SEMINAR FOR WRITING

Tender for workshop No. 5
Catalogue text workshop

Tutor: Suzana Milevska (Skopje, Macedonia)
April 13 and 14, 2007
Project room SCCA, Metelkova 6, Ljubljana, Slovenia
Deadline for applications: Wednesday, April 4, 2007

Public lecture
Curator as a Translator
April 12, 2007 at 8 pm
Project room SCCA, Metelkova 6, Ljubljana, Slovenia

The World of Art (www.worldofart.org), school of contemporary arts as an educational program was introduced in 1997. It was developed out of a need for theoretical and practical education in the field of contemporary visual art and which no university program in Slovenia offers.

In 2006/2007 the World of Art is entering into its 10th year of working and is now comprising Laboratorium of curatorial practises, Seminar for writing, Series of public lectures, and Anthology.

The seminar for writing is a segment introduced to stimulate texts on contemporary art and initiate new discourses and methods of recording and historicizing contemporary artistic practices through different workshop sessions and lectures.

Workshop

April 13 (Friday)

10.00-11.30 Introductory lecture
A Voice of One's Own: catalogue text as an example of performative writing

Catalogue text is a piece of interdisciplinary and performative writing. Most importantly each exhibition has a certain concept that needs to be clarified with the catalogue essay. However, there are other requirements that a thorough catalogue essay needs to fulfil. On the one hand, many relevant data need to be clearly presented throughout the text so often takes a long research to collect and select the necessary information. On the other hand, the catalogue text is a text after all so each writer has to find his/her own voice through the process of writing.
Therefore the writing of the catalogue text happens by a performative entanglement of these three radically different aspects: the extrapolation of the concept, collecting and analysis of necessary information (about the works, or issues related to the exhibition) and the personal quest for one's own unique voice (of the writer/curator).
Theoretical concepts, literature and certain creative writing methods can help the writer in finding the appropriate writing approach for each exhibition and catalogue text. However, I want to argue that the catalogue text is a unique genre that is neither only theoretical text, nor just another literature genre. It is also far from pure description or retrieval of the artistic concepts and expressions. Therefore even though it is open to experiments and variability there are certain specific rules of this genre and only by following these rules it can justify its existence. 

12.00-13.30 Sub-genres of Catalogue Texts
The already existing different exhibition models (individual, monographic, retrospective, thematic, historicised, or biennial international exhibitions), as well as the recent development of different exhibition models (on-line, collaborative, participatory, etc.) require re-thinking of the genre itself.
The main questions of this session are how should one adapt and change the writing methods, forms, vocabulary, etc., when writing different texts and how this affects "one's own voice."

13.30-15.00 Break

15.00-15.30 Preparation of the close reading workshop
Organisation of the order of reading of different textual samples, forming groups of participants according to the chosen texts, etc.

15.30-17.30 Close reading workshop
The questions that in the previous session had been tackled generally and theoretically during this session will be exemplified on some samples of the proposed texts. The texts for the session of close reading will be available to the participants in advance and they are asked to choose one text each for the close reading session. 

Samples of catalogue texts available for reading and selection (at SCCA-Ljubljana):

• Marina Abramovic, Oxford: Museum of Modern Art - Oxford, 1995 (monografska razstava).
• Archipelago, Stockholm: Cultural Capital of Europe, 1998 (mednarodni skupinski projekt).
• Manifesta 2 and 4v, Luxembourg, 1998 and Frankfurt, 2002 (mednarodni bienale).
• Capital and Gender, Skopje: Museum of the City of Skopje, 2001
• Eternal Recurrence 4, Skopje: Press to Exit project space, 2006 (samostojni projekt).
• Prekinjene zgodovine, Ljubljana: Moderna Galerija, 2006 (raziskovalni projekt in razstava).
• Correspondences, IFA - Berlin, Bonne, Stuttgart, 2001 (kuratorska razstava).

18.00-19.00
Q/A session about the assignment: Discussion about the specific issues related to the writing of the text required for the last day of the workshop.

April 14 (Saturday)
10.00-14.00 Presentation of the written texts
14.00-15.30 Break
15.30-17.30 Division in groups and discussion of the written texts
17.30-19.00 Groups get together and present their remarks and conclusions

The workshop will be led in English language.

Suzana Milevska
Visual culture theorist and curator and currently works as a Director and Lecturer in Visual Culture at the Visual and Cultural Research Centre Euro-Balkan Institute in Skopje. She received her PhD at the Visual Culture Department at Goldsmiths College in London. In 2004 she was a Fulbright Senior Research Scholar at Library of Congress and she also received P. Getty Curatorial Research Fellowship (2001) and ArtsLink Grant (1999). Since 1992 she curated over 70 art projects in Skopje, Istanbul, Stockholm, Berlin, Bonn, Stuttgart, Leipzig, etc.
(More: http://www.worldofart.org/aktualno/seminar/voditelji-delavnic/)

General requirements:
With each application (available on: www.worldofart.org) the candidates should submit a CV with bibliography, a motivation letter, an older written and/or published text and an idea (abstract of 150 words) of what they would write and present in the workshop.

Preparation:
All participants should get familiar with all catalogues (available at SCCA library) and should select at least one text each for discussion during the session of close reading. In addition, a week before the commencement of the course the selected participants are going to be invited to discuss the workshop structure in order to enrich its content and facilitate its success.

Suggested literature:

• Kemal, Salim and Ivan Gaskell. Eds. The Language of Art History. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
• Austin. J. L. Kako napravimo kaj z besedami, Studia humanitatis: Ljubljana, 1990.
• Wollheim, Richard. Art and its Objects Second edition. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1980.

The workshop fee is 15 EUR for individuals and 30 EUR for representatives of institutions

The number of participants is limited!

Deadline for applications: Wednesday, April 4, 2007

The application should be send by e-mail to:
svetumetnosti@scca-ljubljana.si, or by mail to:
SCCA-Ljubljana, Metelkova 6, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia.

More information:
SCCA-Ljubljana (office hours: 11.00-15.00)
Contact persons: Saša Nabergoj, Tevž Logar
Metelkova 6, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia, tel.: 00 386 1 431 83 85, fax: 00 386 1 430 06 29
E-mail: svetumetnosti@scca-ljubljana.si

SCCA-Ljubljana is a member of Asociacija, the association of non-government organisations and independent creators in the field of culture and art in Slovenia.