Symposium: Commissioning & Collecting Variable Media: 5 March 2010

A collaboration between Contemporary Art Society and CRUMB, Part of AV Festival 10: Energy

The work of artists who use new media art, live art and other 'variable media' is increasingly being drawn into our national public collections. Excellent models exist where major works are acquired or where artists are commissioned specifically to create works for collections. This symposium offers an opportunity to learn from pioneering institutions that have worked with artists.

Keynote speaker:  Benjamin Weil, Chief Curator of LABoral Centro de Arte y Creacion Industrial de Gijon, Spain

Other contributers:

Laura Sillars, Programmes Director, FACT
Lisa Panting, Director, Picture This
Lois Keidan, Director, Live Art Development Agency
Graham Harwood, artist

Afternoon Discussions led by curators including:
Marguerite Nugent, Curator Wolverhampton Art Gallery
Julie Milne, Curator, Laing Art Gallery

Andrea MacDonald, Northern Architecture
Ilana Mitchell, Wunderbar Festival
Ele Carpenter, Lecturer, MFA Curating, Dept of Art, Goldsmiths College
Sarah Cook, CRUMB / Eyebeam
Axel Lapp, CRUMB / International Curators Forum
Verina Gfader, CRUMB / E:vent Gallery
Beryl Graham, CRUMB

The Symposium will address the following four questions:

'Commissioning to collect' - where a work is commissioned specifically with the intention that it will enter a collection - what are the concerns and issues for the curator?

The 'product' - the pressure on the artist and the commissioner to produce a product through a commissioning process - are these helpful or detrimental to producing interesting works?

'Documentation' - where performance and other works are acquired for collections, how are the component parts, or the documentary evidence of a work acquired for collections?

'Artists and their processes' - where the artist's product from their practice is a process - either over a particular period of time or over an indefinite period - how can this work be collected - indeed should it be developed in such a way that it can enter a collection?

FREE to members of the National Network, £25 to non-members.

To view the Commissioning and Collecting Variable Media Schedule (pdf) please click here

To view the Commissioning and Collecting Variable Media Delegate List (pdf) please click here

If you would like to book a place please contact us at nationalprogrammes@contemporaryartsociety.org or call +44 (0)20 7831 3221 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              +44 (0)20 7831 3221      end_of_the_skype_highlighting.