![]() ‘We are making radical changes to the programme’, Matthieu continued, ‘and want to bring in new artists’. ‘We have less budget than we thought’, Marieke claimed. In dialogue with Matthieu, who had returned to the Vooruit at some point in 2016, they decided that the project could no longer be continued under their care.ĭifferent reasons were subsequently given for the sudden break. Her move exposed a fragile ground where artists, curators and institutions don’t seem to nourish a ‘shared endeavour’. In few words and an uncompromising tone she swept aside a project as if there was no shared history. On 29 January 2017 I got a casual email from Marieke abruptly ending the residency of DETM. A series of meetings were set up to put things into perspective. The season passed, the residency happened and Marieke invited us to continue the project during the next season. Marieke de Munck was tasked with curating and coordinating the residency and with it, inherited a programme she had not entirely chosen and under precarious financial circumstances. Our residency happened during the 2015/2016 season, which was when Matthieu and Maarten left the Vooruit. People were fired, others left frustrated, and some were replaced. At the time, this institution was going through a major crisis that shook the ground of those working for it. The project Don’t Eat The Microphone (DETM), which I initiated in 2014 with psychoanalyst Petra Van Dyck, was to continue in collaboration with the Ghent Arts Centre. In 2015 Matthieu Goeury introduced me to Maarten Soete, the main curator at the time of the STADSRESIDENTEN in the Vooruit Arts Centre in Ghent. It might wake the different parties from their naturalized hierarchies and stimulate the imagination of more horizontal alliances. I hope this story can lead to a broader reflection on the often troubling collaborations between institutions, curators and artists. ![]() A personal case would be generalized as the cliché of a power dynamic between curators and artists where the former pick and the latter are picked, invested in, discharged and replaced.īy calling out names I aim to look at this personal – and yet quite common – case outside of the realm of gossip. The artist would wake up one morning and, as she checked her emails before doing anything else, she would be swept aside by curators. In it an artist and two curators would become the folk characters of the art world. It was supposed to turn a contemporary case into a short story from long ago, like a fairy tale almost, with its archetypal relations, monsters, creatures and heroes. This text was supposed to start with ‘Once upon an time’.
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