Archive
Editorial
Two
June 2005
In
November 2004 Visual Art
Politics went online in its pilot version.
By
this we open the second issue.
The idea is to develop a hybrid between a website and a web-based
periodical.
The articles, by which we did open the pilot issue of this website, were
meant ,
besides having their own intrinsic value, to represent abstract “netpoles”
between which we can stretch out our “net”. A net that is
fine-meshed enough so that we can also focus on the smaller problems of
detail, and which is on the same time stretched over a sufficiently large
area and is strong enough for us to debate big issues, with people who
are important, that is have influence, in there own spheres.
In a longer perspective interviews will be a prominent feature of this
website journal because the dialogical form of the interview will permit
the interviewer, while exploring the attitudes of the interviewee, to
act as an information provider; to assume the role of an advocate for
ways of thinking that may be alien to the interviewee, and may perhaps
even represent complementary or simply clarificatory views.
On the 12th of March 2005 EVAN’s second general assembly was held
in Copenhagen, in the auspices of Danish Artists Council, which is also
hosting the office of ECA, European Artists Council.
The delegates did confirm that the focus of EVAN should be exchange of
information and communication.Structure and content of Visual Art Politics
was discussed.
A new Governing Body was elected.( Look for further information at the
evan link at the bottom of this site, or go to www.e-v-a-n.org
).
EVAN / Visual Art Politics is concerned with a policy and forms of cooperation
that will promote more appropriate interaction between the influence of
democratic organizations and the influence that comes from individuals’
“subjective” choices of approach and focus.
The art of today is under so much pressure that all art policy assets
should be involved in the work, with careful consideration of how widely
deffering competencies can best be used to supplement one another.
We need a shared awareness that the art policy considered worth recommending
varies depending on the visual-arts practice from which it is viewed.
Today we need to develop a defined wide spectrum of vision for what contemporary
artists need in terms of legislation-based changes in the way official
Europe sets out the framework for artistic creation.
Art
has its own contribution to make in society on its own terms.
And through art politics artists, politicians and researchers can get
behind the right of contemporary artists to appropriate working conditions.
If this is to be done in a way that qualifies the visual artists to become
important, competent dialogue partners for policy-makers with legislative
responsibilities, it requires a thorough prior interaction among the basic
thinking patterns of the parties involved. Only then will discussions
and subsequent negotiations be of a calibre that permits inclusive and
constructive legislation in areas, that have a direct influence on the
ability of the creative artists to manage their own activities in an artistically
and socially responsible manner.
At the top of EVAN / Visual Art Politics wish-list we
place respect for the individualist’s contribution to the collectivity,
and the collectivity’s will to support the individual’s creative
abilities - artist or not.
Charlotte Brüel
Chairman of EVAN, European Visual Artists Network
Editor of Visual Art Politics, www.visualartpolitics.org
Editorial One.
By this we go online with Visual Art Politics.
Opening the debate with three texts:
First a confronting text, an Open letter to the Danish Minister of Culture, written by Cai Ulrich von Platen, chairman of BKF, Billedkunstnernes Forbund (The Danish Association of Visual Artists.
Second a description of the intensions behind a workshop in England (June 2004), Workshop Flaxman Lodge, at which the question is raised:
Can new forms of international co-operation and organisation be created that bring together the collective struggles of art-, knowledge-, service- and other precarious workers? Can we, through a critique of work, point to new practices where work and political action are integrated?
Does the cultural worker share interests with the call centre worker for example? Is a Knowledge Workers Union an option?
And third a text from the press release about Una Walkers exhibition “Surveiller” - a database of exhibitions that have taken place in Belfast through the period 1968-2001.
So by confronting the politicians of today, planning a union for the future, and exhibiting historical exhibitions as an expression of contemporary art do we open the new platform for, hopefully a new qualified dialogue by publishing the web journal Visual Art Politics.
Charlotte
Brüel
Responsible Editor
2nd of November 2004
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