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via Challenging Double Standards
On February 26th, Artists for Palestine published a response to the open letter Challenging Double Standards (CDS) – A Call Against the Boycott of Israeli Art and Society. The authors accuse the CDS Call of misrepresenting the cultural BDS Movement, but in fact they misrepresent what CDS is and what it is about. To begin with: CDS has not been put together by a group of cultural workers based mainly in Germany. Out of the twenty initial signees only three are based in Germany. Moreover the authors of the response write that we “apparently endorse the idea that a state can be ‘democratic’ while also being defined by ethnicity[…].” But in fact we merely cited Noam Chomsky’s and Norman Finkelstein’s critique: Chomsky and Finkelstein oppose the BDS Movement for its vague definition of “occupied territories” (whether it refers to 1948 or 1967) and accuse BDS of ultimately striving for the destruction of Israel. We find it remarkable how the authors of the response re-emphasize that the idea “that a state can be ‘democratic’ while also being defined by ethnicity” is being “criticised by many Israelis – recently by Shlomo Sand.” Shlomo Sand himself is a historian teaching at Tel Aviv University and therefore he would be one of the victims of the BDS Movement. Further, Sand has not been in favor of cultural and academic boycotts against Israel within the Green Line — just like many other left Israelis. Could there be a more convincing proof of how inconsistent the idea of academic and cultural boycott actually is?
We do not misrepresent the BDS Movement. BDS is not a solely Palestinian, but an international movement mainly based in academic institutions in the global north though still speaking for “the Palestinians” or the Palestinian cause. While it acts on the authority of Palestinian activists it is also criticized within Palestinian society. The Palestinian Administration officially supports a boycott only against products made in West Bank settlements, but not a boycott of Israeli society as a whole and certainly does not support a cultural or an academic boycott.
It is hard to understand why the Artists for Palestine want us to believe that BDS is not directed against an entire state and its citizens. Have they not read their own texts? The authors quote the “Palestinian Civil Society Call for BDS” written in 2005, where it says that the boycott shall be implemented until Israel fully complies with the precepts of international law by its ending of “occupation and colonization of all Arab lands” and by “respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN resolution 194”. Anyone well-acquainted with the conflict knows that the phrase “the occupation of all Arab lands” does not only refer to the occupied territories of 1967.
Our letter intended to draw attention to the very nature of the cultural boycott. We demonstrated how individual artists as well as Jewish organizations have become targets of these boycott measures. We pointed to the fact that the boycott of Israel has to be seen in the wider context of the old and new history of anti-Jewish discourse and the ongoing use of Israel as the symbol of the neo-colonial evil. This bias is exactly why Jews are attacked (and killed) by radical islamists.
Let us be clear: We understand very well that the conflict between Israel and Palestine is not a symmetrical one. We do not overlook Palestinian suffering. We oppose the occupation and the settlements. This is the very reason why we promote dialogue and fight against a cultural boycott. As we have written in our letter: “We do not want to silence criticism; rather, we aim to challenge the dichotomized discursive battlefield. We don’t believe that all of us have to agree on each and every argument – that’s impossible! – but we insist on nuanced dialogue.”
Markus Brunner
Julia Edthofer
Benjy Fox-Rosen
Eduard Freudmann
Oliver Marchart
Suzana Milevska
Katharina Morawek
Ruth Novaczek
Doron Rabinovici
Nikola Radić Lucati
Anja Salomonowitz
Ruth Sonderegger
Luisa ZiajaErratum: Till Gathmann was listed in a previous list of signees.
Artists for Palestine UK Respond to CDS (Challenging Double Standards)
On 13th February, Artists for Palestine UK launched the Artists’ Pledge for Palestine (http://artistsforpalestine.org.uk), which now has more than 1,000 signatories. In its first week, the website received over 160,000 hits; it seems fair to say that its launch has opened another phase in the debate about the response that cultural workers can make to the struggle of Palestinians against oppression.
Another contribution to these arguments – strongly opposed to ours – has been made by a group of cultural workers based mainly in Germany. Published in ArtLeaks a few days before we launched the Artists’ Pledge for Palestine, it comprises a call against boycott, made under the heading ‘Challenging Double Standards.’ In the interests of debate, we offer a summary of what we take to be the authors’ main propositions, followed by a defence of our own approach and a critique of theirs.
The authors begin with a warning: the situation in Palestine/Israel is ‘complex’. Artists should be wary, therefore, of thinking about it in ‘binary, reductive’ terms, which make ‘dialogue’ between Israelis and Palestinians ‘impossible’. Boycott campaigns, they continue, are definitely an obstacle to dialogue because they ‘simplify’ history, by presenting Israel as a ‘paradigmatic colonial power;’ they ‘single out’ Israel from other states with an equally blemished record and thus fuel a revival of antisemitism.
The boycott movement, moreover, is in their view an ‘outside’ movement that lacks ‘on-site knowledge’ of Israeli society and the situation of Palestinians. Because of this, we are told, it is inclined to see conflicts between Israel and Palestinians in simplified moralistic terms, as ‘part of an eternal non-specific battle’ between ‘good’ and ‘evil’. It wishes to end ‘evil’ by ‘destroying Israel as a Jewish and democratic state’. [We note, in passing and with some surprise, that the authors apparently endorse the idea that a state can be ‘democratic’ while also being defined by ethnicity – an idea criticised by many Israelis, most recently by Shlomo Sand.] In place of these ‘simplifying narratives’, and ‘biased demands’, their Call seeks to promote ‘nuanced dialogue’. It asks ‘spaces of art and cultural production’ to make room for work that ‘deals actively with contradictions’ and rejects ‘demonising’ and ‘simplifying’ narratives.
We don’t find the Call convincing. It is odd that a text which insists on the need to reject generalisation and respect ‘specificity’, is itself so unspecific. There are some quite basic ‘specifics’ that don’t get mentioned at all: occupation, ethnic cleansing, settlements. Others are presented only in the form of euphemisms – the Israeli attacks on Gaza become ‘the Gaza War’. The document accepts without any doubt or questioning a very familiar story: not just that there are two sides, but that these sides are equivalent in the suffering they endure and the violence they inflict. It does not test this assumption against experience, least of all the experience of Palestinians. In fact it demonstrates a shocking lack of interest in what is happening to them, and in the multiple ways in which they have resisted it.
Misrepresenting the boycott movement
Unengaged with Palestinians – their debates, their politics – it is not surprising that the document misrepresents the boycott movement. It sees it as something that has developed outside Palestinian society, among the universities and the cultural spaces of the West – hence the comment about a lack of ‘on-site knowledge.’ In fact the movement exists because Palestinian organisations – like the South African ANC before them – have made a call for it: it is one of the forms of their resistance, for which they have won a global hearing.
Challenging Double Standards doesn’t attempt to understand what the movement is calling for. The BDS campaign is quite specific in its objectives: end the occupation; achieve equality for Palestinians within Israel; abide by United Nations resolutions. Again, such ‘real specificity’ is too much for the writers of the Call. They don’t mention these objectives, still less debate them. They prefer another kind of narrative, depicting the movement, for all its limited objectives, as a force working for the destruction of Israel.
Building on this assumption, the document suggests that boycott campaigns are targeting ‘an entire country and its citizens.’ This is not the truth – as the authors would quickly find if they looked in any detail at an initiative like the Artists’ Pledge for Palestine. Those who have put their names to the pledge have collectively refused ‘professional invitations to Israel, and funding, from any institutions linked to its government.’ No more, no less. Other kinds of invitation, other ways of working, outside the frame of the Israeli government’s cultural policy, are not at issue. In addition to their collective statement, many artists have written statements of their own. We invite the authors of Challenging Double Standards to read these statements (http://artistsforpalestine.org.uk/a-pledge/signatories-statements/). They are as nuanced and multi-voiced as any cultural theorist would want – yet at the same time they come together in protest against a singular injustice.
We don’t think the authors of Challenging Double Standards have been attentive enough to the situation they offer to analyse, or the movement they want to critique. There’s a long and undistinguished history of texts that invoke grand humanist principles as they go about their business of making injustice invisible. The Call belongs in this tradition; its talk is of peace and dialogue. But the other stuff, the enduring intolerable misery, is something it doesn’t want to see.
Artists for Palestine UK
Boycott! Supporting the Palestinian BDS Call from within (Israeli citizens for BDS)
Challenging Double Standards: A Call Against the Boycott of Israeli Art and Society
via Challenging Double Standards
To The Signees of Current Boycott Initiatives Regarding Israel
We are writing to you about a political issue, which increasingly causes us anxiety: how artists, and individuals affiliated with the arts address conflict in the Middle East. Over the past months topics including the occupation of the West Bank, Israel’s existence as a Jewish state, Palestinian resistance and its struggles, international solidarity and boycott movements, and criticism of Israeli policies, have been taken up in the arts arena with heightened intensity. We are deeply concerned by several aspects of how such issues are approached.
With this letter we are advocating against reductive, binary views of conflict in the Middle East. We believe in the role of art to question and resist dichotomous views. We see dialogue as a critical part of any conceivable peace resolution between Palestine and Israel, and are troubled by the tendency among international boycott movements—particularly cultural boycott movements supported by individuals in the arts—which make dialogue impossible. Such dialogue inside Palestine and Israel is difficult, and is only made more precarious by unilateral international boycott. Underlying these movements, we fear there is an upswing of anti-Semitic attitudes and attacks, which seem to convey varying degrees of intentionality. Neglecting or simplifying significant historical legacies, Israel is treated as a paradigmatic colonial power, and is boycotted in a way that no other country is. Such discrimination and double standards, whether explicitly stated or implied, demand to be addressed.
The Upswing of International Protest
This letter intends to draw attention to the upswing of protest targeting Israel, Israeli institutions, as well as Jewish organizations and individual artists, during the last months and increasingly following the Gaza war. To name just a few examples: the Tricycle Theatre in London refused to host the UK Jewish Film Festival; the organizers of the São Paulo Biennial were requested to return sponsorship funds accepted from the Israeli state; at the Edinburgh Fringe Theatre Festival an Israeli co-production was disrupted by protesters; and the Greek Kakogiannis Foundation was put under pressure for collaborating with the University of Jerusalem. At the same time, the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS) established a dedicated Arts Coalition. The BDS Arts Coalition (http://bdsartscoalition.org/) was founded prior to the Gaza war in June 2014 and advocates the boycott of Israeli institutions, in line with the BDS principles, which proclaim a comprehensive boycott of Israel on economic, academic and cultural levels. In its initial statement the BDS Arts Coalition requested artists to withdraw from the travelling art exhibition Living as Form (The Nomadic Version), presented at two Israeli institutions, a foundation-run art gallery and artist-in-residence program (Artport Tel Aviv) and the technical University of Haifa (Technion).
All calls and open letters were signed by a large number of individuals and groups affiliated with the arts fields; respected friends and colleagues among them. All these events took place in a climate where the Gaza war alongside its many atrocities provoked numerous anti-Semitic incidents, including physical attacks on Jews and Jewish institutions—none of which was reflected or even mentioned by the groups and contexts appealing for boycott. None of these groups condemned Hamas, an organization with an openly anti-Semitic agenda, which seeks the destruction of Israel. We are worried by this silence, which could either imply that the BDS Arts Coalition and similar initiatives are not equipped to discern anti-Semitic discrimination, or that such discrimination is ignored for tactical reasons. So we decided to share some critical reflections, mostly related to the BDS agenda.
Boycott as a Political Strategy
Boycott is a powerful instrument of political dissent and protest. In civil rights and anti-colonial liberation struggles boycotting has been used in the fight for de-colonization and justice, developed as a strategy to reach out to the world from within the affected country. Without internal perspective, boycotting can seriously harm unintended targets. To avoid collateral damages and judgments based on simplistic conclusions it is essential to have on-site knowledge. In the case of boycotting Israel however, the BDS movement is mainly active in academic and cultural contexts outside the country. It thus often lacks on-site knowledge and aggravates the tense situation, rather than contributing to peace building. On the contrary: rather than opposing “normalization”, as BDS frequently states, its actions indicate a leaning towards maximalist positions.
Boycott is not necessarily an emancipatory act of solidarity with the oppressed and in opposition to the oppressor. The Jewish experience especially in Europe reflects a contrasting effect: anti-Jewish boycotts were once organized against the Jews to exclude them from social, economic, and political life. In these cases, boycott had no anti-colonial implication. Instead, it functioned as a means of oppression by the dominant societies toward Jewish minorities. We are concerned that the language used and political strategies advocated by international boycott movements—among other Left-identified political groups—take the conflict between Israel and Palestine to epitomize neo-colonial evil as such. This view frames the conflict as part of a non-specific eternal battle between good and evil, between “oppressed” and “oppressors.” We ask for a critical approach to dichotomous narratives: Within the tendency to reduce the conflict between Israel and Palestine to that between good and evil, boycott is often romanticized as a political strategy and there is a great danger that the nature of colonial oppression, or of evil, is simplified. Particularly in the case of internationally-staged cultural or academic boycott movements, we fear the tendency to support polarized views. Since its formation in 2005 the BDS movement has been both supported and criticized for framing the conflict in a binary perspective, and for its punitive agenda and actions.
To be clear, we are advocating for a just peace for both conflict parties in Israel and Palestine, and our frustrations arise from this perspective. We insist on the importance of condemning both: injustice against Palestinians and the singling out of Israel as the perpetrator country, discrimination against Palestinians and forms of anti-Zionism fueled by anti-Semitism.
Who to Boycott?
Boycott as a political strategy requires careful consideration and an accurate evaluation of each context in which it is applied. Turning boycott into a doctrine and declaring it on an entire country and its citizens is generalizing and reductive. In the case of Israel, it is problematic and hardly justifiable. No one, for example, would boycott Pussy Riot for being in possession of Russian passports, not even if they were to throw their political agenda out the window. No one would threaten independent institutions, whether critical or silent regarding the policy of the country they are in, except in the case of Israel.
If boycott, divestment, and sanctions are considered as appropriate strategies to contest injustice through international solidarity movements, why are they not applied to the other uncountable countries committing injustices? Why didn’t anybody boycott cultural workers from Serbia and Croatia because of the genocidal war crimes committed by their respective countries? Why not boycott Spain for occupying the Basque country, Great Britain for oppressing Northern-Ireland, India for occupying Kashmir or Angola for occupying Cabinda? Shouldn’t we divest from Germany for waging war on Afghanistan, from Russia for invading Chechnya and Crimea or from Turkey for occupying Kurdistan? Why not lobbying for sanctions against China and Myanmar for suppressing freedom of speech, against Brazil and Canada for denying the First Nations’ rights, and against the US for maintaining and deploying the world’s largest military complex? Is it because “someone” decided that Israel ranks as the most unjust country in the world? And if yes: why is that the case?
Could it be that we feel too comfortable in our privileged lives, our civic rights, or our consumerist culture enabled by some of the above-mentioned states and their institutions—but still want to oppose oppression on ideological grounds? We believe that the collective desire for a “signifier of oppression” is exactly what makes Israel the only target of current international boycott movements.
It is important to not ignore the history of anti-Jewish discourse. Anti-Jewish boycott has often accompanied anti-Semitism as one of its dangerous manifestations. Contacts with Jews have been historically avoided; Jews were not accepted in merchants’ guilds, trade associations, and similar organizations. In many European countries toward the end of the nineteenth century, the anti-Jewish boycott became one of the basic weapons used for victimizing the Jewish population. After the Nazi rise to power in Germany the government publicly announced a general anti-Jewish boycott.
Double Standards and the De-legitimation of Israel as a State
The BDS movement has been criticized by various actors across the political spectrum for applying the double standards we hereby mention. The conflict is emotionally highly charged, especially for most Palestinians and Israelis and for a lot of other Jews, Arabs, and others related to it. It is also understandable that activists are attracted to the subject. But when the emotional and political engagement in this conflict grows out of proportion to the extent that it becomes virtually and publicly a mass phenomenon, it may be time to ask: why Israel?
Again, we believe this is due to the role of Israel as “signifier of oppression” and we argue that this rhetoric simplifies questions related to Israel’s very existence. One of the most discussed issues regarding BDS-politics and its double standards is its denial of the Jewish people’s right to self-determination and its de-legitimization of Israel as a state. This point has been stressed not only by pro-Israel activists, but also by leftist public intellectuals like Noam Chomsky or Norman Finkelstein who can hardly be accused of being Israel apologists. Both criticize the BDS movement’s demand of a one-state-solution and of the right of return for Palestinian refugees, which includes their descendants, and would ultimately lead to the destruction of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. To this effect they criticize the BDS movement for being hypocritical in calling for peace and human rights on the one hand, while fuelling the conflict with demands that would result in the end of the Israeli state on the other.
In our view, BDS’s simplifying narratives, together with its biased demands, foster an atmosphere that enables and even provokes attacks on Jews and Jewish institutions. We are concerned by the under-representation of positions in support of both the Palestinian cause and Israel’s right to exist—and by the tendency to dismiss any questioning of the international Palestinian solidarity movement as right wing pro-Israeli propaganda. We propose to think about this carefully.
Against Simplification
The purpose of this letter is not to silence criticism; rather, we aim to challenge the dichotomized discursive battlefield. We don’t believe that all of us have to agree on each and every argument—that’s impossible!—but we insist on nuanced dialogue. Taking boycott as a doctrine rather than a case-specific political strategy makes such dialogue impossible. If we believe in the ability of art to tackle complex situations and political questions in a progressive manner, the task of art lies in insisting on specificity and subjectivity rather than simplifying context; insisting on reflection rather than reflex. We ask spaces of art and cultural production to deal actively with contradictions rather than ignoring them, and to question political propaganda rather than being subsumed by it.
Therefore, we call on all individuals affiliated to the arts that come across demonizing attempts such as the BDS, to be critical and express this by contesting the underlying simplification. We ask you to seriously consider what triggers ongoing debates about the right of Israel to exist, what consequences the BDS-led support of the Palestinian struggle entails for both peoples as well as the peace process, and what binary frames and narratives are being used. We believe that both nations have the right to their states within the land known alternately as historic Palestine and historic Judea, and that both should strive for peace and just solutions together through mutual dialogue and neighborly cooperation. However, the guiding principles of that dialogue should be determined by the people that will actually be living together, side by side in peace with their neighbors. We call all friends and colleagues who signed the BDS Arts Coalition letter and similar resolutions to look into the history and presence of the BDS movement, to analyze its aims and strategies, to take into account these criticisms and to reconsider whether you want to support such a position.
***
This letter reflects the collective efforts of—and ongoing discussion among—individuals involved in the spheres of arts and culture in varying capacities; we consider ourselves as part of the left and have varying relationships to Israel and Palestine. As a collective we have benefited from and been challenged by the variety of opinions, perspectives, and experiences of the individuals among us. We hope that this letter models an alternative approach to the dismissive and problematic positions we criticize.Please forward this letter widely.
Sincerely,
Sheri Avraham
Markus Brunner
Julia Edthofer
Benjy Fox-Rosen
Eduard Freudmann
Ella Fuksbrauner
Till Gathmann
Sophie Goltz
Michael Klein
Oliver Marchart
Sarah Mendelsohn
Suzana Milevska
Katharina Morawek
Ruth Novaczek
Nina Prader
Doron Rabinovici
Nikola Radić Lucati
Anja Salomonowitz
Ruth Sonderegger
Luisa ZiajaYou can sign the call or contact us here.
References about cultural boycott groups, actions, and critical responses to boycott movements can be consulted here.
The ArtLeaks Gazette aims to shed critical light on both the challenges and obstacles inherent in the contemporary art world, in order to work towards constructive and meaningful transformations. Beyond “breaking the silence” and exposing bad practices, we are exploring the ways in which art workers around the world are pushing towards changing their factories of art, embedded in larger socio-economic-political flows. We realize this is a difficult task, as the global condition since ArtLeaks was established in 2011 is quite different. The (art)world has changed and it seems that violence and hostility rule around the globe. The years to come seem like they will be even more full of conflict and contradiction. Due to the increase of global wars, the threat of climate breakdown, and other devastating realities, new media and technology are being used in a negative way, encouraging deeper precarity, austerity, and inequality. This is happening in the sector of arts and culture increasing the debt of artists and cultural workers. We believe that art workers need to formulate an answer to these challenges, to build global coalitions, and to unionize in order to counter precarity and violence in a countervailing way.
The third issue of the ArtLeaks Gazette will bring together theoreticians and practitioners dealing with these urgent questions about models of organizations, unionizing, and strategies of resistance. This helps to illuminate new ways of production and coalition building in international and local environments that are increasingly hostile.
Specifically, social institutions of the welfare state are in poor shape thanks to the neoliberal offensive now underway for several decades. This process affects art workers. For example, in so-called “creative” European cities, significant numbers of registered artists function as a “reserve army” for cheap or even voluntary work. Conditions of artistic labor are summarily dismissed as unimportant, frequently among the upper echelons of the art management class, and sometimes even among artists that have either achieved economic hegemony or aspire to it. In some cases, when members of the art community do decide to speak out, they face the danger of being excluded from an exhibition or a project, or blacklisted from working in certain institutions.
One of the problems lies in the fact that artists usually do not understand themselves as workers, but see themselves working against each other and feel that art production differs from the capitalist working relations of the greater economy. The challenge is to continue to question the autonomy of artistic production, to confront those who benefit with this mode of cultural profiteering, and to demythologize the production process of art itself.
Several present-day activist art worker groups are beginning to look back to the late 1960s and early 1970s, and even further to the mid 19th century, particularly in the 1930s, as moments of inspiration during social movements and political struggles, for the fight for art workers’ rights, reclaiming cultural institutions, art and/as labor in a global context. Indeed, we would emphasize today’s art workers need more of that do-it-together spirit, a greater common interest and a more developed strategy and plan for transformation.
Therefore, the key issue the third installment of the ArtLeaks Gazette wants to tackle is the question:“Is it possible to make an international coalition of artists on the basis of art workers’ solidarity and to struggle for better material conditions?” And if so, then what could be the mechanisms to build and spread the network and to make stronger demands? Are there modes of production that can support coalition building?
We welcome contributions in a variety of narrative forms, from articles, commentaries, and glossary entries, to posters, drawings and films. The deadline for entries is the 5th of April, 2015. Contributions should be delivered in English, or as an exemption in other languages after negotiations with the editorial council. The editorial council of ArtLeaks takes responsibility for communicating with all authors during the editorial process.
Please contact us with any questions, comments, and submit materials to: artsleaks@gmail.com.
The on-line gazette will be published in English under the Creative Commons attribution noncommercial-share alike and its materials will be offered for translation in any languages to any interested parts.
Limited printed copies will be available. We are calling on those of you who regularly print as a part of your work to help us get the ALG by committing to small print runs of 50-100 copies. We will make several PDF formats of the ALG to meet various digital needs, as well as an epub edition. We encourage contributors to be an active part of spreading the ALG by hosting it on their site and forwarding it on to their networks.
The editorial council for the third issue is: Corina L. Apostol, Brett A. Bloom and Vladan Jeremić.
Previous issues of the ArtLeaks Gazette can be read here and here.
The Romanian Artists Union launches an open call for exhibition spaces. Transparency or just a front? (Bucharest, Romania)
//Please scroll down for English
//RO
Text de Xandra Popescu și Larisa Crunțeanu
Revenim cu informații în privința situației Atelier 35. În urma dezbaterii publice vis a vis de evacuarea Atelier 35, Uniunea Artiștilor Plastici din România a decis transparentizarea procesului de colaborare cu colective artistice auto-organizate.
Astfel, UAPR lansează un concurs de proiecte prin care pune la dispoziție 6 spații în București: Centrul Artelor Vizuale – Multimedia Center, Galeria Şelari 13, Galeria Orizont [subsol], Galeria CFP – Tipografia, Galeria CFP – Arthale, Galeria Galla [subsol]. Data limită pentru depunerea dosarelor este 20 ianuarie, anunțarea rezultatelor având loc pe 23.01.2015.
Având în vedere faptul că UAPR dorește să colaboreze cu lucrători independenți din sectorul artistic și colective artistice auto-gestionate – ai căror membri nu fac neapărat parte din structurile sale – considerăm că ar fi important ca juriul să includă persoane care au experiență în domeniul autogestionării și fac parte din scena de artă independentă.Având în vedere faptul că UAPR are rolul de a proteja condiția din ce în ce mai precară a lucrătorilor din domeniul artei ar fi indicat ca procesul de jurizare ar trebui să țină cont de conduita etică a aplicanților- în special în raport cu munca voluntarilor. În acest sens recomandăm ghidul conceput de organizația Carrot Workers: Surviving Internships – A Counter Guide to Surviving Internships in the Art Word, paginile 44-49
Recapitulând, credem că printre principiile de jurizare ar trebui să se numere următoarele criterii:- capacitatea demonstrată de a gestiona și compensa munca voluntarilor
– o etică a muncii bazată pe echitate, transparență și responsabilitate colectivă
– proiecte care reflectă asupra condițiilor sociale și politice ale societății actuale
– proiecte ce produc lucrări noi, cu o atenție pentru condițiile de producere a acestora
– proiecte care adresează contextul local – românesc – și cel specific – București
//EN
Xandra Popescu and Larisa Crunțeanu. English translation, editing by Corina L. Apostol
We have more information on the situation of Atelier 35. After a public debate on the possible evacuation of Atelier 35, the Romanian Union of Visual Artists has decided to make the process of collaboration with self-organized artistic collectives more transparent. Consequently, the Union has launched a competition for projects for the following six spaces in Bucharest: The Center for Visual Arts – Multimedia Center, the Gallery Şelari 13, the Gallery Orizont (basement), the Gallery CFP – Tipography, the Gallery CFP – Arthale, the Gallery Galla (basement). The deadline for project proposals is January 20th. The results will be announced on January 23rd, 2015.
http://uap.ro/concurs-de-proiecte-2015/
The team of Atelier 35 has received numerous verbal assurances from the Union’s management that they will be allowed to complete their already planned projects in the space at Șelari 13. We support the Union’s decision to make transparent its collaborations with artistic collectives. At the same time, we believe it is not fair that the management has included on its list spaces that already have programming planned for the near future. Also, given the fact that programming for a project space is a complex process, we recommend that the deadline be extended until the end of February and that the selected projects should begin at least 2 months after the results will be announced (May 2015).
We also recommend that the Union should further clarify the call for projects by specifying the working conditions, the rights and obligations of each party involved.
Taking into account that the Union desires to collaborate with independent art workers and self-organized artistic collectives – who are not necessarily part of this organization – we consider it important that the selection committee should include representatives from the independent art scene in Romania. Also given the fact that the Union has a mission to protect the increasingly precarious situation of art workers, the judging of the applications should take into consideration the ethical conduit of the applications – especially in what concerns volunteer work. Related to this we recommend the guide conceived by the CarrotWorkers Collective: Surviving Internships – A Counter Guide to Surviving Internships in the Art Word, pages 44-49.
To summarize, we believe that the following criteria should guide the jury process for the open call:
- the ability to manage and fairly compensate the work of volunteers in art spaces
- a work ethic based on equality, transparency and collective responsibility
- projects should reflect on social and political issues in contemporary society
- projects should produce new works; special attention should be paid and support given for producing these works
- projects should engage with the local context in Romania and the specific context of Bucharest
Atelier 35 takes its name after an institutional network founded by the Romanian Union of Artists in 1969 with art spaces in major cities, dedicated to experimental art and to artists at the beginning of their career; the number 35 suggests the conventional age limit of youth. Currently Atelier 35 in Bucharest is powered by Larisa Crunțeanu and Xandra Popescu.
In November 2014, Atelier 35 was threatened to be evacuated from its location on Șelari 13. Read more: Atelier 35 Evacuated by the Romanian Artists’ Union to Make Room for Pavilion and The Case of Atelier 35
ArtLeaks 