) of catalogues, posters, magazines, booklets, PDFs, and more, curator Lauren van Haaften-Schick establishes how, over the last 55 years, myriad forms of censorship have evolved from swift police ambushes and reactionary political grandstanding to the development of complex legal positions on intellectual property.” – Christopher Howard