CRATE Exhibition as Medium End Symposium

June 14, 2012

Ruth Beale

Dave Beech

Andrew Cross

Janna Graham

Toby Huddlestone

Sue Jones

Paul O’Neill

Matthew De Pulford

Neal White

+ more

CRATE’s Exhibition as Medium End Symposium will present two keynote papers on possibility and ambition, spectatorship, and impossibility by Janna Graham and Dave Beech respectively, along with project reviews of the recent Exhibition as Medium programme at CRATE discussed by those involved, including Andrew Cross, Bob Levene, Paul O’Neill, and Neal White among others.

Exhibition as Medium programme curator Toby Huddlestone will also provide an introduction and overview to the programme. Paul O’Neill will chair a responsive discussion, leading to an open dialogue inviting questions and thoughts from all attendees.

This is the final element of the Exhibition as Medium programme. Beginning with Start Symposium in early 2011, the programme and organisation was to be perceived as an ongoing active conversation delving into alternate exhibition formats, experimenting with the exhibition as one multi-authored artwork rather than a space in which to show separate hermetic works. The programme has attempted to bridge the chasm between the discussion generated through research and process, and our ‘final’ exhibited product. The symposium will focus on the research undertaken through the programme via the following questions:

• How can we breakdown existing hierarchies between organisations, curators, and artists, instead finding some commonality of practice and expression?
• Can we mould collective ideas together in order to co-author and co-produce exhibitions, events, and artworks?
• How can we explore a shift in authorship and control between curators and artists?
• How can we express artistic practice, rather than just artistic product?
• Is it more interesting and freeing to ignore ideas around the catagorisation of rigid art practices?
• Is it more interesting to say ‘I am the artist, curator, exhibition, programme, and organisation’ rather than ‘I am the artist’?
• What is the role of our public(s) when working on conversation-driven programmes? Can we become our own public(s)?
• What kind of impact do programmes such as Exhibition as Medium have on audience, the art world, and culture?

Over 80 thinkers including artists, curators, and writers have contributed to the 7 separate projects making up Exhibition as Medium, unearthing research and adopting new processes in order to investigate shifts in what the exhibition can be. Tickets 10 GBP, concessions 5 GBP.