A conversation and performance series focused on new artistic strategies for marketing, curated by Spike Art Magazine.

Tuesday, 11 June
”The (Failed) Autonomy of the Artist”
With Ed Fornieles and Omsk Social Club, moderated by Christian Kobald & Rita Vitorelli

How can we create structures that maintain the possibility of independent artistic production? What changes when artists set up alternative economic systems so that they don’t have to rely on the existing mechanisms of the art market. It may lead to greater freedom but also creates other forms of dependency: whether on public funding, private donors, or the vagaries of the market in the respective field of business. Are there new financing models that can rival the established ones? How well do they work?

Wednesday, 12 June
”The Artist as Creative Director / The Creative Director as Artist“
With Jeanne-Salomé Rochat, David Rudnick, and Julian Zigerli, moderated by Toke Lykkeberg

What is the role of the artist in contemporary corporate culture and the digital platform economy? What does participating in this world say about one’s politics? Many artists keep their position deliberately ambiguous – affirmative and critical at once. We need new tools to understand what is happening, where it might lead, and how it will destroy models of identity and habits of thought that were long taken for granted.

Thursday, 13 June
”Market Transformations“
With Kei Kreutler and Elie Ayache, moderated by Paul Feigelfeld

How can we discuss the entanglements of art, its market as the pinnacle of all markets, and the technologies and media it uses and produces? What are the values – social, political, financial, mathematical – that go into the equations and algorithms that define artistic, collective and capitalist interactions? Where does art end and trade begin? The panel aims to view technologies, finance and art from different angles and a non-human, infrastructural perspective.

Friday, 14 June
”Virtual Reality: Make, Show, Buy“

With Sandra Nedvetskaia, Nina Roehrs, and Jakob Kudsk Steensen, moderated by Christian Kobald
VR has made great inroads into the art world in recent years. Although it is not yet a mature technology, it is one that has attracted tremendous attention and investment. Related to this are questions for a new art form: VR art. How are works in this medium designed, exhibited, collected, archived, bought and sold? When there is no need for white walls or wall texts, and the visitor becomes an avatar, the art system’s historical dependence on the white cube begins to dissipate.

Saturday, 15 June
”Gallery & Artist: New Relations“
With Jenny Borland, KJ Freeman, Nathaniel Monjaret, Alexander Shulan, and Simon Wang, moderated by Chus Martinez

The gap between rich and poor is bigger than it has been for a long time. In art, too, there is the 1% and everyone else. What are feasible survival models for artists today: taking a job on the side, or founding a company? Does the function or job description of a gallerist have to change? What are some possible ways to support art that is not designed for the market? And what can we learn from history that might be useful for today?

Sunday, 16 June
”You Are All You Need”
Performance by Sandra Mujinga, with Terese Mungai-Foyn and Mariama Ndure

In Sandra Mujinga’s performance You Are All You Need (2019), two artists who have withdrawn from the public eye reflect on their return, in the aftermath of a seismic event that may have been caused by one of them. The performance negotiates destabilised self-representations, manoeuvres opacities, and investigates how invisible bodies, even when given a visible platform, can be endangered. Mujinga draws connections from the structure of talks and panels to geological events to the politics of representation and self-preservation.

Supported by the Bundeskanzleramt Österreich