CuratorWork

Alfredo Cramerotti


Writer, curator, publisher and contemporary artist.

Office address: MOSTYN Wales, 12 Vaughan Street, Llandudno LL30 1AB, UK - CuratorWork is an artsphere website

an artsphere website
AGM 10: Collectivus CPS [art management]

AGM Culture 10: Collectivus CPS [art management, institutional leadership]

9 Oct 2010 - 9 Jan 2011
AGM 10 willingly takes on board one of the main characteristics of Manifesta 8: the wish and the will to explore new modes of curating through collective work. It is about shifting the boundaries beyond the authorship of the single curator. This is a conscious decision to explore a different way of working in the contemporary art world and beyond, an active stimulant for 'knowledge production' currently being discussed by many initiatives in both practical and intellectual terms. Here in Spain, within a biennial fully embracing the idea of collectivity, we put this process in motion, using historical and geographical contexts. AGM 10 asks: what is the best way to 'act out' rather than just represent such a method, in order to best produce and distribute knowledge? By creating a new model, maybe one can get closer to the thing, instead of simply by reporting. To research this further, AGM 10, acting as CPS critical lens, reflects back on the collective's productions to date and their working processes. What does working together imply on a critical and practical level? AGM 10 realistically does this by working together - through a subjective selection from the vast CPS archives, along with research extracts and recorded conversations.

Details of Exhibition

The audio-visual and printed files of previous collaborative works are built into an exhibition venue which itself embodies a sedimentation of knowledge over time as the result of collective working processes. By juxtaposing these elements, AGM 10 simultaneously demonstrates and questions the various documents, procedures and agents (visible and non-visible) which govern the conception, production and distribution of collective knowledge in the broader public sphere.

AGM means to consider the contingent nature of relationships, the struggle to find or evade consensus, the risk of failure or success at the expense of others, the impossibility of translating meanings, the labour of sustained participation and exchange, the promise of final resolutions or the desire never to reach that point. So how can we begin to connect this intent to; Comrade Alfredo Neri, 2006 -2010, a piece that brings to the fore the moving image’s power to affect our emotions and shape our options; or a handheld, almost clandestine, recording of a Walid Raad's performance at the 2005 edition of Homeworks; or the AGM conversation series that have addressed the state-of-play at various moments in the lead up to Manifesta 8? Consequently, in bringing this archive together under the aegis of Manifesta 8, AGM looks not to showcase the individual works, but present them as tools with which CPS and others can begin to critically assess their collective productions and approach.

Importantly, this space is not an attempt to short circuit or reduce to specific moments the due process of critical questioning that precedes any collective endeavour, but rather points to its urgency at all stages.

AGM 10 is organised by Hannah Conroy and Yesomi Umolu in close dialogue with CPS members. Archive and more info under http://www.agmculture.org

Comrade Alfredo Neri
Comrade Alfredo Neri
performance, video, sound

an artsphere website