/ecm discourse 18: Who is calling?

A conversation with Can Gülcü, Hanna Rosa Oellinger, Joshua Simon

Welcome and Introduction:
Beatrice Jaschke

Moderation:
Katja Stecher
Free admission

How open are Open Calls? Are they a democratic tool or a mechanism of
competition? Could we think of alternatives for them in order to develop a
fair and open practice?
In the field of art and culture these supposedly open biddings are
frequently used to acquire and support “young talents“. Artists are offered
possibilities to participate in exhibitions, festivals, residencies and
workshops or receive awards and grants. Everybody is welcome to take part –
but in the end there is only one winner who is selected by a committee of
experts, while the remaining proposals hardly get any attention. Upon
closer inspection the Open Call proves to be a neoliberal practice that
pretends to follow democratic principles.
Although the Open Call is a commonly used model in the art field it’s
inherent power structures and competitive setup has hardly been reflected
on. This lack makes it crucially significant for the curatorial practice to
examine this mode of operation critically. We would like to reflect on and
discuss this topic together with different “players“ in the art field.

PARTICIPANTS

Can Gülcü
is artistic director and manager of WIENWOCHE together with Petja Dimitrova
and Radostina Patulova. It is a new cultural project that was founded in
2011 and initiates Open Calls on a regular basis (www.wienwoche.org). His
artistic practice is situated between fine arts and political-participatory
cultural work.

Hannah Rosa Oellinger
is part of the artist collective oellinger/rainer. Together with Alice
Neusiedler they have participated in the “Open Call on Undisciplined
Knowledge Production“ with their lecture performance „Die Regeln der Kunst
– ein Echtzeit–Fragebogen”.

Joshua Simon
is director and chief curator of MoBY – Museums of Bat Yam, Israel. In his
book Neomaterialism, published in 2013, he points out the competitive
structure of Open Calls and the economy surrounding them.

ORGANISATION /ecm 2012 – 2014
The post-graduate master programme /ecm – educating, curating, managing at
the University of Applied Arts, Vienna is concerned with core competences
in an expanded cultural field. Part of the exhibition “Out of the Box. 10
Questions about Artistic Research“ – curated by the current participants –
was an “Open Call for (Lecture–) Performances on Undisciplined Knowledge
Production“ which gives reason for this discussion.

Concept
Annette Leber, Katja Stecher (/ecm 2012–2014)