Invitation to the General Assembly 2024

Dear Members,

You are cordially invited to our annual General Assembly on Wednesday November 6 & Friday December 13, 2024. 

All paid-up members may attend the General Assembly and take part in the voting.

November 6: Hybrid Meeting at 4 pm (Romania Time)

The first part of the General Assembly dedicated to Any other businesses is organized in a hybrid format during the 56th AICA International Congress organized by AICA Romania.

  • Online: meeting via zoom at 4:00 pm (Romania).

You will find more information about the 56th International AICA Congress in Bucharest and Iasi here .

December 13: Online Meeting at 2 pm (Paris Time)

The second part of the General Assembly is organised online and is dedicated to the Points submitted for voting.

You will find the detailed Agenda for both parts of the meeting here.

Invitation à l’Assemblée Générale: 6 November & 13 Décembre 2024 

Ch.e.è.r.e.s membres,

Vous êtes cordialement invité à notre Assemblée Générale annuelle qui se tiendra les mercredi 6 novembre & vendredi 13 décembre 2024.

Tous les membres à jour de leur cotisation peuvent assister à l'Assemblée Générale et prendre part aux votes.

6 Novembre : Réunion hybride à 16h (Heure de Bucharest)

La première partie de l’Assemblée Générale consacrée aux Points divers est organisée en hybride pendant la 56ème édition du Congrès AICA International organisée par AICA Roumanie.

Vous trouverez plus d’information sur la 56ème édition du Congrès AICA International qui se tiendra à Bucharest et Iasi du 4 au 9 Novembre ici.

13 Décembre : Réunion en ligne à 14h (Heure de Paris)

La seconde partie de l’Assemblée Générale est organisée en ligne et sera consacrée aux Points soumis au vote. 

Vous trouverez l’ordre du jour détaillé des deux réunions ici.

Invitación a una Asamblea general - 6 de Noviembre & 13 de Diciembre 2023

Estimados/as miembros,

Nos alegra invitarles a una Asamblea General el 6 de Noviembre & 13 de diciembre.

Todos los miembros que hayan pagado sus cuotas pueden asistir a la Asamblea General y participar en las votaciones. 

6 de noviembre: Reunión en Hybrid a las 16:00 horas (Romania)

La primera parte de la Asamblea General dedicada a los Asuntos varios se celebrará como una reunión híbrida durante el 56 Congreso Internacional de AICA organizado por AICA Romania.

Puede encontrar más información sobre la 56ª edición del Congreso Internacional de la AICA en Bucharest y Iasi del 4 al 9 de noviembre aquí.

13 de diciembre: Reunión en línea a las 14:00 horas (París)

La seconda parte de la Asamblea General se organiza en línea y está dedicada a los Puntos sometidos a votación.

Encontrará el orden del día detallado de ambas reuniones aquí. 

WEBINAR: Ruptured Histories: In the Shadow of Russia

Uncomfortable Heritage in Post-Soviet Art, Public Space and Museums

DATE: Friday 13 September 2024
TIME: 15.00 (CET); 09.00 (EST)
DURATION: 2 hours

Speakers

Nikita Kadan – Ukrainian artist works with installation, sculpture, painting, graphics, often in interdisciplinary collaboration with historians, architects and human rights activists.

Yevheniia Moliar – Ukrainian art historian working on the cultural heritage of the Soviet period, in particular monumental art.

Dr. Kinga Siewior – Historian and assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology of Literature and Cultural Studies at the Faculty of Polish Studies at Jagiellonian University in Krakow.

Sabina Shikhlinskaya – Azerbaijani artist, educator, and curator of the first Azerbaijani exhibition pavilion at the 52nd Venice Biennial.

Lali Pertenava – Art historian, researcher, and curator based in Tbilisi, Georgia. Her primary area of interest is socially engaged/public art.

Moderator

Arkadiusz Poltorak – President of AICA Poland

RUPTURED HISTORIES is a series of Web Symposiums presented by AICA International (International Association of Art Critics) on the initiative of the Fellowship Fund Committee. This fourth iteration of Ruptured Histories has the support of AICA Poland and AICA Netherlands.

Ruptured Histories is open to AICA members and non-members, students and academics worldwide. There is no charge for attending.

After the moderated discussion between the speakers and the respondents, there will be time for the audience to raise issues, present questions and discuss points with any of the speakers.

PRACTICAL INFORMATION

To subscribe to the Web Symposium please send an e-mail to:

aicainternational.webinar@gmail.com

You will receive a link 24 hours before the event.

RUPTURED HISTORIES: IN THE SHADOW OF RUSSIA

Uncomfortable Heritage in Post-Soviet Art, Public Spaces and Museums.

For our upcoming Ruptured Histories Webinar, we have invited Ukrainian artist Nikita Kadan, Ukrainian art historian Yevheniia Moliar, Polish historian Dr. Kinga Siewior, Azerbaijani artist, educator and independent curator Sabina Shikhlinskaya and Georgian art historian and curator Lali Pertenava. They will discuss the difficulties faced by artists in post-Soviet regimes in their attempts to engage with issues related to cultural memory. Monuments, museum collections, urban planning and architecture are interfaces through which contemporary artists establish relationships with the 20th-century past – and especially that of the Soviet era. However, these relationships are rarely optimistic and are not grounded in a sense of continuity between today’s culture, institutions, and social rituals, and those of the time. Taking Ukraine as an example, the forms of social life typical of Soviet Ukraine appear to be imposed from above – as testaments to political and cultural violence, the renewed manifestations of which Ukrainians recognise in Russia’s contemporary behaviour towards its neighbouring countries. In the light of the ongoing war, traces of the Soviet past often amount to undesirable heritage. As such, they are subjected to active censorship and defacement on the one hand, and cultural elaboration in the light of present interpretations of the past on the other. If war provides a strong impetus for such processes, it should be noted that they have persisted longer than Russia’s military aggression itself. They are not endemic to Ukraine either. The dialectic of tabooism and reinterpretation of the Soviet legacy takes a different pace and course in different areas of the former USSR but remains recognisable in the culture of all post-Soviet countries. How widely does the ongoing war in Ukraine affect culture and art across the former USSR? Do common strategies for constructing cultural memory emerge in the art of diverse post-Soviet societies, despite significant differences? Is the ongoing defacement of Soviet monuments simply a manifestation of epistemic justice and the ‘levelling of accounts’ with the historical perpetrators? Or, following Sharon Macdonald’s writings on Germany’s ways of dealing with its Nazi past, can the traces of the Soviet past be regarded as a ‘difficult heritage’, bearing witness not only to the experience of oppression but also to the shared responsibility in sustaining it?

Full program available here.

Re-Evaluation in Feminism(s) and Contemporary Art

A hybrid one-day conference – Friday 13 September 2024, 10am -7 pm (GMT)
Location: Middlesex University London (The Burroughs, London, NW4 4BT) and Online
Organised by Katy Deepwell, member of AICA UK.

Tickets are free, but must be booked for in person or online participation, via Eventbrite

Keynotes: Jacqueline Millner (Australia); Oksana Briukhovetska (Ukraine); Ghazel (France/Iran).

 

36 speakers from many countries – artists, critics, curators, art theorists and art historians - are gathering for this hybrid event:  Karen Keifer Boyd; Irene Bronner; Sonja van Kerkhoff; Clara Zarza; Helena Reckitt; Anke Kempkes ;  Kimberly K Lamm; Amy Tobin; Suzana Milevska; Katy Deepwell; Maria Kheirkhah; Qingyu Shen; Alessia Cargnelli; Laura Leuzzi; Varvara Keidan Shavrova; Ala Younis; Sohaila Baluch; Anne Robinson; Jana Kukaine; paula roush;  Barbora Komarová  ;  Sabine Gebhardt Fink; Virginia Marano; Alexandra Kokoli ; Lisa Moravec; Fran Cottell; Valeria Mari; Barbara Mahlknecht; Pauline Barrie; Maria Photiou; Pedro Merchán Mateos; Karolina Majewska-Güde ; Ellen Suneson; Gabriela Traple Wieczorek ; Wiktoria Szczupacka ; Angela Maderna    

What do we mean by re-evaluation?

It could be said all new research contains a “re-evaluation” of past work, but this conference aims to re-evaluate feminist research and enquiry as it has developed over the last 50 years in relation to different local/global dynamics or about certain artists or artworks.  

There are many feminism(s), and many generations of feminist scholars, but the definition we intend here is based in politics, not identity. The conference aims to explore different strategies that have been attempted, while offering critique and fresh assessments. We have brought together many different voices and perspectives on feminist politics in relation to contemporary art from many parts of the world and diverse and different perspectives of critics, artists, curators and researchers.  

Feminism(s) aim to interrogate existing histories and provide significant corrections to what constitutes “history”.  Is re-evaluation of artists only a question of reputation and recognition; collective action or how they reference issues of social justice? How have feminism(s)’ challenges changed museums’ curatorial practices, critical writing and art history?  And how has feminism itself been transformed over time? What remains missing from the stories that we tell today about past and present feminist interventions in contemporary art? Are there contradictory effects, locally, transnationally and globally for feminism(s)?   Do re-evaluations reinforce or challenge the association of some women artists with exceptionalism, exoticism, marginalised identities, cultural difference or Otherness? 

See full program here

Statement against censorship in Turkey

AICA International is alarmed at the recent shutting down of the DÖN-DÜN-BAK exhibition scheduled to open to visitors at Tütün Deposu in Istanbul. This arbitrary act of censorship is a violation of freedom of expression and artistic rights of the people.

AICA has written a letter of protest to the Governor of Beyoğlu District Governorate , Istanbul, who is responsible for the ban. We urge him to follow the UNESCO Convention, to which the Republic of Turkey is a signatory.

All states that have signed the UNESCO Convention for Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions are expected to ensure that their citizens can express, practice, and share their culture without fear of censorship or persecution.

We hope these letters to the Governor and Representative of UNESCO will serve as a reminder that this action is against the professional rights of the art community and will have a long term impact in creating an environment of fear and oppression which violates human rights and artistic rights. 

Sincerely
On behalf of AICA
Malgorzata Kazmierczak, President of AICA
Niilofur Farrukh, International Chair of the Censorship Committee

Webinar: Paralysis and disruption in Art Criticism in the Caribbean Basin (1960-2000) 

 

Thursday, July 18 at 6 pm (Sao Paulo, Brazil time), 4 pm Costa Rica (GMT-6)
To register, email aicainternational.webinar@gmail.com by noon on July 16, 2024.
Duration: 1:30 hrs

Between 1960 and 2000, an important division was established between the criticism that was articulated in universities and that developed by laypeople and professionals in the journalistic media and other dissemination channels. This collaborative webinar between the national sections coordinated by AICA Regional Latin America and the Caribbean involves a thorough examination of the critical models with which art is thought in the different regions included, as well as making visible the critics who have been pioneers of metatheories. such as the integrationist cultural identity that sought to define Latin American art and those who later in postmodernism became detractors in favor of a more international art to finally review its role in contemporary times. In addition, it represents a critical look at the indicated period of modern and contemporary art.

Parálisis y disrupción en la Crítica de Arte en la Cuenca del Caribe

Jueves 18 de julio, 2024 - 6 pm (Hora de Sao Paulo, Brasil GMT-3)
Registro: hasta el 16 de julio al mediodía
E-mail de registro : aicainternational.webinar@gmail.com
Duración: 1:30 hrs

Entre 1960 y el año 2000 se establece una importante división entre la crítica que se articula en las universidades y la que desarrollan legos y profesionales en los medios periodísticos y otros canales de difusión. Este webinario colaborativo entre las secciones nacionales coordinadas por AICA Regional América Latina y el Caribe suponen un examen minucioso en torno a los modelos críticos con los cuales se piensa el arte en las distintas regiones comprendidas así como visibiliza a los críticos que han sido pioneros de metateorías como la identidad cultural integracionista que buscaba definir un arte latinoamericano y aquellos que luego en el posmodernismo se volvieron detractores en favor de un arte más internacional para finalmente revisar su papel en la contemporaneidad. Además, supone una mirada desde la crítica en el período indicado del arte moderno y contemporáneo. 

Celebrating the Life of Aneta Szyłak (1959-2023)

 

Aneta Szyłak (1959-2023), recipient of AICA's Prize for Distinguished Art Critic in 2023, sadly passed away just a couple of weeks before the award ceremony. She is being honored for lifetime achievement, and the scope of her practice can hardly be summarized in a few sentences.

She was a critic and curator active both in Poland and internationally, as well as a translator of important critical texts (she translated into Polish, among others, "Inside the White Cube: The Ideology of the Gallery Space" by Bryan O'Doherty). As a critic and curator, she built close and long-lasting relationships with artists. She accompanied them on their creative path, supported them and engaged in dialogue with them. The fruits of their collaboration were often solo exhibitions (such as two recent groundbreaking shows: Hiwa K's 2019 "Highly Unlikely but not Impossible" or Joanna Rajkowska's 2021 "Rhizopolis", both at the Zachęta National Art Gallery in Warsaw). However, Aneta has passed into the history of art in Poland primarily as a curator of group exhibitions – confronting pertinent issues in contemporary social life in the country and beyond – and as an organizer of cultural life.

The Gdansk Shipyard, the cradle of the Solidarity movement, played a special role in her biography. It was in its premises that Aneta founded and ran multiple organizations such as the Wyspa Institute of Art, Alternativa Foundation and, later, NOMUS The New Museum of Art (a branch of the National Museum in Gdansk). As she emphasized herself, her long-standing interaction with this place – as the heart of the labor movement before 1989, but also a victim of later deindustrialization – taught her attention to social inequalities and antagonisms.

Her deep social sensitivity was reflected in such hallmark exhibitions as “Guardians of the Docks” (Wyspa Institute of Art, Gdansk, 2005), “BHP” (Wyspa Institute of Art, Gdansk, 2004) or “Architectures of Gender” (SculptureCenter, New York, 2003).

In recent years, she was working on her doctoral thesis “Curating Context. The Palimpsest on the Quotidian and the Curatorial” as part of the Curatorial/Knowledge programme at Goldsmiths University of London and the University of Copenhagen. It certainly would have complemented the extensive list of her publications, which earned her multiple scholarships and accolades, including the 2004 Jerzy Stajuda Art Criticism Award.

She was an active member of AICA and served on the board of the Polish Section for several years. With her writings and curatorial endeavours, she made a substantial contribution to the development of experimental institutionalism, art-based research and feminist art discourse in Poland and beyond.

She will be missed dearly.

Arkadiusz Półtorak, President of AICA Poland

AICA Congress 2024 - Call for papers

 

Becoming Machine, Resisting the Artificial. Art in the Present Tense

Bucharest and Iaşi, Romania, 4-9 November 2024

Many recent comments regarding contemporary art making revolve around the increasing presence of digital means of production and distribution. Expressed mostly in a critical voice, in both popular press and scholarly periodicals, such observations address specifically the emergence and growing popularity of various Artificial Intelligence [AI] visualization systems. AI’s capability to transform the “prompts” introduced by the user on the application into practically infinite variations of digital images or text fragments has radically disrupted the traditional role of the artist and of the institutions. Indeed, the partial delegation of the creative act to the machine, and the subsequent conflicting encounter between individual agency and computer control, reopened old – although timely and pertinent – questions related to (artistic) originality, uniqueness, value, authorship, and copyright.

In a world dominated by military conflicts, climate change, migration crisis, fake news, and political rearrangements, the digital ecosystem – in which AI is one among other major actors – plays a crucial role. We, volens nolens, increasingly identify ourselves with the machine, while we employ various strategies of resisting the artificial. Art is an important part of this process. How can art critics and practitioners meet the challenges of present and future digital developments? To what extent do humans and machines share the creative process in these circumstances? To what extent does AI affect established notions and practices related to authorship and the ethics and intellectual property of the art object? How do AI and the fluidity of digital ecosystems affect artists’ (cultural) identity, bodies, and perception? How reliable is the archive and how consistent is the memory in the age of the fake? How does the rise of machine learning and various digital prostheses reflect structural economic disparities between what is called the Global South and technologically advanced societies? How do the recent mechanisms of production and circulation of images impact art criticism? How does digital behavior influence today's patterns of critique, aesthetic reception, vision, as well as the notion of spectatorship? Can the analogical provide ways to resist the algorithmic transformation of subjectivities as well as the psychopolitical machine of the Big Tech through contemporary art?

We strive for an understanding of the recent digital changes as an integrated part of contemporary society and consider them from different artistic and theoretical perspectives. The theme of the congress is an invitation to reflect, contextualize, uphold, criticize, comment, etc. about the art at the present tense.

Topics include but are not restricted to the following:

  • “Post” like in Posthumanism

  • The scientific turn in contemporary art

  • Memory, Archive, Database

  • Art criticism and its relevance in the new digital ecosystem

  • Local, global, glocal

  • (Former) Western, post-socialist and non-aligned art

  • Ethics of the fake

  • The crisis of the documentary form

  • What comes after post-photography?

  • Reflections of identity online and offline

  • History repeating

  • Critical imaginaries

  • Poetics and politics of the artificial

  • But is it art? Principles, values, frameworks of interpretation

  • Bodies and affect

  • Techno-capitalism

  • Technology as a resource: economic disparities and uneven access

  • AI, politics, and censorship

  • Resisting psychopolitics

  • Biomedia and the artificial nature

  • Means of critique in the digital age

  • Art biennials and their relevance today

We welcome perspectives on these themes from various artistic and theoretical areas, and a wide range of knowledge and insights.

Please send abstracts of approx 400-500 words and a short bio up to 200 words to: aica.romania.2024@gmail.com

Deadline for abstract and bio submissions: 28th July 2024.

All applicants will learn on or shortly after 30th of July whether they have been successful in their applications.

Each presentation will be twenty minutes long, followed by a ten-minute discussion period.

The language of the congress is English. Please note that we accept only in-person presentations.

Congress registration will start after 15th July 2024.

Speakers are exempted from the Congress fee.

The cost of participation will be 20 EUR per day and it will include lunch and evening reception. UNESCO Director, the Secretariat, the Board of the Romanian section, heads of Committees, Keynote Speakers, Speakers and Moderators will be exempt.

Selected papers will be published in an edited volume at an academic publishing house TBD.

Keynote speakers (TBA)

The congress’ program includes: three full days of plenary sessions, two keynote lectures (TBA), museum and gallery visits, city tour, and meeting with the local artistic community. The congress ends in Bucharest on the evening of November 7th and will be followed by a closing reception.

The AICA congress includes a post-congress trip to the city of Iași, 8-9 November.

The post-congress program includes: one full day of round tables, a keynote lecture (TBA), museum visits, and meeting with the local artistic community. Please note that the post-congress trip is at participants’ own expenses, although organizers are happy to provide lunch, evening reception and local transportation.

Delegates to the post-Congress in Iaşi will travel by air, train or road on Friday, 8th of November. Estimated times for one-way travel between Bucharest and Iaşi are: 50 minutes by air, ca. 6hours 45min by train, and ca. 5hours 30 min by car. Our advice to all delegates would be to arrange their own international travel to and from Bucharest, and to those participating in the Post Congress to make their own arrangements for travel within Romania from Bucharest to Iaşi and back. Please note that there are flight connections from Iași to various European cities.

Further details regarding the daily program of the congress and the post-congress, information about travel and accommodation will follow soon.

Text available in PDF format: ENGLISH | FRENCH | SPANISH

CRITIQUE D'ART | Annonce de parution | N°62

 

Image de droite : Michel Ragon pendant le montage de l'exposition Peintures et sculptures abstraites, Festival de l'art d'avant-garde, Cité Radieuse, Marseille, 1956 (extrait),

Fonds Michel Ragon, INHA-Collection Archives de la critique d'art, Rennes © photographe anonyme

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Michel Ragon | Poèmes et art visuel d'Etel Adnan et Liliane Giraudon | Histoires des formes textiles dans l'art | Zines | Histoire de l'art et anthropologie | Afrofuturismes | Autour de Colonial Toxicity | Les représentations arabes à la Biennale de Paris

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