After engaging with the American South in our last Crit Cross, where Verein K talked to Jasmine Amussen, editor of Burnaway magazine about inclusivity in art writing and creating context for art where there is none, this Crit Cross looks to the European East, with Tjaša Pogačar from Šum, based in Slovenia. Šum is a journal and a platform focusing on contemporary art and theory, established in 2013 by artists and theorists. The conversation, facilitated by Klaus Speidel, could focus on theory-fiction, the form of writing exemplified by Šum, which happens, as Tjaša Pogačar explains, «alongside art» rather than being «about art» like traditional art criticism, as well as collective editing and the wider context of art criticism and art writing.

Tjaša Pogačar, freelance curator, writer, co-founder and editor in chief of based ŠUM, Ljubljana
Moderation: Klaus Speidel, Crit Cross

Crit Cross #16 is organised by Verein K and takes place in partnership with Depot – Kunst und Diskussion.

Further information: http://verein-k.net/wp/crit-cross/

Crit Cross: A Forum on Art Criticism is an open discussion group of current critical writing, organised four times per year by Verein K in Vienna with the aim to create a platform for sustainable art- and sociocritical dialogues. In Crit Cross #17, we will address recent publications relating to the subject of the Spring Curatorial Program to be determined. The texts are crowdsourced.

Moderation: Klaus Speidel, Crit Cross
Spring Curatorial Program: Art Geographies

Crit Cross is an open reading and discussion group of current writing about art and society. It has the aim to create a platform for the sustainable promotion of art- and sociocritical dialogue as well as art-related topics in Vienna. Furthermore it aims to promote the ability to read and exchange critically.

Jasmine Amussen, editor of _Burnaway_, 2020 MacDowell Calderwood Fellow of Journalism
Moderation: Klaus Speidel, Crit Cross

Meetings are organized by Vienna-based association Verein K.

We will use Zoom for our discussion.

Does the shutdown bring an overproducing artworld to a healthy halt or is it an exciting opportunity to find new ways of producing? Does the quarantine expose the shortcomings of the gallery system or does it prove the irreplaceability of the physical experience of art in the age of Instagram? Will cancelled art fairs be replaced by thriving online salesrooms or does the crisis show that an altogether different way of financing art – and perhaps everything else – is necessary and possible?

Times of crisis are times for reflection. We thus want to use this Crit Cross. A Forum on Art Criticism to step back and reflect on the puzzles, impacts and paradoxes of the Covid-19 Crisis. As we move through the evening, we will look at three aspects, namely the creation, circulation & presentation and the financing of art.

Moderation: Klaus Speidel, Kunstkritiker, Kurator

As always, our debate will be nourished by contemporary critical writing. Here’s a choice of our readings:

https://news.artnet.com/art-world/museums-coronavirus-crisis-1815993
https://news.artnet.com/opinion/madrid-reina-sofia-director-1824210
https://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/one-third-of-french-galleries-could-shut-before-end-of-2020-due-to-coronavirus-impact
https://www.theartnewspaper.com/comment/socially-distant-the-end-of-fairtigue
https://www.theartnewspaper.com/analysis/art-market-coronavirus-system-change
https://news.artnet.com/art-world/new-york-academy-art-zoom-crits-1830165
https://spectator.us/like-about-coronavirus-slavoj-zizek/
https://www.e-flux.com/announcements/325621/letters-against-separation-on-e-flux-conversations/
https://www.politicalanimalmagazine.com/2020/04/09/thoughts-within-the-coronising-siege-a-work-in-progress

About Crit Cross
Crit Cross. A Forum on Art Criticism is an open discussion group of current writing about art organized by Verein K in Vienna. It aims at creating a platform for the sustainable promotion of art- and sociocritical dialogue as well as art-related topics in Vienna. The premise of the project is that art texts are part of a social discourse, which also thrives on direct exchange. We believe that critical reflections on art and society are essential at a time when art is under pressure of justification in the face of shrinking resources and political change. In each session, texts from international and national art magazines, newspapers, blogs and other publications are selected, prepared and discussed. Twice a year, international critics are invited to put their own texts up for discussion to allow for a direct exchange with international representatives of art criticism in Vienna. The events take place in different art and cultural institutions in Vienna (Belvedere 21, Depot, Kunsthalle Wien, mumok, Secession) and are facilitated by theorist, art critic & curator Klaus Speidel.
For questions and suggestions get in touch at critcross@verein-k.net
For more information and to find the text, please visit: http://verein-k.net/wp/crit-cross/The program is supported by the 7. District of Vienna.

Crit Cross is a reading and discussion group of current critical writing about art and society; a platform for the sustainable promotion of art- and sociocritical dialogue in Vienna. Meetings take place quarterly and are organized by Vienna-based association Verein K.

Rosalyn D’Mello, a feminist writer, editor and art critic,  moved from India to South Tirol earlier this year and has been reporting on events in our vicinity for the India-based publication STIR ever since. She asked timeless questions like «Do audiences matter to artists?» or «Can the artist speak?», developing personal answers and also offered valuable perspectives on shows.

Rosalyn D’Mello , writer, editor and art critic.
Moderator: Klaus Speidel,  image and art theorist, art critic and curator

Please find below some of D’Mello’s writings as an introduction to her critical practice:
– The Freudian Glitch:
https://www.stirworld.com/think-opinions-the-freudian-glitch

– Self-harm versus self-care, what does the art world enable?  https://www.stirworld.com/think-opinions-self-harm-versus-self-care-what-does-the-art-world-enable

– Seeing a work of art in the age of coronavirus
https://www.stirworld.com/think-opinions-seeing-a-work-of-art-in-the-age-of-coronavirus

– All of D’Mello’s texts for STIR can be accessed :
https://www.stirworld.com/author-Rosalyn-D%60Mello

– For a longer piece of writing on her perspective, we recommend The empathy drink: reflections from a brown-eyed museum visitor.
http://verein-k.net/wp/rosalyn-dmello_the-empathy-drink/?fbclid=IwAR1nWohJ1v0JDs9f7GuI_xtc5euhL-m65Hcb0016hMwTYcZtnlbxqzlP_8w

Please send all questions, remarks and suggestions for texts for Crit Cross to critcross@verein-k.net.

The reading and discussion group Crit Cross, organized by Verein K, is a platform for art- and sociocritical dialogue. Anyone can suggest discussion of a recent text and join the group. This time with Stephanie Bailey. She is editor-in-chief of Ocula Magazine, and co-editor for several art-magazines such as ART PAPERS, LEAP, Podium. Since 2015 she has curated the Conversations programme at Art Basel in Hong Kong.

Stephanie Bailey, curator, art critic
Moderation: Klaus Speidel, Kunstkritiker, Kurator

Veranstaltung in englischer Sprache

Die Lese- und Diskussionsgruppe Crit Cross, organisiert von Verein K, ist eine Plattform für kunst- und sozialkritische Dialoge, ein Format zur Förderung kritischen Lesens und des Austausches aktueller Texte zu Kunst und Gesellschaft. Interessierte sind eingeladen, aktuelle Texte zur Diskussion vorzuschlagen.
Zarina Muhammad und Gabrielle de la Puente von The White Pube stellen traditionelle Formen der Kritik infrage und arbeiten an neuen Formen der Kritik online.

The reading and discussion group Crit Cross, organized by Verein K, is a platform for art- and sociocritical dialogue. Anyone can suggest discussion of a recent text and join the group. Art critic Zarina Muhammad questions, together with Gabrielle de la Puente from the White Pube, traditional art criticism and explores new forms, mainly online.

Zarina Muhammad, The White Pube, UK
Moderation: Klaus Speidel, Kunstkritiker, Kurator

Veranstaltung in deutsch und englisch

Today’s so-called migrant “crisis” has not only seriously shaken the existing order, it has exposed links between current and historical forms of oppression and exclusion. The old figure of the Gastarbeiter exists at the very core of a hidden genea logy of today’s “crisis” – making it necessary to disclose this genealogy across old and new ideological divides and political interests, and to thus reconnect our present with the past in order to not only understand the current “crisis” but to open the prospect of a new, different future.

Friday, October 6

10.00 Introduction and welcome Boris Buden / Lina Dokuzović, eipcp

10.30 Panel I: An avant-garde figure or a role model? The relevance of Gastarbeiters today

Boris Buden, cultural theorist, eipcp, Berlin

Jana Dolečki, theatrologist, cultural worker, Vienna

Keti Chukhrov, philosopher, Higher School of Economics, Moscow

Manuela Bojadžijev, cultural theorist, Humboldt University, Berlin

13.30 break

14.30 Screening GUESTures/GOSTIkulacije (D 2011), R: Margareta Kern, 33 min.

15.00 Panel II: Marginalized and invisible experiences – women Gastarbeiters and queer fight

Katja Kobolt, curator, cultural theorist, Red Min(e)d, Lothringer 13_Florida, Munich

Margareta Kern, artist, lecturer Falmouth University, Cornwall / London

Ana Hoffner, artist, cultural theorist, Vienna
Amir Hodžić, sociologist, cultural theorist, Zagreb

17.45 Discussion

Saturday, October 7

14.00 Panel III: Rethinking “guests” and “workers” in post-Fordist forms of labor mobility

Lina Dokuzović, artist, cultural theorist, eipcp, Vienna

Monika Mokre, researcher, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna

Stefan Nowotny, philosopher, Goldsmiths University, London
Jon Solomon, critical theorist, Jean Moulin University, Lyon

16.45 Discussion

17.30 Experimental multilingual discussion and exchange among activists, migrants, and “refugees” sharing experiences and knowledges of struggle. Open to everyone.

19.30 Closing statement

Organized by the european institute for progressive cultural policies – eipcp and co-funded by the Creative Europe programme of the European Union and The Arts and Culture Division of the Federal Chancellery of Austria.

The curators of the project BALKAN(S) NOW believe that a much-needed political artistic practice is being shaped in countries such as Serbia, Macedonia, Kosovo, or Slovenia: a practice that relies on self-empowerment, strong net-working across the region, and a pro-European yet critical attitude. Hence, when one looks at the artistic landscape anywhere to the south of the Austrian border, one discovers a vivid, uniquely inter- connected art scene that stands in a strong contrast to the ethnically-organized political fabric.

Panel 1, 19.00: The extended Balkans – Vienna as a platform for artists from Slovenia, Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia, Macedonia and Montenegro
Ivan Jurica, Art Education, mumok, Bratislava/Vienna

Ivana Marjanović, Co-director, Kontekst-Kollektivs, Belgrade

Walter Seidl, Head of Kontakt. The Art Collection Erste Group and ERSTE Foundation, Vienna

Moderation: Suzana Milevska

Panel 2, 20.15: “Balkans” and “Post-war” – artistic empowerment beyond those labels
Vasja Nagy, Free-lance curator, Ljubljana/Vienna

Aneta Stojnić, Artist, theorist and cultural worker, Belgrade

Moderation: Jens Kabisch

BALKAN(S) NOW is curated by Gülsen Bal and Marlene Rigler in cooperation with Open Systems, Vienna, Mestna galerija, Ljubljana, and Remont, Belgrade

Veranstaltung in englischer Sprache