LISTE 2019 | The Artist as X: A Series of Conversations on New Artistic Strategies

Tue June 11, 6 pm: The (Failed) Autonomy of the Artist

Speakers: Ed Fornieles and Omsk Social Club

Moderated by Christian Kobald & Rita Vitorelli

How can we create structures that maintain the possibility of independent artistic production? What changes when artists set up alternative economic systems so that they don’t have to rely on the existing mechanisms of the art market. It may lead to greater freedom but also creates other forms of dependency: whether on public funding, private donors, or the vagaries of the market in the respective field of business. Are there new financing models that can rival the established ones? How well do they work?

Ed Fornieles is a British artist based in London. His practice spans various mediums, including installation, sculpture, film, performance, and social media, and centers around the subject of the society and culture in the digital age.

Omsk Social Club lives and works in Berlin. Omsk Social Club is constantly observing and questioning the concept of Self, Individualism and the community both in off and online scenarios.

Christian Kobald is a curator and senior editor at Spike Art Magazine

Rita Vitorelli is an artist and the editor-in-chief of Spike Art Magazine.

Wed June 12, 6 pm: The Artist as Creative Director / The Creative Director as Artist

Speakers: Jeanne-Salomé Rochat and Julian Zigerli

Moderated by Toke Lykkeberg

What is the role of the artist in contemporary corporate culture and the digital platform economy? What does participating in this world say about one’s politics? Many artists keep their position deliberately ambiguous – affirmative and critical at once. We need new tools to understand what is happening, where it might lead, and how it will destroy models of identity and habits of thought that were long taken for granted.

Jeanne-Salomé Rochat is the creative director behind Novembre magazine.

Julian Zigerli is a Swiss fashion designer based in Zurich. The label is famous for its collaborations with artists from all different areas.

Toke Lykkeberg is an art critic, curator, and director of Tranen Contemporary Art Center in Denmark.

Thu June 13, 6 pm: Market Transformations

Speakers: Kei Kreutler and Elie Ayache

Moderated by Paul Feigelfeld (media theorist)

How can we discuss the entanglements of art, its market as the pinnacle of all markets, and the technologies and media it uses and produces? What are the values – social, political, financial, mathematical – that go into the equations and algorithms that define artistic, collective and capitalist interactions? Where does art end and trade begin? The panel aims to view technologies, finance and art from different angles and a non-human, infrastructural perspective.

Elie Ayache is CEO of the financial software company ITO 33 and author of various texts on the philosophy of contingent claims and derivatives trading, including “The Blank Swan: The End of Probability” (2010) and “The Medium of Contingency: An Inverse View of the Market” (2015).

Kei Kreutler is a Berlin-based researcher, designer, and creative director of Gnosis, a forecasting and information aggregation platform on the Ethereum blockchain.

Paul Feigelfeld is a culture and media scholar and curator. He is currently teaching at the FHNW Basel and Strelka Institute Moscow and is the guest curator of the Vienna Biennial 2019 for “Uncanny Values: Artificial Intelligence & You.”

Fri June 14, 6 pm: Virtual Reality: Make, Show, Buy

Speakers: Sandra Nedvetskaia, Nina Roehrs and Jakob Kudsk Steensen

Moderated by Christian Kobald

VR has made great inroads into the art world in recent years. Although it is not yet a mature technology, it is one that has attracted tremendous attention and investment. Related to this are questions for a new art form: VR art. How are works in this medium designed, exhibited, collected, archived, bought and sold? When there is no need for white walls or wall texts, and the visitor becomes an avatar, the art system’s historical dependence on the white cube begins to dissipate.

Sandra Nedvetskaia is a Moscow-born art dealer and partner at Khora Contemporary, the first production company focused on creating artworks in VR with contemporary artists.

Nina Roehrs is founder and CEO of Roehrs & Boetsch, a gallery in Zurich devoted to the exploration of digitalization and its implications for society. In 2019, the gallery launched CUBE, a virtual reality exhibition concept.

Jakob Kudsk Steensen is a Danish artist based in New York. His work deals with a combination of imagination, technology and ecology, using mediums such as VR and video installation.

Sat June 15, 6 pm: Gallery & Artist: New Relations

Speakers: Rózsa Farkas and KJ Freeman

Moderated by Chus Martínez

The gap between rich and poor is bigger than it has been for a long time. In art, too, there is the 1% and everyone else. What are feasible survival models for artists today: taking a job on the side, or founding a company? Does the function or job description of a gallerist have to change? What are some possible ways to support art that is not designed for the market? And what can we learn from history that might be useful for today?

Rózsa Farkas is founding director of the London-based gallery and publisher, Arcadia Missa.

KJ Freeman is owner and director of Housing, a gallery in New York City.

Chus Martínez is a curator and head of the Institute at the Hochschule für Gestaltung und Kunst in Basel.