CALL FOR EMERGING ARTISTS AND CURATORS - Critical Visions II: Contemporary Art in Practice

The series of 3 without-charge workshops Critical Visions II (March-April 2024) offers emerging artists and curators the chance to develop their practice in a collaborative context, under the mentorship of international specialists in the field. Suprainfinit wishes to address the difficulties that early-career artists and curators face in managing their path and to support critical and sustainable ecosystems in the arts. 

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The current program extends the theoretical, curatorial, and writing-based practices explored through the previous sessions during Critical Visions I. Inviting three international contemporary artists as mentors, Critical Visions II focuses on supporting emerging artists and curators to practically engage with multimedia and multidisciplinary artistic practices through presentations, crit sessions, and collaborative exercises. The courses are conceived to equip the participants with practical and conceptual skills, encouraging collective thinking and the formation of professional networks that are based on care and trust. 

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Each workshop will last for two days. The workshops will take place at Suprainfinit Gallery and other locations in Bucharest carefully selected by the mentors and announced in advance.  

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Participation in all three sessions is strongly recommended. Prepare yourself for 6 intense days, but that will unfold in a safe and friendly environment. 

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The application deadline is 1 March 2024. The selection process will begin once the application period ends and we aim to respond to applicants in one week. We will accept around 10 participants. 

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The workshops will unfold exclusively in English. However, the gallery team will be there to assist participants with translation to Romanian where needed. 

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Although we encourage early-career artists and curators based elsewhere than Bucharest to apply, we are unfortunately unable to cover transportation and accommodation costs. If you want to apply to a mobility fund, offered by a cultural or academic institution in order to cover expenses, we can support you with a confirmation letter. 

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Sessions 

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Mike Bouchet – 12-13 March 

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Since the early 1990s, Mike Bouchet has been producing a seemingly boundless array of conceptually rigorous works —including paintings, sculptures, installations, videos, actions, interventions, and performances —through which he critically questions political, economic, and cultural systems and the role of the artist in society. At once deadly serious and highly absurd, his works walk the line between art and life, fantasy and reality, often purposely creating confusion between these categories.

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Apparatus 22 – 15-16 March

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Apparatus 22 is a transdisciplinary art collective founded in January 2011 by current members Erika Olea, Maria Farcas, Dragos Olea together with Ioana Nemes (1979 - 2011) in Bucharest, Romania. Beginning with 2015 they are working between Brussels and Bucharest. They see themselves as a collective of dreamers, researchers, poetic activists and (failed) futurologists interested in exploring the intricate relationships between economy, politics, gender studies, social movements, religion and fashion in order to understand contemporary society. A recent topic of research and reflection in the practice of Apparatus 22 is their SUPRAINFINIT universe: a world-making attempt to use hope critically in navigating the present and future. In their very diverse works –installations, performances, text based-shapes– reality is mixed with fiction and storytelling, and all merge with a critical approach drawing knowledge & experience from design, sociology, literature, and economics.

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Amalia Pica – 16-17 April

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Encompassing sculpture, performance, installation, video, and drawing, Amalia Pica’s work examines systems of communication and what brings people together. Using seemingly simple materials and found objects, she investigates human modes of interaction, especially our desire to be understood and the accompanying pleasures and failures. 

Born during Argentina’s “Dirty War” in which the dictatorship persecuted suspected political dissidents, Pica’s work also addresses techniques of state control and explores the relationship between form and politics, as well as history and representation. Her performances and viewer-activated works examine how civic participation and social forms can provide opportunity for creative expression and can even act as a form of resistance within oppressive social systems. More recently, she has turned her attention to investigating the systems that are ever-present and ingrained in contemporary society, especially bureaucracy and modes of assembly.

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This project is financed with the support of EEA Grants 2014 – 2021 within the RO-CULTURE Program.