A Real Art Festival
PLATFORM PLATEAUS AND POTENTIAL FOR PROGRESS - 6TH MARCH 2009 - 12TH MARCH 2009
Catalogue PDF avilable soon.
Artist Group C.A.a.D organised a city-wide art event in Sheffield where a range of
events will take place in the week of 6-12th March 2009. The events
(all art related) are intended to focus on the institutions that affect
the group, such as the academy and the gallery, and the difficult
nature of creative risk-taking given the dominance of an assessment and
validation culture that hinders so many.Many
more alternative and thought provoking questions have emerged from this
theme that have led onto more pressing issues such as elitism within
existing system structures and the ownership of public space. C.A.a.D
have evaluated these elements (assessment and validation) and have
discovered that the system believes that they are important in order to
gain funding (i.e. to act as a representation of progress of the
institutions and the people they support). If it cannot be evidenced to
external bodies that success and development are certain then the
external entities will be more reluctant to invest in them either as
consumers, an audience, or funding bodies. And
yet we wonder if 'real' progress can be made in the absence of risk,
without something fundamental being at stake and the whole endeavour
verging on failure, with the prospect of little or no gain.
Furthermore, one might be sceptical of the nature of the progress that
these institutions are vying for: is it to progress education or art,
or to further strengthen the surface value of the institutions so that
more students or funders will be encouraged to invest their time and
money in so the institutions can gain a profit? And if the actions of
the institution are in favour of the latter to get the former, then
what is the primary role?
You can also check Contemporary Art as Dialogue's BLOG for upto date idea platforms.
