Participants and guests of Art Weekend St Petersburg will have an opportunity to visit the discussions of acclaimed foreign and Russian curators, artists and philosophers who will elaborate on the topics of artistic self-organization, government and contemporary art relations and curating of art projects in public spaces.

SCHEDULE:

12:00-13:00

Open dialogue-discussion with Alisa Prudnikova and Pavel Prigara on the NEMOSKVA project

13:00–14:30

Curating for public spaces

The panel discussion Curating for Public Space features curators that share interests towards working in the public space and urban context. It brings together their experiences from working in Finland, Russia and United States. They discuss what it means to curate for and within a public space. How curating locates it-self in between reaction, representation and active participation?

Moderator: Jussi Koitela
Participants include: Taru Tappola, Anna Jensen, Carol Stakenas, Nailya Allakhverdieva, Artem Filatov, Susan Katz

15:00–16:30

Art and politics. Three propositions

Quite often one can hear various arguments on the relations between art and politics. There is a feeling that the old opposition proposed by Benjamin - the opposition to the aestheticization of politics and the politicization of aesthetics - still haunting contemporary art as well. But is it true? What problems do we face today when we try to link politics and art and what kind of arts and politics are we talking about?
I would also like to suggest that we analyze another opposition proposed by Godard and then developed by many other authors (Hirschhorn, Steyerl, Chto Delat) - that it is important not to make political statements in art, but to make art politically. How is it valid for current situation?
And I would like to discuss another third opposition that has been coming to the fore lately. This is the opposition between the proliferation of the protocols of participation (community art), usually carried out by artists and institutions and the desire for so-called "commoning" of artistic practices "from below", which in its logically complete form no longer requires mediation of institutions and artists and could be considered as new form of folk art. How do we overcome the dichotomy of this opposition and jump to another level?

Moderator: Dmitry Vilensky
Participants include: Olesya Turkina, Luisa Ziaja, Sonja Lau, Corina L. Apostol, Artyom Magun

16.30-18.00

Artistic Self-Organization

In recent years, we have seen a surge of self-organized art spaces in Moscow and St. Petersburg, as well as in other Russian cities. Who is engaged in them and why? What are the goals and objectives of such initiatives? How long have they existed? And what is their significance for the local artistic environment? It is commonly believed that the so-called artist run spaces become an alternative to stable institutions, often radically opposed to them. Is this really true? Western experience often proves that grassroots initiatives have been confidently moving towards institutionalization and professionalization since their inception. Can we say that Russian self-organized spaces are on the same path?

Moderator: Lizaveta Matveeva
Participants include: Antonina Trubitsyna, Ann-Kathrin Rudorf, Clarinda Mac Low, Irina Aksenova, Nikita Seleznev, Katerina Sokolovskaya, Alexander Tsikarishvili

The event will be held with simultaneous translation. The event is free to the public. Prior registration is required.

Organizers: North-Western branch of National Centre for Contemporary Arts (NCCA) ROSIZO, Frame Contemporary Art Finland, A Finnish center of culture in St. Petersburg, CEC ArtsLink, Goethe-Institute St. Petersburg, The Austrian Cultural Forum Moscow.