26 May 2010

15th Tallinn Print Triennial - final call for applications

FOR LOVE NOT MONEY
15TH TALLINN PRINT TRIENNIAL
JANUARY – APRIL 2011

Application deadline is 30th of May 2010!

The history of Tallinn Print Triennials goes back to 1968 and has reached for today its 15th anniversary. The theme of the triennial is „FOR LOVE NOT MONEY'; the exhibition will take place from January – April 2011 in Kumu Art Museum in Tallinn, Estonia.

The theme, and title, of the Print Triennial 'FOR LOVE NOT MONEY' has been developed to reflect upon the agency of contemporary art in times of global financial crisis (that impacts upon the production, exposition, and reception of contemporary art inasmuch as it affects every sector of society). Meanwhile, 'love' is an eternal and multi-dimensional phenomenon that can radiate within an artwork – unsullied by finance and crisis – regardless of the times in which it is produced and exhibited. It remains, like money, a timeless subject for artistic exploration and popular fascination.

To find out more browse: www.triennial.ee

CONCEPT

FOR LOVE NOT MONEY is intended to present a timely reflection on the state of contemporary art production, presentation and reception — during a period of world financial crisis. It also encapsulates a reflection of the status of �?printmaking’ within the hierarchy of contemporary art practice and production. Continuing a process started in previous triennials the 15th Triennial will present art works made using a range of mechanical and digital reproduction and print techniques, including camera and computer based technologies.

In the English language the aphorism “for love not money” describes any labour that is undertaken for passionate and not pecuniary reward — it is almost interchangeable with the equally aphoristic “a labour of love”. At its domestic basis is the care of small children and elderly people. In a larger social frame it refers to people who work in volunteer, community, and health services in those sectors that are financially under-nourished and socially under-valued, such as working with the homeless or drug addicted. The phrase also possesses a distinct cultural mien as it can be used to describe the plight of the young and/or struggling artist be they an actor, visual artist, director, or writer. Any person that sets out on a career in-the-arts knows that just making-a-living at what they have trained to do represents a modicum of success. They make their art — for love not money. Of course boom times, such as the art world has experienced from 2000–2008 (and earlier in the mid-1980s) turn this ingrained logic around and visual artists can be catapulted to levels of richness they can hardly have imagined: even if they dreamed about it. With those dreams and monetary values arrives an expansion — even excess — of scale, production budgets, and output often in conveyer belt or “factory” mode. In this phase, art often moves closer to other forms of cultural production such as architecture, automotive engineering, cinema, and fashion — as artists obsess about technics and means/modes of production that those other cultural sectors [or industries] offer them. The language associated with objects made in this way is equally transformed as the resulting artworks are no longer �?original’ inasmuch as they become �?one-offs’ or �?limited editions’ or props within �?an event’.

Then the bust, as has happened in 2009. Attenuation is required — modesty even. The times invoke a return to the circuits of love from those of money. And reproducible art — that Walter Benjamin robbed of its aura and its essence in the 1930s — becomes the perfect vehicle for Zeitgeist expression. Within the ecology of the art market small multiple objects begin to make sense again: within the ecology of artistic diminution they also make sense.

Thematically the 15th Tallinn Print Triennial will explore a range of concepts embodied within the project's title, including: addiction, desire, dedication, duty, family, love, lust, objectification, romance, religion, political commitment, and sex. Theoretically it will encourage reflexive examinations of these concepts from perspectives such as Walter Benjamin on reproducibility in art, Marx and Freud's theories of fetishism, Aquinas, Pascal and Montaigne's theories of faith, Roland Barthes, Michael Fried and Susan Sontag's descriptions of the camera's role in prescriptions of the public imaginary and its links to consumer culture, and Sean Cubitt and Boris Groys’s writing on the aesthetic and cultural affects of digitization.

As reproducibility is now manifold in the digital era the exhibition will aim to present artworks that — working within the thematic — reflect upon their technical status: and develop a relationship or refer to earlier modes of production (such as “printmaking”). Seriality is one of the key markers of this reflexive condition, whether it is played out in stop-animation or in photographic series, etc. Of course artists that are applying themselves to block-printing, lino-cutting, press-printing will be given special consideration — especially artists that are moving these techniques into a conceptual demesne. Explorations of more recent, but out-moded, technologies will also be encouraged as times of hardship often encourage recycling. The �?confessional’ nature of the exhibition theme is apposite to expression in book form; and artist's books continue to be a vehicle for experimentation and expression. This confessional modality might also spill into the new zones of mediation associated with digital communication and the Internet.

PRESENTATION

In a shift from previous years the 15th Tallinn Print Triennial will be held exclusively at Kumu Art Museum — to deliver a more focused and thematically integrated exhibition. This strategy will also capitalize on Kumu’s status as Tallinn's most visited exhibiting institution.

THE STRUCTURE

The exhibition will be divided into international and Baltic sections, including:

The international exhibition. The jury will be assessing submitted works on the basis of their conceptual connection to the theme For Love Not Money and their technical facilities in the bounds of the medium;

The Baltic exhibition. The open call will be announced in the art academies and professional associations of the Baltic States. The exhibition will present the works of approximately 30 artists (combined open call and special invitation plus young artists);

Specially invited and commissioned artist's projects, including nine young artists from the Baltic states (three from each) who will form of a special 'young artists' section of the Baltic exhibition;

A money project specially designed for Tallinn2011 European Capital of Culture festival;

An exhibition of prize winners from the Biennial of Graphic Arts in Ljubljana, curator Lilijana Stepančič;

The personal exhibition of Óscar Muñoz, the Grand Prix winner of the 14th Tallinn Print Triennial.