On the occasion of the 10th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art (June 9 – September 9, 2018), the curatorial team has invited curators Antonia Majaca and Sohrab Mohebbi to rethink and expand the format of the Curators Workshop. After a number of successful, theme based workshops held in relation to the 4th–9th editions of the Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, this iteration, as proposed by the workshop directors, will be centred on the biennial exhibition itself and encourage a dynamic exchange with the Berlin Biennale staff, curators, contributors and participants. In cooperation with Allianz Cultural Foundation, BMW, Goethe-Institut, and Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations (ifa), Berlin Biennale calls for applications from emerging curators/practitioners to participate in a 10-day workshop with a group of twelve to fifteen participants.
ON THE “BBX CRIT SESSIONS”
This edition of the Berlin Biennale Curators Workshop takes as its primary subject matter the parameters, resources and tools offered by the biennial itself. The program will examine the exhibition as a complex network of material, political, and aesthetic contingencies. It will focus on its visible and invisible alliances and relations and use it as a site of encounter and study. Our 10-day gathering will be comprised of daily crit sessions involving analysis and discussions about the curatorial decisions, conceptual constellations and individual artworks in the exhibition, in addition to close readings of accompanying discursive and publishing programs. The program will also include in-depth conversations with the curators, artists, contributors and the audience. The group will discuss the biennial in the exhibition spaces, seminar rooms, funders’ offices, at the dinner table, and wonder how we left the thunderdome and ended up on the fury road.
The applicants are invited to express their interest in a text (no more than 300 words). They are also asked to suggest a text, in any genre, either authored by themselves or by other authors, and to propose an artwork or a curatorial project that they believe might be generative for the meeting in Berlin. The final contours of the workshop program will be devised by taking into considerations all the materials suggested by the participants/contributors.
TIMELINE
Applications must arrive by E-mail no later than May 8, 2018. Twelve to fifteen applicants will be selected by an international jury to participate. The candidates will be informed about their participation by the end of May. With the confirmation, they will also receive further organizational details regarding their travel and accommodation, as well as additional information on the program. Curators Workshop will take place between August 30 and September 9, 2018. Exact dates are subject to change.
Selection Committee (tbc): Gabi Ngcobo/Thiago de Paula Souza (curatorial team, 10th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art), Gabriele Horn (director, Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art), Antonia Majaca (Curators Workshop), Sohrab Mohebbi (Curators Workshop), Michael M. Thoss (managing director, Allianz Cultural Foundation), Stefanie Peter (Department of Visual Arts, Goethe-Institut Zentrale), and Alya Sebti (director, ifa- Galerie Berlin, Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations).
ELIGIBILITY
• The workshop will be conducted in English.
• The application is open for emerging curators/practitioners, without age limit.
• Some initial experience in presenting contemporary art (such as exhibition curation, art writing, organizing discursive events, etc.) is expected.
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