Roundtable on the occasion of the exhibition:
I Am The Mouth - Art Collection Telekom, Works from Central and Eastern European Artists in the Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb.
The purpose of the Roundtable is to discuss the new opportunities that have emerged in the countries of Eastern, Central and South-Eastern Europe in the period of political and economic transition. In some former socialist states, the long-awaited museums of contemporary art have managed to survive or they have moved to larger, newly renovated buildings. The first private galleries appeared, but after the first economic crisis, in many places they had to be closed. More recently, the financial support for the purchase of works of art is significantly receding. Due to such circumstances, artists are still forced to do other jobs and to look for better living conditions in the West and to, with little luck, find a gallery that will represent them in the art market.
Through positive and negative examples from their own practice, the participants of the Roundtable will discuss different models of how art institutions are the mediators in promoting artists and it will also encourage discussion on many issues such as: What are the rules that neoliberal capitalism imposes on the art world system? Are the demands of the art market something that negatively reflects on the quality of art? What are the alternative ways that the art institutions, but also the artists themselves, find in such a modus vivendi in present circumstances?
The participants of the Roundtable will be: Alenka Gregorić, City Art Gallery in Ljubljana; Snježana Pintarić, Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb; Gregor Podnar, Director of the Gregor Podnar Gallery in Berlin; Katherina Schendl, Director of the LambdaLambdaLambda Gallery in Pristina and Rainald Schumacher, Office for Art in Berlin, Curator Art Collection Telekom.
The discussion will be moderated by the curators of the exhibition 'I Am The Mouth', Nathalie Hoyos and Radmila Iva Jankovic (MSU Zagreb).
