Saturday 30 April 2011
10:00 – Press Preview & Exhibitor breakfast
11:00 – 21:00 Fair and Taut Programme open to public
16:00 – 19:00 – VIP drinks reception
Sunday 1 May 2011
11:00 to 19:00 Fair and Taut Programme open to public
Special Programmes, Thematic Strands & Events
Trajector 2011 Commission – Jemima Brown
Trajector Art Fair is proud to present a special programme and thematic strand as part of the fair.
Taut – Art & Fashion is less of a programme and more of a full-blown entity in its own right. Full details of the Taut programme are available at its own sub-site here...
The second programme and thematic strand in ‘Neuconomics’. Full details of this will be published here shortly, whilst the text below introduces the ideas behind it.
Neuconomics is meant as open-ended reflection on the status quo of alleged differences –and similarities- of various positions in contemporary art practice and arts organistations. As many non-profit organizations brace themselves and prepare for both traditional and new means of protest or alternative strategies for economic viability, it is apt to step back and ask a range of questions ranging from ideological questions about the nature of current artistic positions to more tenuous ones about the relationships between aesthetics, practice and political position.
In a context in which no artificial divides will be imposed by Trajector between the various invited sectors, these ideas will even be intrinsic to the fair’s structure. Are the old divides and differences as clear as they once seemed? In navigating the artistic and physical paracours of the hotel itself, for example, does what is presented automatically indicate the position of the presenting agency? In an art world in which there is increasing crossover between all sectors, do the once ephemeral and vehemently anti-commercial artistic practices manifesting during the 1960’s remain the domain of non-profit or the underground? Or are they as much at home in the commercial gallery these days? If not artistic practice, then what differentiates the different positions and sectors now? Technicalities? Politics? Aesthetics? Networks?
And, when faced with challenges such as recession or funding cuts, do the traditional means of activism, survival and resistance still hold true? In the potential for new means of protest through technology, do many of these new media themselves not already show signs of audience empathy and interest fatigue? In a situation in which only those who are at risk of losing their funding seem to be prepared to launch into action, what new strategies for sustainability are there? And economy itself: how do the residues of the world’s current economic woes find their way into the practices of artists?
In addition to a range of events and presentations that will attempt to tease out an insightful discussion of such complex topics, Trajector will invite a number of related presentations from artists or organize events engaging with the thematic both directly and laterally.
The Neuconomy of Art
Saturday 30 April –commences 13:00
Adjusting to changing economic factors is nothing new for the arts. In fact, it’s probably as old as artistic practice itself. But recent years, accelerated by the economic crisis and the fall-out effect on traditional funding sources, both private and public, has seen the arts experience a period of intensified uncertainty. For example, even in societies that have traditionally measured their support for culture with generous funding are currently envisaging a future in which the most drastic reduction in public spending on the arts is planned for many a decade. The visual arts have been affected in both comparable ways to other art forms and in a number of ways unique to the sector. Similarly, responses to the unfolding situation, both as artistic practice and as more strategic sectoral defense, has also been interesting and in many cases unique.
The Neuconomy of Art is a panel discussion that attempts to examine professional responses – artistic and otherwise- to current circumstances. Taking a number of recent examples of response to the situation - ranging from art works to innovative cultural diplomacy- the panel will consider what the future economics of art might be; for better or for worse. Panelists will include writer, thinker and art historian Adrian Rifkin, cultural attaché Daphne Thissen, Angelique Spaninks, the director of MU, and artist duo Zoë Walker and Neil Bromwich whose work has frequently involved economic critique, primarily from the position of green economists.
Trajector 2011 Commission – Jemima Brown
Trajector Art Fair is pleased to announce that the The Trajector Commission 2011 has invited Jemima Brown as the commissioned artist for Trajector Art Fair 2011. She has been invited to make a special solo presentation including entirely new work at Trajector 2011.
Jemima Brown has recently been working on a number of new themes that have grown from her extant body of work that explores topics such as social and political relationships through sculpture, video, drawings and watercolours in new directions.
In this special commission premiered as a solo presentation at Trajector 2011, Brown takes the themes of cinema and popular culture –which have been a long standing topics in her work- and explores them in a number of new directions that continue to explore her interest in personal identity, populism, ‘street culutre’ and social relationships.
A number of the new works presented offer a reflection on popular and populist culture and its historical connections with science and technology. The sculptures based on cult cinema, in amongst their various themes, amply demonstrate how popular cinema has always assimilated its own fears and anxieties about science and technology as entertainment. This is, of course, echoed in the ‘table top sculptures’ with connotations of evil scientists shrinking human beings etc. But, of course, in these cult films that they reference, such anxieties become ‘fun’ and the stuff of ‘cool’ street culture.
In connecting this thinking with the opportunities offered by current technology – such as Facebook- that interestingly allows the popular audience the ability to make its own ‘cinema’ or entertainment online, Brown plans to draw our consideration to how the anxieties –or awe- for science and technology’s relationship to pop culture is shifting: social media allows us to be the creators of our own hip cinema-like narratives online. Yet, certain anxieties remain, though these have shifted more to the social anxieties of living one’s life in a public arena where we must all create our own hip and cool narratives of who we are.
In connecting the history of popular cinema with the present and her personal history through the motif of ‘the starlet’ –Brown’s own grandmother was an actress who aspirations to stardom in 1950’s Hollywood were interrupted when her husband was blacklisted as one of ‘The Hollywood Ten’- there is an attempt to get the audience to think about a certain constancy in the relationship between the social and the technological aspect of all media. For example, the ways in which we turn our fears and anxieties about technology into entertainment or hip and cool cultural phenomena that, invariably, have an interface with our own personal stories.
Image Gallery
For full details of the 2010 special programmes for Trajector please click here.
For full details of the 2010 Taut – Art & Fashion programme, please click here.