ArtLeaking as Politics of Truth / Salon no. 4 @ Akademie der Künste der Welt, Köln-Cologne, Germany

ArtLeaks will convene with old and new friends following Academy of the Arts of the World‘s invitation to organize its Salon no. 4, from 7.30 p.m. on Wednesday, 23.01.2013

Location: musikFabrik/Studio, Im Mediapark 7, 50670 Köln

ArtLeaks is happy to announce its intervention within Akademie der Künste der Welt’s Salon series. Eager to share our accumulated knowledge and facilitate a critical examination of the current conditions of the cultural field, we will be equally interested in questioning, with the help of the audience, the particular context of the city of Cologne with its cultural institutions, scenes and markets.

The evening will be divided in two parts. The first one is dedicated to the platform’s introduction and to a brief presentation of the cases that have been published until now. This also becomes an opportunity to bring up for discussion a series of questions that have defined ArtLeaks’ activity and that we we would like to tackle anew in conjunction with members of the audience: What are the conditions of the possibility of leaking information concerning institutional exploitation, censorship, and corruption in the artworld? What does it mean to speak the truth in the art field and to whom may it be addressed? What analogies and what models can we use in order to describe and operate within the conditions in which cultural workers pursue their activities? We aim to bestow a deeper level of concreteness to these questions by inviting the participating audience to share its own concerns and experiences related to inequality of chances, structural injustice and forced self-censorship within the context of their work.

In the second part of the evening, we will announce and present the forthcoming ArtLeaks Gazette. Focusing on the theme “Breaking the Silence – Towards Justice, Solidarity and Mobilization”, the structure of the publication comprises six major sections: A. Critique of cultural dominance apparatuses; B. Forms of organization and history of struggles; C. The struggle of narrations; D. Glossary of terms; E. Education and its discontents; F. Best practices and useful resources (more here https://art-leaks.org/artleaks-gazette/). ArtLeaks will invite the audience to work within one of two groups, whose thematic – having the six sections of the Gazette as conceptual framework – will be established by vote. We aim, thus, to bring together people with similar interests which are willing to respond, propose, and be involved in future collaborations. This is also an open invitation for those willing to join our platform and become ArtLeakers. The findings of the working group session will be announced towards the end of the evening, when we come together for final conclusions and for concrete talks about future alliances and projects. These results will be uploaded on the ArtLeaks platform, together with visual and scriptural material which documents the evening.

There is a modest entrance fee of 3 € / with concessions of 2 € which helps the Academy cover production costs for this event.

Facilitators of the event: Dmitry Vilensky & Vlad Morariu

Akademie der Künste der Welt’s event page: http://www.academycologne.org/en/news-detail/article/salon-no-4.html

Facebook event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/443388849050260/

More about Akademie der Künste der Welt: http://www.academycologne.org/en/the-academy-of-the-arts-of-the-world/about-the-academy.html

Many thanks to Akademie der Künste der Welt and its team (Galit Eilat, Aurora Rodonó, Janine Hüsch, Carla Zimmermann, Sigrid Gareis, Kosta Dodoras, Miriam Gertzen) for making this possible!