AICA Salon – Drowning in a Sea of Blurb: The Value of Writing in the Age of Content
This evening is a conversation with artist Timo Demollin, the editors of the platform Tangents (Becket Flannery, Annie Goodner, Isabelle Sully), and artist Nicoline van Harskamp, moderated by Laurens Otto.
Seven years ago, Alix Rule and David Levine analyzed the intricacies of global art-speak in their much-discussed piece on “International Art English.” Since then, the relationship between text and art has continued to morph under ever-faster online circulation. Meanwhile, guided by powerful PR departments, art criticism has become increasingly entangled with the genre of newsletters, press releases, and blurbs, now supercharged by AI, becoming as widespread as it is meaningless. At the same time, there are new attempts for more personal approaches (see the rise of autofiction) and alternative revenue models (see Patreon and Substack) — each with its own set of challenges.
If a traditional art world is indeed crumbling (the art market staggers, public institutions lose ground), what can be the value of text? What strategies exist when writing for a distinct community? Or has generic babble some potential after all?
Nicoline van Harskamp will speak about the manifold “Englishes” used in art, both as a medium and as a tool in its production, trade, and reflection. She will also discuss her upcoming work Prosodia, which will deal with speaking via screens (‘screen talk’) and the prosody (intonation, rhythm, volume, timbre, etc.) of artificial and artistic speech.
Timo Demollin will notably discuss their installation Visit (1883–2020), which prompted the Stedelijk Museum to acknowledge its origins in the International Colonial and Export Trade Exhibition of 1883. As museums transition from representational spaces to performative actors, can their gestures of acknowledgment and solidarity move beyond the symbolic to actually produce equity?
Becket Flannery, Annie Goodner, and Isabelle Sully from Tangents will discuss building an art review platform that celebrates the tangent (raaklijn) and how style intersects with desire in the creation of meaningful art criticism.
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Nicoline van Harskamp is an artist whose work considers acts of language and solidarity.
Her live works were staged, among other places, at the M HKA in Antwerp, Tate Modern in London, KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin, New Museum in New York, Arnolfini in Bristol, steirischer herbst in Graz, Serralves Museum in Porto, If I Can’t Dance in Amsterdam and Kaaitheater in Brussels. She has exhibited her video and installation works internationally, such as at KADIST in Paris, Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, HKW in Berlin, MUAC in Mexico City, Manifesta 9, and the biennials of Gothenburg, Limerick, Sydney, and Taipei. Nicoline van Harskamp is the professor for performative art at the University of Fine Arts (Kunstakademie) in Münster, Germany. Among her web-based works are englishes-mooc.org and contagious-speech.org.
Timo Demollin is an artist and considers production as a site of economic, social, and historical unruliness. Their context-driven installations, sculptures, and publications often draw from structural contradictions in class society, particularly as these appear under neoliberal market conditions, tracing how authority over resources and social goods circulates through objects, materials, discourses, and their abstractions.
Tangents is an English-language online review platform focused on writing about the Dutch art scene. Born from a frustration with the prevalence of objectivity and imposing house styles in the majority of art writing commissioned by leading platforms, Tangents instead encourages contributors to approach criticism from within the specificities and focuses of their own writing practice. It is edited by artist and writer Becket Flannery; writer, critic, and educator Annie Goodner, and curator and writer Isabelle Sully.
Laurens Otto is a curator and critic. He is a board member of AICA, the International Association of Art Critics (NL).
AICA SALON
AICA Salons are dedicated to topics related to art criticism. AICA Salons can also be attended by anyone who is not (yet) a member of AICA, free of charge. The program is followed by drinks.
ABOUT AICA
Founded in 1950, the International Association of Art Critics (AICA – Association Internationale des Critiques d’Art) is a global organization that unites over 5,000 art professionals from 95 countries. AICA-Netherlands, the Dutch section, comprises 170 members, all of whom are active art critics.
Supported by by the AFK (Amsterdam Fund for the Arts).
