The Cementa 13 contemporary art festival is a shaping up to be a dynamic and significant artist run initiative. Moving into Kandos, between 1-4 February 2013, Cementa 13 looks set to put the post industrial after cement-works town on the art world map, and perhaps at the same time it will sprinkle some post-cement pixel-dust and change the fortunes of not only the town but also some of the talented artists who are travelling there with their varied works to take part in the four day festival. With the support of Arts NSW, there is talk now that it will be a biennial event.
Founded by artists Alex Wisser and Georgina Pollard, run by artists for artists (and wider local communities), Cementa 13, is rapidly growing with the transformative shape-shifting energy of self-motivation, inspiration, and community support and with the networked power of social media and facebook is an example of an event in the new digital and "real world" cultural economy and new subject formation online in social media communities. Like numerous dynamic artist run projects Cementa has also used Pozible to run a campaign, to raise awareness of its existence with the aim of raising money to pay for artists' food and accommodation for the seventy artists whom it is supporting over the four days of their exhibition at the festival.
The Cementa campaign offers a variety of festival-themed rewards or incentives for contributors who donate amounts to the campaign, from bright pink bumper stickers emblazoned with the legend "Visit Kandos: Cement a Friendship" (left over from a Kandos Museum campaign) to art works donated by exhibiting artists.
Altogether this represents a new form of arts community based support for an arts event, and artists. It is also providing interesting events and a selection of works and artists for arts writers, such as myself, to write about. It is due to the range of interesting arts projects with an online dimension happening this summer in Australia, that we have been inspired and motivated to relaunch our arts writing media platform Arts Features International online. This transformative move into multi- dimensionality is timed to occur very soon in early 2013, coinciding with the tenth anniversary of AFI -which is also an ARI artist run initiative. This was a very successful arts writing enterprise and we interviewed and wrote on many prominent international contemporary artists from around the world, as well as prominent curators and events in the art world throughout the first decade of the 21st century, a crucial time of social and technological change that has transformed the art world and seen the mass migration to online social media arts communities, that we are now communicating, working and living in.
But with all these changes, have values fundamentally changed in the artworld (should it now be called the arts world)? Have the relations between artist, art critic/writer/journalist, and art collector changed? (Of course as Pierre Bourdieu pointed out the line between cultural and economic value in relation to Art is very blurred and this means in terms of ethical value- too big a topic for this post but will return to when Arts Features International goes online).
This question is at the forefront of my mind as I have a hypothetical (well not so hypothetical) case study example that illustrates the changing forms of support for the arts, and the move into online social media arts communities of all who work in it - including artists, arts writers, and gallerists. And that is to do with art critics/writers supporting artists through financial donations e.g. on Pozible campaigns, for which they receive art works. And then writing about them.
In the old -capitalist framed- economy and world of arts writing criticism, there was a general unspoken rule or agreement that art critic and writer don't buy the art works they write about - as it is a conflict of interest - as reviews tend to elevate prices. (Although this is not so heinous as auctioneers selling works they own and elevating the prices of art works in auctions by bad faith bidding). And many art writers love the works they write about and wish to support the artists if they can. (Question, is this ethically unsound? and if so why?)
This is particularly on my mind as I find myself in this position. In my enthusiasm for Cementa 13, and all that it is doing and represents, I checked out their Pozible campaign. Despite my less than financially 'independent' status as a writer (and with my university lecturing contract ending with fireworks on Dec 31, my own future is relying on my art writing now!) I made a donation, and in return for a picture that I liked the look of.
Laying it all on the line, and declaring my conflict of interest, I specifically made a donation and pre- purchased a print by Fiona MacDonald from her Green Bans series.
And yes I will be writing about it as there is a story well worth telling and re-telling behind the print which commemorates the disappearance and suspected murder of heiress Juanita Nielsen who was an activist campaigning against property developers buying up the community terraces in Victoria Street in Potts Point in Sydney. Although her body was never found and no charges laid, it is common folk lore that she was murdered. The print depicts the artist protestors in Victoria Street with the name Juanita, J symbolically represented as a dollar sign, in dripping blood red. Across the print are the words "Save Victoria Street'.
This seems representative of a community-led arts event, which brings together artists for a common cause of self support in times of economic crisis. I also just like the print. And there is a theme in the festival I have detected of art driven by social and cultural activism which I find particularly interesting, as it is a form of interarts, inter-field communication. Arts as criticism, and art as journalism; that is as interesting and valid a comment and opinion as 'art criticism ' and art journalism that is based on words alone. Ian Milliss is another artist working with similar themes.
So I have made a donation and contributed in more ways that the traditional art critic. Maybe you can too!
The Cementa Pozible campaign has only two days and is short of its target by almost five thousand dollars. Will some kindly philanthropists, or art critics, step in at the last minute?
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Your thoughts and comments on this moral dilemma of the digital age art world are welcome- is it a conflict of interest to support art work on Pozible and write about it- in new forms of arts journalism and criticism? is that what the community is about creating a new form of cultural economy?Feel free to send me your responses or comment below - we'll be writing more on changing values in the global digital age, new artworld cultural economies and arts communities when Arts Features International goes online.
Fiona MacDonald, 'Green Ban: Victoria St: Mick Fowler's Jazz Funeral, 1979; Eviction of 115 Victoria St, 1974', 2011. Print form the 'Green Bans' art walk and exhibition, 76.5 x 94 cm. Edition 25. Courtesy of Cross Art Projects.
Fiona MacDonald, 'Green Ban: Victoria St: Mick Fowler’s Jazz Funeral, 1979; Eviction of 115 Victoria St, 1974', 2011. Big Fag Press. A really beautiful print from the 'Green Bans' art walk and exhibition. 76.5 x 94cm. Edition 25. Courtesy of Cross Arts Projects
Fiona MacDonald, 'Green Ban: Victoria St: Mick Fowler’s Jazz Funeral, 1979; Eviction of 115 Victoria St, 1974', 2011. Big Fag Press. A really beautiful print from the 'Green Bans' art walk and exhibition. 76.5 x 94cm. Edition 25. Courtesy of Cross Arts Projects
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