Election of the President of AICA International: New Schedule

Dear members,

In adherence to established precedents from past presidential elections, we initially communicated that only the top two candidates from the first round would progress to the second round of the AICA Int. presidency election.

However, a critical observation made by one of our esteemed members, Mr. Christian Chambert, has brought to light a precise stipulation within our regulations (Article V9). According to this provision, in the absence of an absolute majority, the three candidates securing the highest positions in the initial round are to be retained for the subsequent round.

Unfortunately, this specific detail had eluded the notice of everyone.

Given this information, coupled with the various technical incidents that marred the voting process, we propose to modify the electoral schedule to ensure transparency, streamline efficiency, and uphold the integrity of the democratic process. This adjustment allows for a necessary breathing space, with the hope that a larger number of voters will participate.

It is our fervent aspiration that the next president will be elected under optimal conditions, ensuring a fair and impartial electoral process.

The revised schedule for the election is as follows:

  • 10th to 17th January 2024: 2nd Round of Elections - Online Voting

  • 22th to 28th January 2024: 3rd Round of Elections - Simple majority online voting (if an absolute majority is not achieved by a candidate in the 2nd round)

We extend our sincere apologies for any inconvenience you may encounter while navigating the electoral processes and sincerely appreciate your understanding. Your support and cooperation are integral to the success and credibility of this democratic undertaking.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Sincerely,

The Secretariat
Lisbeth Rebollo Gonçalves, President
Marc Partouche, Secretary-General

Élection de la Présidence de l’AICA International: Nouveau Calendrier

Che.è.r.e.s membres,

Nous basant sur la jurisprudence des précédents scrutins présidentiels nous avons annoncé que seules les deux candidates arrivées en tête à l'issue du premier tour restaient en lice pour le deuxième tour de l'élection à la présidence de l'AICA Int. 

Suite à une remarque de l'un de nos membres , Christian Chambert, il apparaît que notre règlement stipule très précisément (article V9)  que faute de majorité absolue, ce sont les trois candidats arrivés en tête à l'issue du premier tour qui sont retenus pour le deuxième. 

Ce point avait échappé à tout le monde. 

Au vu de cette information nouvelle et incontournable et après différents incidents techniques qui ont émaillé le vote, nous proposons de remettre le processus électoral sur des bases plus sereines et en laissant un temps de respiration, avec l'espoir également qu'un plus grand nombre de votants sera au rendez-vous.

Notre souhait est que la future présidente soit élue dans les meilleures conditions possibles et avec la plus grande légitimité. 

Les nouvelles dates  sont les suivantes:

  • 10 au 17 janvier 2024 : 2ème tour des élections - Vote en ligne

  • 22 au 28 janvier 2024 : 3ème tour des élections - Vote en ligne à la majorité simple (si un candidat n'atteint pas la majorité absolue au 2ème tour).

Nous sommes vraiment désolés des aléas qui ponctuent le cours de cette élection très importante dans la vie de notre association. Comptant sur votre compréhension et votre mobilisation. Votre soutien et votre coopération sont indispensables à la réussite de cet exercice démocratique.

Cordialement,

Le Bureau
Lisbeth Rebollo Gonçalves, Présidente
Marc Partouche, Secrétaire Général

Elección del Presidente de AICA Internacional: Nuevo calendario

Estimados miembros,

Basándonos en la jurisprudencia de anteriores elecciones presidenciales, anunciamos que sólo los dos candidatos que quedaron en primer lugar en la primera vuelta permanecerían en la carrera para la segunda vuelta de la elección a la presidencia de AICA Int.

A raíz de una observación de uno de nuestros miembros, Christian Chambert, parece ser que nuestro reglamento estipula de forma muy precisa (artículo V9) que en ausencia de mayoría absoluta, los tres candidatos que quedaron primeros en la primera vuelta se mantienen para la segunda vuelta.

Este punto se le había escapado a todo el mundo.

A la vista de esta nueva e ineludible información, y tras los diversos incidentes técnicos que empañaron la votación, proponemos que el proceso electoral vuelva a tener una base más sólida con un respiro, con la esperanza de que vote más gente.

Nuestro deseo es que el futuro Presidente sea elegido en las mejores condiciones y con la mayor legitimidad posibles.

Las nuevas fechas son las siguientes

  • Del 10 al 17 de enero de 2024: 2ª vuelta de las elecciones - Votación en línea

  • Del 22 al 28 de enero de 2024: 3ª vuelta de las elecciones - Votación en línea por mayoría simple (si un candidato no alcanza la mayoría absoluta en la 2ª vuelta).

Sentimos mucho las molestias causadas por estas elecciones tan importantes en la vida de nuestra asociación. Contamos con su comprensión y su compromiso. Su apoyo y cooperación son esenciales para el éxito y la credibilidad de esta empresa democrática.

Atentamente

La Junta Directiva
Lisbeth Rebollo Gonçalves, Presidente
Marc Partouche, Secretario General

Sertão Negro launches call for artistic residencies

 

Photo credit: Jhony Aguiar

Applications for the 2024 Artist Residency Program at Sertão Negro Ateliê e Escola de Artes are open until December 15. Five places are on offer, one international, two national and two local.

The program aims to create a dialogue between the visual arts, the environment and traditional knowledge. This proposal, which is scheduled to take place between May and September 2024 in both national and international modalities, will last four weeks, the first of which will be spent in a Quilombo in the state of Goiás and three weeks at Sertão Negro, located in the Shangri-la neighborhood, in the northern region of Goiânia, capital of the Goiás State. Two places are on offer for the local residency, which also includes this experience in the Quilombola community, lasts 12 months and is aimed at artists or people living in Goiás. For this, Sertão Negro provides structure, resources and guidance to enable training and improvement in contemporary art. Scheduled to begin in May 2024, this type of residency offers a monthly grant of two thousand reais. By encouraging the local economy, community-based tourism and, above all, valuing traditional knowledge, this artistic residency program seeks to stimulate connections between Quilombola communities (daily life and the relationship with the land, their cultural and religious expressions) and artists in their research processes, practice and artistic poetics in the most diverse media, pictorial components and languages. During the three weeks at the Sertão Negro Ateliê e Escola de Artes, located in Goiânia/GO, the resident artists (national and international) have access to accommodation in individual chalets and food; and receive a subsidy of 1500 dollars plus the cost of airfare.

Sertão Negro
Conceived and created in 2021 by visual artist Dalton Paula and his partner Ceiça Ferreira, Sertão Negro Ateliê e Escola de Artes began its activities in 2022; and its purpose is to be a quilombo, an artistic-cultural space for experiences and exchanges with the environment.

The shared studio has a library with a collection of three thousand books, as well as equipment such as an engraving press and an industrial oven. In the backyard, as well as chalets for residents to stay in, there is a shack covered in piassaba straw, where capoeira angola, printmaking and ceramics classes are held, as well as sessions of the Maria Grampinho Film Club, whose curatorial programming highlights black cinematic productions. Built in an area of more than 960 m2 surrounded by various trees, medicinal plants and flowers, Sertão Negro was designed to be ecologically conscious, from collecting rainwater and using bio-construction techniques to preserving species native to the cerrado.

In just two years of existence, this space has made a name for itself on the art scene in the Brazilian Midwest, enabling it to connect internally, with the Goiânia community in general and with various agents in the art market, such as national and international artists, curators, gallery owners and collectors. This Sertão Negro Edital 2024 artist residency program is supported by the Open Society Foundations, through the Soros Arts Fellowship awarded to Dalton Paula in 2023.

"The residency is very important for many reasons. We could start from the perspective of exchange between different territories, countries and cultures; it's a good opportunity for residents to exchange knowledge and meet people. The residency has this character of immersion, of a time that makes it possible to develop research and this has to do with displacement, of leaving your place of comfort and this tensions, creates a situation that can be very favorable for the development of new work in terms of creativity. So, our residency has this proposal of being a leap into the deep, of giving density to be able to develop research," adds Dalton Paula.

Second round of the Presidential Election

Candidates

The three candidates for the second round are MAŁGORZATA KAŹMIERCZAK (AICA Poland), MATHILDE ROMAN (AICA France) and ELISA RUSCA (AICA Switzerland)

Here are their applications :

MAŁGORZATA KAŹMIERCZAK

APPLICATION (Part 1): ENGLISH | FRENCH | SPANISH

APPLICATION (Part 2): ENGLISH | FRENCH | SPANISH

CV: ENGLISH | FRENCH | SPANISH

NOMINATION LETTER: ENGLISH | FRENCH | SPANISH

Video Presentation ENG

Video Presentation ESP

MATHILDE ROMAN

APPLICATION: ENGLISH | FRENCH | SPANISH

CV: ENGLISH | FRENCH | SPANISH

NOMINATION LETTER: FRENCH

Video Presentation ENG

Video Presentation FR

Video Presentation ESP

ELISA RUSCA

APPLICATION: ENGLISH | FRENCH | SPANISH

CV: ENGLISH | FRENCH | SPANISH

NOMINATION LETTER: ENGLISH I FRENCH I SPANISH

Video Presentation FR

Video Presentation ESP

Video Presentation ENG

New Schedule for Presidential Election

The Ballot for the 2nd round of the Presidential Election will take place between January 10th and 17th, 2024..

All paid-up members will receive an email from the eballot voting platform on Janauary 10th at 12pm (CET) with a link to vote and personal usernames / access codes.

For comprehensive information on the voting process, please refer to the E-vote Protocol

In case of any issues or difficulties during the voting process please contact us: aicainternationalelection@gmail.com

AICA Statement on Artistic Freedom: Defending Jenin Yaseen and Challenging Censorship at the Royal Ontario Museum

As an organization dedicated to defending freedom of artistic expression, AICA expresses grave concern over the recent occurrence at the Royal Ontario Museum, in Canada, involving artist Jenin Yaseen. Days before the scheduled opening of an exhibition titled Death: Life’s Great Mystery, examining different cultural traditions of mourning and burial, the artist was contacted by ROM staff who asked her to alter specific works out of fear they would inflame tensions around the hostilities in Israel and Palestine. The museum then proceeded to interfere with the works, substituting words and cropping an image. After the artist protested by staging a sit-in inside the exhibition, the museum reversed its decision and decided to show the original works accompanied by a disclaimer. The ROM subsequently issued an apology for causing “pain and frustration”, a fact that underscores how arbitrary and precipitated its actions were in the first place.

When museums cannot be relied upon to defend the artists they exhibit and safeguard works of art in their care, but instead engage in censorship and iconoclasm, we have reached a point at which their core institutional mission is at risk. Recent cancellations and postponements of exhibitions at other venues (e.g., Islamic Art at the Frick Pittsburgh, last week; Vkhutemas at the Cooper Union, New York, in February; Philip Guston at Tate Modern, London, in 2020) point to a worrying tendency to sacrifice artistic values to political expediency. In all three cases, the cultural significance of the works is amply recognized, and their historical meaning is uncontroversial. Yet, the respective institutions chose to pratice self-censorship for fear of offending those who would misinterpret their intentions.

AICA believes fervently that the purpose of exhibitions is to make art and culture accessible to those who wish to partake in them. Challenging assumptions, instigating debate and promoting dialogue rank among the most cherished goals of free artistic expression. Fearfulness serves no one except those who seek to control the thoughts of others through intimidation. We call on exhibition venues and cultural professionals everywhere to stand their ground against political belligerence and moral panic. If we do not stand up for art and artists, who will?

On behalf of AICA,
Lisbeth Rebollo GONÇALVES
President of AICA

Rafael CARDOSO
Chair of Censorhip & Freedom of Expression Committee

This is how I write

The art section of the Norwegian Critics’ Association (Norsk kritikerlag) welcomes you to the international, online edition of «This is How I Write» with the invited guests Julia Grosse and Estelle Nabeyrat. Moderated by philosopher, independent researcher, curator, and art critic Sofia M. Ciel. The conversation will be held in English and streamed via Zoom. 

Time and place: 
27 October 2023 at 18:00–19:00, on Zoom and Kunstnernes Hus Kino

ZOOM LINK (Meeting ID: 975 6652 8624)

The work of the critic has been much discussed in recent years; particularly with a focus on the critic and criticism’s increasingly vulnerable situation. The conversation series «This is How I Write» aims to give a professional insight into the art critic’s work as a writing practice. In 2021 and 2023, the Norwegian Critics’ Association conducted four critic talks in Oslo, Trondheim, Bergen, and Tromsø, intending to strengthen the conversation around the critic’s role and create a better understanding of the importance of criticism for the local art scene in the listed cities. The international edition seeks to broaden that perspective. We therefore invite two experienced, international critics to a conversation about their work as art critics, and how they operate within their specific fields.

Julia Grosse is co-founder and artistic director of the platform Contemporary And (C&). She is a lecturer at the Institute for Art in Context at the University of the Arts in Berlin and associate curator at Gropius Bau. Grosse studied art history and worked as a columnist and arts journalist in London for taz, FAZ and AD Magazine. She has written and co-edited several books and in 2020 was (together with Yvette Mutumba) the winner of the prize «European Cultural Manager of the Year». At the moment she is curating the solo show «John Akomfrah. A Space of Empathy» at Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt.

Estelle Nabeyrat is a curator and art critic. She lives and works in France and Spain. Her texts are regularly published in various magazines (Camera Austria, Le Quotidien de l’art, Texte zur Kunst, Contemporânea) and catalogues. As a curator, she has organised several exhibitions at Centre d’art Le Lait (Albi), Municipal Galleries of Lisbon, Quadrado Azul Gallery (Lisbon), Neuer Aachner Kunstverein (Aachen), the Republic Museum (Rio de Janeiro) among other venues. Together with Pedro De Lano, she recently completed a research followed by an online curatorial selection entitled «Hors-sol, formes en exil», focusing on Latino & Caribbean artists from the Cnap collection. With Eva Barto, she is a co-founder of the radio show «ForTune» (Duuu* Radio), dealing with art workers’ working conditions. She is currently tutoring at the design department of the Ecole Nationale Supérieure Paris-Saclay.

WEBINAR: Above and Under the Radar. Freedom of Artistic Expression in Japan, Turkey, Hungary and Poland

Friday, October 27th

12:00 PM (Paris Time)

Language: English

The webinar is free and open to non-members

Please register by sending an email to aicainternational.webinar@gmail.com by 26th October

One of the main objectives of AICA is “to defend and promote freedom of expression and thought”. Protection of freedom of artistic expression lies within the Guiding Principles of the UNESCO 1980 Recommendation Concerning the Status of the Artist, which calls on member states to protect and defend artists in their freedom to create. Freedom of expression is also referred to as a fundamental right within the UNESCO 2005 Convention on the Promotion and Protection of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions. The UN human rights treaties and the Convention, however, contain “exceptions” – restrictions can be applied to expressions that damage “the rights and reputations of others”, that threaten “national security or public order” or “public health or morals”. [1]

The shrinking space for the freedom of expression has been a concern of many AICA members, as well as institutions and NGOs devoted to the protection of human rights. In 2022, the Artistic Freedom Initiative (AFI) published reports on the situation in Poland and Hungary. The document on Poland was partly based on the Report on Censorship prepared by AICA Poland for the AICA Censorship Committee. The document on Hungary was prepared in cooperation with Gergely Nagy (AICA Hungary). Firat Arapoğlu (AICA Türkiye) presented his thoughts on the limitations of the freedom of expression in Türkiye in front of AICA in Paris. Andrew Maerkle (AICA Japan) presented a case of the Aichi Triennial in 2019 and moderated a webinar on the freedom of expression organized by AICA Japan for the sections of AICA in Asia.

Censorship in today’s world, overcome by populism and fascism, is only a tip of an iceberg. In his recent article Jakub Dąbrowski, the author of the most comprehensive study on censorship in Poland between 1989 and 2010 asked: “So maybe it's not time to lament the censorship of the visual arts, ‘when the forests burn’”. [2] The webinar participants will try to answer this, and many further questions concerning the conflict zone between the states and visual arts. They will discuss the most recent cases of censorship, and the strategies of self-defence and resistance, as well as the possible ways forward. Concerning the last topic, especially valuable will be the expertise of Sara Whyatt – the author of the most recent report on Censorship for the Council of Europe and an experienced human rights activist. The conversation will focus on both “above the radar” obvious cases of legal repressions, and the “under the radar”, subtle practices leading to self-censorship. 

[1] Based on: Sara Whyatt, "Free to Create: Artistic Freedom in Europe. Council of Europe report on the freedom of artistic expression," (Strasbourg: Council of Europe, 2023), 14.

[2] Jakub Dąbrowski, "Wolność sztuki 2010-2020 albo o kulminacji wielkiej smuty," Magazyn Szum, no. 35 (2021 / 2022): 24-37.

SPEAKERS

Fırat Arapoğlu, Ph.D, is an art historian, art critic, and independent curator. He lives in Istanbul and works as an Asst. Prof. Dr. at Altınbaş University, Department of Common Courses. He has curated many exhibitions in Turkey and abroad. His recent projects include In a Multi-perspective, Group Show (2022, Yarat, Baku, Azerbaijan), Other Urban Order(s), Sophia Grancharova solo exhibition (2022, the ICA, Sofia), Lines of Site, International Traveling Exhibition (2022, Istanbul, Dundee, Barcelona), 6th International Istanbul Biennial for Children and Youth (2022, Istanbul), Unforgettable Future, Krassimir Terziev solo exhibition (2019, Versus Art Projects, Istanbul), Fifth Agreement, Esra Satiroglu solo exhibition (2019, Summart, Istanbul), and Simbart's one-day solo exhibition programs. He co-curated the 3rd Çanakkale Biennial and the 3rd and 4th International Mardin Biennials. Among the art magazines he contributed to in Turkey and abroad are Sanat Dünyamiz, Genç Sanat, Art-Ist Modern & Actual, ICE, ARTAM, Art Unlimited, Critical Culture, RH+, Istanbul Art News, Artdog, Varlık, and Flash Art. In addition, his articles were published in the newspapers Birgün, Cumhuriyet, and SOL. He presented his articles on art and art education at national and international symposiums and wrote book chapters. He gave speeches and workshops at Istanbul Modern Art Museum, Moda Stage, Atelier Maçka, Narmanlı Art, Nazım Hikmet Cultural Center, and Istanbul Bilgi University. He is the vice president of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA) 2020-2023.

Jakub Dąbrowski, PhD - graduated in both law and history of art. In 2013 he has completed a PhD thesis at the History of Art Faculty at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan. He is an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Artistic Research and Curatorial Studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw where he lectures on History of Contemporary Art and Copyright Law. In 2015 he won The Award of the Polish Art Critique for a book Cenzura w sztuce polskiej po 1989 roku (English edition: Censorship in Polish Art after 1989. Art, Law, Politics, Mosaic Press 2019). 

Andrew Maerkle is an art writer, editor, and translator based in Tokyo. He is currently Editorial Director of Art Week Tokyo, an annual event connecting 50 of the city’s leading art spaces through four-days of coordinated programming, and is Deputy Editor of the bilingual online art portal ART iT | International Edition, a position he has held since 2010. From 2020 to 2021 he was Editorial Director of the Bunka-cho Art Platform Japan translation project. From 2006 to 2008 he was Deputy Editor of ArtAsiaPacific in New York, and one of the creators of the magazine’s annual Almanac edition. His book of translations Kishio Suga: Writings, vol. 1, 1969–1979, was published by Skira in 2021. Maerkle contributes to international publications including Aperture, Art & Australia, Artforum, and frieze. He is also active as an educator. From 2018 to 2023 he taught in the Graduate School of Global Arts at Tokyo University of the Arts, and from 2015 to 2018 he led the seminar and publishing project Discourse Lab for the alternative education program MAD (Making Art Different), run by Arts Initiative Tokyo. 

Gergely Nagy (1969), journalist, editor, author. Lives and works in Budapest. His main fields of interest are contemporary art, cultural policies and cultural resistance. After many years in journalism, since 2013, he has been the editor-in-chief first of the online art magazine Artportal, and then of the online magazine A mű (The Artwork). He currently works as a freelancer and he is a PhD fellow at ELTE University in Budapest. He is also the initiator of East Art Mags, a collaborative project of art magazines in the East Central European region. He is one of the founders of the OFF-Biennále Budapest, which has become the largest civic contemporary art initiative in the region. Gergely contributed to several reports dealing with the state of artistic freedom and freedom of speech in Hungary.

Sara Whyatt is a campaigner and researcher on freedom of artistic expression and human rights, notably as director of PEN International ‘s freedom of expression program for over 20 years and previously as a coordinator in Amnesty International’s Asia Research Department. In 2013 she took up freelance consultancy, working on projects including for the Council of Europe Free to Create program, the International Federation of Arts Councils and Cultural Associations, the Institut fur Auslandsbeziehungen, and the Swedish Arts Council.  She also works for civil society organisations such as Freemuse and PEN International. She has been a member of the EU/UNESCO Expert Facility 2005 UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions since 2019 and was the author of the chapters on freedom of artistic expression in the Convention global reports 2018 and 2022. She continues to work with UNESCO developing training programs for governments and CSOs, developing monitoring and reporting strategies to promote artistic freedom under the Convention.

MODERATOR

Małgorzata Kaźmierczak, Ph.D. in History. Since 2004 an independent curator of art projects in Poland and USA, especially performance art events. Researcher and author of many essays and reviews. Between 2011-2014 – editor, writer and translator of livinggallery portal; 2006–2012 – president of the Foundation for the Promotion of Performance Art “Kesher” in Kraków, Poland; 2012–2014 – managing editor of the Art and Documentation journal; 2014–2016 – director of the City Art Gallery of Kalisz, Poland. Between 2016–2017 – editor-in-chief of the Publishing House and Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Painting and New Media of the Art Academy of Szczecin, Poland. Currently an Assistant Professor at the KEN University of Krakow. Since 2020, vice-president of AICA Poland and AICA International. Co-author of the report on Censorship in Poland between 2017-2021 for the AICA Censorship Committee, and a participant of the Council of Europe Workshops on the Freedom of Expression in 2022 and 2023, as well as the Artistic Freedom Initiative panel discussion organized at the Columbia University in New York (2022).

ELECTIONS 2023

CANDIDATES PRESENTATIONS FOR PRESIDENCY OF AICA INTERNATIONAL

MAŁGORZATA KAŹMIERCZAK

 

Liam Kelly

 

MATHILDE ROMAN

 

ELISA RUSCA

To access detailed information about each candidate, kindly navigate to the "Election Documents" section of our website. There, you will find comprehensive profiles and relevant documents pertaining to the candidates.

AICA Próxima

The 6th edition of AICA Próxima, the quarterly publication from the Latin American and Caribbean sections of AICA, is here and ready for you to explore! Read the new issue here.

CENSORSHIP AND FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION COMMITTEE STATEMENT

Dear Colleagues,

AICA’s Committee on Censorship and Freedom of Expression wishes to register its protest with the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA), in New Delhi, for the arbitrary dismissal of Sandip K. Luis, Manager of Curatorial Research and Publications. Mr. Luis’s job was terminated in response to a publication on social media in which he criticized India’s prime minister Narendra Modi, whose Hindu nationalist policies have been widely condemned by representatives of civil society, as well as denouncing Kiran Nadar’s complicity with the PM’s extremist positions.

     Mr Luis’s Facebook post was prompted by an exhibition organized by India’s Ministry of Culture in collaboration with the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA) to celebrate the 100th episode of a radio show hosted by Mr Modi. The posted message expressed concern that the participating artists, curators and Kiran Nadar, as advisor to the exhibition, were allowing contemporary art to be instrumentalized for state propaganda. Mr Luis’s remarks in this context echo the wider concerns of people who espouse freedom of speech and support multiculturalism. It is absolutely his right, indeed his duty, to express such an informed opinion.

     More than 500 academics, artists, writers and other concerned individuals in India have signed a letter of support for Sandip K. Luis. This latest demonstration of intolerance and authoritarianism fits into a worsening pattern of quelling opposing voices in India. In July 2023, Mr Modi came under fire for his government’s controversial decision to drop two internationally acclaimed Kashmiri authors, known for their literature of resistance, from the curricula of universities. In the past, 250 historians, including the eminent Romila Thapar, accused Mr Modi of altering history to suit his ideological ambitions.

     The censure of cultural professionals for holding independent political views is tantamount to censorship. By dismissing Sandip K. Luis not for his work but for his opinions, Kiran Nadar has abused her influential position as founding director of KNMA and sent a chilling message to those who would dissent from the present government. This abuse of power raises deeper questions regarding the independence of museums set up by individuals but supported by public funds. Should private institutions receive public concessions if they are not willing to take public opinion into account?

     As an organization dedicated to artistic freedom, AICA adds its voice to the widespread outrage with which this high-handed action on the part of KNMA has been met worldwide. We condemn this act of censorship in the strongest terms and urge the immediate reinstatement of Sandip K. Luis. We also call upon the government of Narendra Modi to rein in its supporters, both public and private, who set a dangerous precedent by abusing power to silence dissenters and misusing art to serve their ideology.

On behalf of AICA,

Lisbeth Rebollo GONÇALVES

President of AICA

Rafael CARDOSO

Chair of Censorhip & Freedom of Expression Committee

INSTITUTIONAL CHANGES AFTER 1989. AICA ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION ORGANIZED BY AICA HUNGARY

Thursday, 29 June 2023
18:00-20:00 CEST
Language: English

The webinar is free and open to non-members. Please register by sending an email to aicainternational.webinar@gmail.com by 28th June.

Adaptation or Reorientation? Transforming the System of Art Institutions in the Eastern and Central European States after 1989

The networks of cultural institutions in Central and Eastern European states differed significantly before 1989, despite the apparent economic and political integrity of the Eastern Bloc. After the fall of the Iron Curtain, the strategies of cultural transformation in the countries in question also proved to be vastly different. This AICA roundtable is meant to expose the multiplicity of these strategies while focusing, on the one hand, on adaptations of the infrastructures inherited from the real-socialist era and, on the other hand, on how local orderings of the civil society and the market economy have influenced the status and well-being of art institutions. 

When discussing the development of the institutional network in the region, within the last 10-15 years many researchers – such as Katarzyna Jagodzińska or Margaret Tali – have emphasised the social and cultural impact of sizable investments in large urban clusters, which take pride in well-attended and internationally recognizable museums, galleries and contemporary art institutes. During the roundtable, the investments in question will surely receive a fair share of attention. The meeting's primary aim, however, is to illuminate what eludes the accounts of local institutional transformations as symptoms of an ongoing modernisation – namely, the conflicts of values that shape the trajectory of museum development, the anchoring of hallmark institutional initiatives in local aesthetic traditions and social movements, or the multitude of organisational experiments that, due to their local status, escape the attention of international researchers, curators and critics.

–    Arkadiusz Półtorak

SPEAKERS

Barbora Kundračíková - AICA CZECH REP.

Barbora Kundračíková is an art historian and curator. She is the head of the modern art collections at the Museum of Art Olomouc - Central European Forum (SEFO). In the past, she was involved in the Central European Art Database project. Since 2021 she has also been an assistant professor at the Department of Art History at Palacký University in Olomouc, where she teaches 20th and 21st century art history and leads a long-term research project dedicated to photo album research. She cooperates with the Research Centre of Photography at the Institute of Art History of the CAS in Prague and works as a freelance curator. Her areas of interest include 20th and 21st century European visual art, technical representations, art history methodology and analytical approaches to aesthetics. As a curator, she has developed the projects Fascination with Reality. Hyperrealism in Czech Painting, Post.print. Collection of Modern and Contemporary Prints of the Olomouc Museum of Art, Triennial of Central European Contemporary Art SEFO 2021, Home and Abroadand many others. As an author she has contributed to several publications, including New Realisms: Modern Realist Approaches on the Czechoslovak Scene (1918-1945) and monographs of visual artists (Petr Veselý, Václav Cigler, Zdeněk Trs, Jiří Lindovský, Lenka Falušiová, etc.). She is co-editor of the magazine Umění 3/2022, dedicated to the relationship between photography and science.

Omar Mirza - AICA SLOVAKIA

Omar Mirza is curator and art critic based in Bratislava, Slovakia. He studied art history at the University of Vienna. Since 2006 he has been working at the Nitra Gallery in Nitra, currently he is the curator of the collections of Graphics and Photography and Other Media. As a free-lance curator, he has curated over 50 exhibitions of contemporary art in Slovakia, Czech Republic, Austria and Slovenia, collaborating with institutions such as Kunsthalle Bratislava, New Synagogue Žilina, the Museum of Applied Arts in Prague, Kulturdrogerie Vienna. In 2009 he was the curator of the Slovak section at the Prague Biennale 4. In his curatorial practice, he likes to take everyday phenomena and show them from an unusual and often humorous point of view. In 2017, he was awarded the ASK? Prize for Young Critics of Contemporary Art from the Foundation – Center for Contemporary Art in Bratislava. Since 2021 he has been the vice-president of the Slovak section of AICA. In the years 2011–2012 he was the co-founder and director of Faica Gallery, run by the Slovak section of AICA in Bratislava. In 2013, he was a moderator at the 46th AICA International Congress in Košice and Bratislava. Previously he created, directed and presented two internet shows about art. Since 2014, he hosts talk shows about contemporary arts and culture on the Slovak National Radio. He divides his spare time between his family and drumming in a punk rock band.

Dorota Monkiewicz - AICA POLAND

Dorota Monkiewicz is an art historian, curator and art critic. Her fields of interest include conceptual, feminist and politically engaged art and experimental displays of contemporary art collections. Among others, she curated: In Freiheit / Endlich (At Large / At Last). Polish Art after 1989 (Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, Germany, 2000); Semiotic Landscape (Charim Galerie, Vienna, Austria, 2002); The Wild West. A History of Wrocław’s Avant-Garde (2015–16), shown at Zachęta National Gallery of Art in Warsaw, Poland, Kunsthalle Košice (Slovak Republic), Kunstmuseum Bochum (Germany), MSU Zagreb (Croatia), and Ludwig Múzeum Budapest (Hungary). The exhibition was accompanied by an extensive catalog edited by Monkiewicz. In 2018 she released another survey exhibition “The Avant-garde and the State” in Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź composed of 700 exhibits from Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, the Czech Republic, the Slovak Republic, Germany, and Hungary. Dorota Monkiewicz was a founding Director of Wrocław Contemporary Museum (2011-2016), and a president of the Polish Section of AICA (2003-2009). From 1990 to 2009 she worked in the National Museum in Warsaw as a Modern and Contemporary Art curator. In 2017 she became a recipient of Jerzy Stajuda Award for Art Criticism. 

Zsolt Petrányi - AICA HUNGARY

Zsolt Petrányi is an art historian and curator. When completing his studies he already worked as an assistant at the Hungarian National Gallery. He became curator of contemporary art at Műcsarnok /Kunsthalle Budapest in 1996, focusing on the young, upcoming art of the nineties in Hungary. From 2001 he organized international projects when working as the director of the Institute of Contemporary Art in Dunaújváros. During this period he was the curator of the controversial show by the group Little Warsaw at the Venice Biennial (The Body of Nefertity, Hungarian Pavilion, 2003). From 2005 to 2011 he was the director of the Műcsarnok / Kunsthalle Budapest, where he focused on large- scale international solo and group exhibitions as own productions of the institution (Luc Tuymans, Michaël Borremans, Thomas Ruff, etc). Since 2011 he has been the head of the Contemporary Collection of the Hungarian National Gallery and has been teaching art management at the International Business School, Budapest. He became the curator of the Hungarian Pavilion again in 2017 with the project Peace on Earth by Gyula Várnai. He rearranged Hungarian National Gallery’s permanent exhibition of post-war art in 2014, and realized an exhibition on state supported socialist modernism, Within Frames, Art in Hungary 1958-1968, in 2017. Recently he has been working on the exhibition Technocool–New Trends in Hungarian Arts of the Nineties, 1989-2001.

MODERATOR

Arkadiusz Półtorak - AICA POLAND

Arkadiusz Półtorak is a cultural studies scholar, art critic and curator based in Kraków; assistant researcher at the Department of Performance Studies at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. President of the Polish Section of the the International Association of Art Critics (AICA). Graduate of De Appel Curatorial Programme (2018). Recipient of an individual grant for arts and media theory research funded by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education in Poland (Diamentowy Grant, 2015-2020). Co-founder of the Kraków-based non-for-profit space for contemporary art and music „Elementarz dla mieszkańców miast” (with Leona Jacewska and Martyna Nowicka). He has published in multiple journals, including Czas Kultury, Art History and Criticism or BLOK Magazine, and contributed to art-related monographs and exhibition catalogues including Trouble with Value (ed. Kris Dittel, Eindhoven: Onomatopee 2020) or Kinship in Solitude – Perspectives on Notions of Solidarity (eds. Anna Jehle and Paul Buckermann, Hamburg: adocs 2017). His recent curatorial endeavors include the group shows Out of Joint (Galeria Studio, Warsaw 2021) and While I Kiss the Sky (co-curator Goschka Gawlik; part of curated_by, Vienna 2019) as well as individual exhibitions by Maria Loboda (Elementarz dla mieszkańców miast, Kraków 2020), Jasmina Metwaly (Galeria Arsenał, Białystok 2020) or Jan Moszumański-Kotwica (CCA Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw 2019).

The project is co-financed by AICA International and the Governments of Czechia, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia through Visegrad Grants from International Visegrad Fund. The mission of the fund is to advance ideas for sustainable regional cooperation in Central Europe.

 

AICA Academy - Call for participants

With the shortage of international programs on art criticism, AICA International started a pedagogical mission at Paris la Sorbonne in 2019. By combining lectures on art criticism, discussions between art critics of different generations and geographical locations, during seminars and workshops, the AICA Academy aims to encourage the practice of art criticism by training young art critics, members or not members of AICA, and students.

For the first time, the AICA Academy will be included within the AICA Congress in Krakow, November 13-17, 2023. Academy participants will begin on November 13 with a half day of discussions on current issues (theoretical, economical, and political).

Participants will be actively involved in the congress and we’ll welcome any idea coming from the open discussions, including publications proposals on AICA social networks or E-Mag. As special fellows, participants will be introduced to AICA colleagues and will have an opportunity to build network and to think collectively.

The ‘CALL’ for participation is open until June 30. We are seeking a diverse pool of applicants (writers, art historians, artists, students- non-AICA members are welcome) and will give priority to participants from the east European zone.

Applications should include:

  • a letter explaining their reasons for wanting to apply (1 page max),

  • a piece of writing-- published or unpublished, in any language,

  • and a short CV.

Application materials must be sent to aica.office[@]gmail.com.

General Information:

Academy participation is free and AICA will provide accommodation in shared studio space at House of Empathy, where workshops will occur. AICA Academy fellows will participate to all the AICA Congress activities and events. AICA Academy is run by Marc Partouche, Secretary-General AICA International, Mathilde Roman, Treasurer AICA International, Małgorzata Kaźmierczak, AICA Poland.

Program:

Nov 13

9.30: workshop at House of Empathy with AICA Academy participants and special guests from AICA

14:00 – 17:00 Tour around Open Eyes Festival at the Academy of Fine Arts.

19:00 – Guided tour of the Cricoteka – dinner and warm up party

Nov 14

10 am – Official Opening of the Congress (Pedagogical University)

10:45 am – 12:15 – Art of the Three Seas Panel Discussion

12:30 – 14:00 – Ukrainian Panel Discussion

14:15 – 15:45 lunch

16:00 – 18:30 AICA General Assembly – UP auditorium

Evening – curatorial tour and dinner at the Museum of Photography

Nov 15

10:00 – 11:00 – keynote speaker’s lecture

11:00 – 11:30 – coffee break

11:30 – 13:00 – Session 1 – 3 papers + discussion

Nov 16

14:00 – 15:30 – Session 2 – 3 papers + discussion

15:45 – 17:15 – Session 3 – 3 papers + discussion

17:30 – 18:30 – Young Critics Award

Guided tour of International Culture Center and MOCAK – dinner

Nov 17

10:00 – 11:00 – keynote speaker’s lecture

11:00 – 11:30 – coffee break

11:30 – 13:00 – Session 4 – 3 papers + discussion

Lunch

14:00 – 15:30 – Session 5 – 3 papers + discussion

15:45 – 17:15 – Session 6 – 3 papers + discussion

Guided tour of Bunkier Sztuki and Galeria Podbrzezie (the exhibition by Dagmara Wyskiel from

AICA Chile) – dinner

Nov 18

10:00 – 11:00 – keynote speaker’s lecture

11:00 – 11:30 – coffee break

11:30 – 13:00 – Session 7 – 3 papers + discussion

Lunch

14:00 – 15:30 – Session 8 – 3 papers + discussion

15:45 – 16:45 – keynote speaker’s lecture

17:00 – 17:30 – Summary of the Symposium

Guided tour of the National Museum main building – dinner