Call for participation Projects and Assignments curated by Andrew ...

Call for participation
Projects and Assignments
curated by Andrew Berardini
1st Opening 19.10.2010
- mid of November
Projects and Assignments is a project by the US-American curator Andrew Berardini for Saprophyt. Five
international artists were invited to send instructions for artistic interventions to Vienna, which will be
adapted, appropriated and commented by Viennese artists.
For the opening on the 19 th October Andrew Beradini will present the five instructions, as well as the first
adaption of a Viennese artist. After that several presentations will follow.
The exhibition is a hybrid form between group show and solo position.
The concept of Saprophyt manifests that all art work is kept in the space until the end of the project and is
free for appropriation by the following artists. This applies also to the artworks produced during this
project.
If you are interested please send an email with CV and a short portfolio to mail@saprophyt.net until the 1 st
of Oktober 2010.
Saprophyt
Barbara Kapusta & Stephan Lugbauer

Upcoming
19.10.2010
Projects and Assignments
curated by Andrew Berardini
The trick is to create something physical and transformative with an economy of means.
Something that denies the pure dematerialization of the internet, but as graceful a gesture as an athlete’s subtle turn
or a beautiful woman opening a window.
Two of the artists come from that slightly more idealistic moment popularly known as the 1960s. The others come
from the present moment.
David Askevold’s Projects Class came as the immediate inspiration. Canadian artist Askevold held a course at the
Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in 1969 where he invited artists to propose an idea to be realized by the class
as collaborators.
Some examples from the class:
Robert Barry proposed that the students get together and "decide on a single common idea. The idea can be of any
nature, simple or complex..." Sol LeWitt presented a "to do" list for the class which included: '1. A work that uses the
idea of error 2. A work that uses the idea of incompleteness 3. A work that uses the idea of infinity....' Robert Smithson
suggested a work that would involve mud being dumped over a cliff. Lawrence Weiner asked students to "remove"
some unspecified thing Halfway Between the Equator and the North Pole.
Other than how art travels, questions of how art is taught, or if it can be taught come into play. Is teaching as good a
way as any in which to exchange ideas? Is doing better than looking?
I imagined it as an exhibition instead of a class at once to have a space that was open, permeable, and without
restriction (enrollment and tuition for example) for involvement, but also as a way to underline that materiality and
presence (even with a project in the throws of the dematerialization of art) still matters, people gathering in a space to
realize an idea, with others being able to participate however passively by coming to the exhibition.
It’s not a recreation of Askevold’s Projects Class but a gesture to think about art and exchange in a way that depends
less on money and more on possibilities.
Andrew Berardini (born 1982) is an American art critic, writer, and curator of contemporary art. He has published articles and
essays in publications such as Fillip (Vancouver), Artforum (New York), X-TRA (Los Angeles), Artnet, Frieze (London),
MOUSSE (Milan), La Stampa (Turin), Paper Monument (New York), Angeleno (Los Angeles), Art Review (London), Style
and the Family Tunes (Berlin), Rolling Stone (Italia), and Afterall (London/Los Angeles).[1]. A graduate with an MFA from the
School of Critical Studies at California Institute of the Arts, Berardini has lectured on Art History and Cultural Production at
the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc)[2]. He previously held the position of Assistant Editor of
Semiotext(e) Press.[3] Berardini was recently Adjunct Assistant Curator at the Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena and is
currently Los Angeles Editor for Mousse and Senior Editor for Artslant.