Im Rahmen der / In the frame of Vienna Art Week
Gespräch / Talk: 20.00 Uhr / 8.00pm
Mohammad Salemy returns to Schneiderei to share recent developments of his artistic research and to reflect on the impact that constant travel is having on artistic practice.
Mohammad Salemy’s first talk at Schneiderei, “For Machine Use Only” was turned into an exhibition at our space and then integrated into a conference format with publication at ‘tranzitdisplay’ in Prague and then a version of the project was included in Maria Lind’s Gwangju Biennial 11 (2016). An exhibition “Artificial Cinema” that was presented alongside the conference in Prague was presented again in a performative setting at Vienna’s artist-run space ‘school’.
We have invited him back as a part of our ‘research and development lab’ which has focused on how alternative spaces become an integral part of the development of larger projects .
In 1994, Mladen Stilinović, the late Croatian artist proposed that, “An artist who cannot speak english is no artist.” Two decades later we can update this proposition and confidently claim that an artist who doesn’t constantly travel the world is no artist. While artists have always traveled distances to spread images and infest minds with new ideas, in no period in history have they spent so much time in corridors of international travel to make a living and build their careers. The precarious easyJet setters of today’s art world unpack what they carry for a few days, then pack again and leave for the next destination. The traveling global art world is very much akin to the political economy of free ports, where masses of art is kept safe these days as long-term investment. Global art functions today like bitcoin, a self-aggregating system which, by taking a clear account of its own activity, generates new and non-existing value and then re-injects this new wealth into general economy.