LEAST COMMON MULTIPLES

opportunism and pragmatism in contemporary art production.

 

a symposium within the frame of The 3rd Young Artists’ Biennial of Bucharest.

October, 4 – 5, 2008.

To be held at the New Europe College, Institute for Advanced Study, Str. Plantelor 21, Bucharest.

Program conception: Société Réaliste.

 

The international symposium Least common multiples, to be held during the 3rd Young Artists’ Biennial of Bucharest at the New Europe College, intends to interrogate contemporary key-issues of artistic and cultural production in the plurality of European contexts.

 

At a moment when the art economy is more and more integrated into global strategies, what are the development perspectives for the production of research-oriented art, enterprising and experimental projects, international collaborations intending to sprout new energies? The symposium will be riveted to a methodic approach of the subject: what common strategies can be found in conditions as various as Bucharest’s, London’s, Vilnius’ or Rome’s ones?

 

How is it possible to collectively discuss and devise production tactics out of precise cases, by taking advantage of any set of circumstances (opportunism) and by methodically assessing economical situations through matter-of-fact and straightforward means (pragmatism)? Are opportunistic and pragmatic techniques contradictory with independance? Does a conditioned environment for artistic viability and visibility (economy) overdetermine content?

 

The program will be parted in clusters, defined by specific production intentions / contexts.

#Cluster A: Cultural Politics and political societies.

#Cluster B: Fundings and features.

# Cluster C: Edges / hedges

 

 

Cluster A.

Cultural Politics and political societies.

 

When public financial backing of art is conducted by a certain state of “cultural politics”, how to dodge the contingency of governmental orientations in order to bridge artistic production to a civil society demanding for cultural and political assets?

 

Cluster B.

Fundings and features.

 

Such a division as public versus private domains in terms of cultural production is unrelevant considering the current European context. What does it imply in terms of representation and how is it possible, to take advantages from these two sides by initiating new kinds of working “machines”?

 

Cluster C.

Edges / hedges.

 

If one accepts that the cultural production is more than ever integrated into global politico-economical strategies, what are the new edges of this “system”? What are the hedges through which their use is possibly productive?