CRIT CROSS: A Forum on Art Criticism
CRIT CROSS is an open discussion group of current writing about art. It has the aim to create a platform for the sustainable promotion of art- and sociocritical dialogue as well as art-related topics in Vienna. Furthermore it aims to promote the ability to read and exchange critically.
The premise of the project is that art texts are part of a social discourse, which also lives from direct exchange and that critical reflections on art and society are essential at a time when art is under pressure of justification in the face of shrinking resources and political change.
CRIT CROSS takes place in the form of six meetings per year, for which texts from international and national art magazines such as Artforum, Frieze, Texte zur Kunst, Artpress, Monopol, Kunst, Spike, Camera Austria, Eikon or Springerin are selected, prepared and discussed. Occasionally, texts from newspapers such as Der Standard, F.A.Z., N.Z.Z. or New York Times are also being selected.
Twice a year, international critics are invited to put their own texts up for discussion in order to allow the Viennese audience a direct exchange with international representatives of art criticism.
The events take place in Viennese art and cultural institutions (mumok, Belvedere 21, Depot, Kunsthalle Wien, Secession).
Text selection
Texts are proposed by participants. The call for submission of text proposals takes place at the end of the previous session, a reminder per mailing list follows at least four weeks before the meeting, two weeks before the text selection will be announced.
From the proposals, three texts are selected for a two-hour open discussion, considering a balance between formats (essay or exhibition criticism, etc.), authors, as well as national and international art criticism. Although the classic format of the exhibition criticism should not be neglected, the selected texts are intended to open the discussion to a larger artistic or social context and thus also be relevant for readers who are unfamiliar with the exhibition or artists discussed.
Texts explaining, discussing or problematizing the tendencies of contemporary art or society should be given special consideration, so that not only experts can get involved in the discussion.
Depending on the participants, the discussions take place in German and/or English.
CRIT CROSS #24
ETC. Magazine. Emerging art from the Baltics to the Balkans
Monday, 25. November 2024, 7pm
Depot – Kunst und Diskussion
Breite Gasse 3
1070 Vienna
Counting 250 pages and appearing yearly since 2022, ETC. magazine was founded with the aim of bringing attention to “emerging art from the Balkans to the Baltics”. Created by a collective of curators and art professionals, it’s team is based in Ljubliana and run by Hana Čeferin, Ajda Ana Kocutar and Lara Mejač. In recent years, the founders have emerged as important contributors to the art landscape in Slovenia and beyond, not only through the magazine, but through their contributions to Ljubljana Art Weekend or Biennial of Design, which Hana Čeferin has been heading since 2023. Talking to Čeferin and Mejač, we will discuss the intentions, their curation of the magazine and its subjects, specifically the current issue « Selling Out » and hopefully enjoy a preview of the upcoming edition: What can we learn from the curation of ETC.? How do they choose writers and artists? What has changed since the magazine was launched?
Hana Čeferin is an art historian and curator, who has been head of the Design Biennial at the Museum of Architecture and Design (BIO) since 2023 and head of the programme of Mala Galerija in Ljubljana since 2024. Since 2021, she is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of ETC. magazine.
Lara Mejač works as an independent curator and producer in the field of contemporary visual and intermedia art. Between 2016 and 2023 she was the curator, producer and programme coordinator at DobraVaga Gallery. In addition, she has curated and produced exhibitions in various galleries in Slovenia and abroad.
Crit Cross #24 will take place both online and at Depot.
Crit Cross #24 is supported by the City of Vienna and 7. District of Vienna (from the budget for culture of the Neubau district).
CRIT CROSS #23
Christian Liclair, Texte zur Kunst, writing on art with an accent on theory
Monday, 24. June 2024, 7pm
Depot – Kunst und Diskussion
Breite Gasse 3
1070 Vienna
„The diagnosis of a crisis, it seems, is one of the constitutive rituals of (art) criticism itself“
(Christian Liclair).
Texte zur Kunst is internationally renowned as one of the most rigorous publications on art and one in which art theory plays an essential role. Featuring Christian Liclair, editor in chief of the magazine since 2022, this edition of Crit Cross can thus be seen as a counterpoint to Crit Cross #22 which focused on newspapers and their crises. As a scholar who published a monograph on sexually explicit art and its different perceptions, Liclair occupies an interesting position at the crossroads of different partisan and non-partisan approaches, practicing, commissioning and reflecting writing on art. The invitation is therefore an opportunity to deepen our investigations of different forms and problems of writing about art and those who practice it: How can a journal or magazine define and redefine its role in view of the crises of the present? How can a personal position in art writing be articulated with an editorial role? Is there still a place for evaluation in art criticism? And what, exactly, makes for a successful text (according to Texte zur Kunst)? The dialogue will be facilitated by Klaus Speidel.
As always, we chose some text to prepare the session with our guest:
As an editor:
WIE „NACHHALLIG“ IST EINE REZENSION? ANDREAS BEYER ÜBER WISSENSCHAFTLICHE BESPRECHUNGEN ALLGEMEIN UND SEINE AUSGEBLIEBENE ZUR JÜNGSTEN DONATELLO-AUSSTELLUNG IM BESONDEREN situated between art criticism and academic art history.
Richard Hawkins: The Forrest Bess Variations
Christian Liclair is an art historian and critic and currently editor-in-chief of Texte zur Kunst. He previously completed his doctorate as part of the DFG-funded research group “Aesthetics of Desire” at the Freie Universität Berlin and has researched and taught at various international institutions. He has written for Texte zur Kunst, Brooklyn Rail, FKW: Zeitschrift für Geschlechterforschung und visuelle Kultur, among others, and his first monograph was published by Routledge in 2022 under the title Sexually Explicit Art, Feminist Theory, and Gender in the 1970s. He is also currently editing an anthology on queer art history with Susanne Huber and Daniel Berndt, which will be published by Diaphanes next year.
Crit Cross #23 is supported by the City of Vienna and 7. District of Vienna (from the budget for culture of the Neubau district).
CRIT CROSS #22
“It doesn’t pop that much”. Art criticism in the age of user optimization
Monday, 18. March 2024, 7pm
Depot – Kunst und Diskussion
Breite Gasse 3
1070 Vienna
In a plea for the arts section in the press, Hannah Bethke from Zeit Online recently explained: “It doesn’t pop that much”, describing the way reviews are often perceived, in other words: they do not produce the required number of clicks. Adding, somewhat ironically, that the reason they still have a place in print is simply because readership is not easy to measure in the papers. It is against the backdrop of this skepticism that Crit Cross. A Forum on Art Criticism by Verein K will talk to Viennese art critics who work for two major daily newspapers. How do they see their role in the current critical landscape? What is their approach to criticism?
Guests:
Michael Huber, Kurier, Vienna
Almuth Spiegler, Die Presse, Vienna
Texts we will discuss:
– Ende der Kritik: Welche Macht hat sie noch? – Almuth Spiegler
– Das „Presse“-Kultur-Briefing: Gegen alles Ungelöste – Almuth Spiegler
– Augen-Fasten? Nicht mit diesen Tüchern! – Almuth Spiegler
– “Immersive Experience”: Frida Kahlo würde weinen, ganz in echt – Almuth Spiegler
– Bäume, Brokkoli und irgendwas mit Kunst – Michael Huber
– Vermeer bringt die Welt in Ordnung – Michael Huber
– Ein Superwahljahr für die Kunst – Michael Huber
– Die Vorteile der Vielfalt – Michael Huber
Crit Cross #22 will take place in German both online and at Depot.
Crit Cross #22 is supported by the City of Vienna and 7. District of Vienna (from the budget for culture of the Neubau district).
CRIT CROSS #21
Memes as Art Criticism
A conversation with Cem A. aka @freeze_magazine
Monday, 20. November, 7pm
Depot – Kunst und Diskussion
Breite Gasse 3
1070 Vienna
More honest, more efficient, more direct, more fun – less demanding? Are memes the art criticism of the 2020s? As our exploration of the varieties of criticism in the framework of Crit Cross approaches its seventh year, we are happy to bring Cem A. – who runs the successful artworld meme account freeze_magazine with 164 K followers – to Vienna for a conversation. Our talk will be guided by – what else? – the memes themselves, addressing topics like artworld privilege, politics vs. political art, the coyness of art criticism, unintelligible exhibition texts, conceptual Extractivism, artspeak, career art, what makes for a good joke and the power of memes.
Cem A. is an artist with a background in anthropology. He is known for running the art meme page @freeze_magazine and for his site-specific installations. His work explores topics such as survival and alienation in the art world, often through a hyper-reflexive lens and collaborative projects. He is an artistic advisor to documenta Institut.
Cem A.’s selected solo exhibitions and installations include Louisiana Museum, Barbican Centre, Berlinische Galerie, Grimmwelt Museum and Museum Wiesbaden. His group exhibitions include documenta fifteen and 14. Biennial of Young Artists, Museum of Contemporary Art Skopje. He has held lectures at Royal College of Art, Central Saint Martins, Haus der Elektronischen Künste, HDK Valand, Universität der Künste and Istanbul Modern. He is a member of Hœr NY, a feminist queer and bisexual lesbian art collective.
CRIT CROSS #20
FEMINIST ART CRITICISM
Monday, 5. June, 7pm
Depot – Kunst und Diskussion
Breite Gasse 3
1070 Vienna
The art world has long been dominated by male perspectives and has often neglected or marginalised women. For many years there was no space for more than one woman to emerge per art movement. This iswhy Verein K has decided to invite two very different but equally influential voices of feminist art criticism for the twentieth edition of Crit Cross. A Forum on Art Crticism: Nina Schedlmayer and Rosalyn D’Mello.
With her art blog Artemisia, Nina Schedlmayer created something that did not exist before in the German-language publishing world: a place for outspoken feminist writing about art. Detached, humorous, straightforward, she reviews exhibitions by feminist artists, counts the number of women in exhibitions or goes after the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna for its Baselitz show.
Rosalyn D‘Mello has been one of the most important feminist voices in Indian literature since her autobiographical novel A Handbook for My Lover (2016). Managing to combine criticism, empathy, food and poetry, her writing on art is always personal. Now based in Tramin, South Tyrol, she also regularly writes about art and cooking in Austria.
In their texts, Schedlmayer and D‘Mello spare the art world even less than the art itself. While D‘Mello oftenfocuses on personal interactions, Schedlmayer also observes the art market and its small and large arrangements, at times performing investigative journalism and institutional critique.
Because we at Verein K have been observing, admiring and discussing the work of both for many years, we have now invited them to join us.
Crit Cross #20 will take place in English both online and at Depot and be facilitated by Klaus Speidel, an art critic, theorist and curator.
Nina Schedlmayer studied art history in Vienna and did her doctorate on art literature under National Socialism. For a long time she was responsible for visual arts in the culture department of the news magazine profil.
She has been editor-in-chief of the cultural magazine morgen since 2019. She continues to publish for media in Austria and Germany such as profil Handelsblatt, art magazines Weltkunst, Parnass, Die Zeit. She runs the blog artemisia.blog, where she writes about art and feminism, and has published numerous catalogue and book contributions. Since 2022 she has been editor of the online magazine ask – art & science krems.
Rosalyn D’Mello (she/her/they) is a feminist writer, art critic, columnist, essayist, editor and researcher. She is the author of A Handbook for My Lover. She writes a weekly feminist column for mid-day, and a monthly memoir-based art column on contemporary art for STIR. She was a fellow at Künstlerhaus Büchsenhausen (2021-22), an Ocean Fellowship Mentor (2021), and the recipient of an India Foundation for the Arts research grant (2019-2022). Her writing has been internationally published and anthologised. She is represented by David Godwin Associates.
Crit Cross #20 organised by Verein K and in partnership with Depot – Kunst und Kommunikation and will take place in English at Depot.
Crit Cross #20 is supported by the City of Vienna and 7. District of Vienna (from the budget for culture of the Neubau district).
CRIT CROSS #19
Artificial Intelligence, Art and its Critics
Tuesday, 28. March, 7pm
Depot – Kunst und Diskussion
Breite Gasse 3
1070 Vienna
„Contemporary art has become a playground for careerists and narcissists, where self-promotion and shock value have replaced creativity and meaningful engagement with society. Artists like Joseph Beuys, Jeff Koons, and Marina Abramovic have perpetuated this trend, creating works that prioritize shock and spectacle over substance and critical reflection. […]. It is time for a shift towards art that engages with the complexities and challenges of our world, rather than pandering to the whims of the wealthy and powerful.“
This call for change in a densely intertwined contemporary artworld, where most art magazines only publish descriptive or even promotional texts, was not written by Hito Steyerl or Ben Davis, neither was it published by Hyperallergic. These fearless words were strung together by Open AI’s ChatGPT. A.I. is indifferent to hierarchies and allegiances. Does this not make it a better critic? Might the future of art writing lie with AI? Or is there something to the human appreciation of art that remains unique and irreplaceable? As ChatGPT writes: “As an AI language model, I do not have emotions or personal opinions.“ But will people be willing to pay for those in the future?
The same or similar questions could – and should – be asked concerning the production of art itself. Can works produced by A.I. models such as Stable Diffusion or Open Dall-E be creative? Can they be artworks? And how about the copyright of all the works they were trained with – and the works they produce? These are only a few of the most pressing questions this Crit Cross. A Forum on Art Criticism will address.
Texts we will discuss:
Martin Herbert, “I’m an Art Critic. Will AI Steal My Job?“, ArtReview, January 2023
Adam Gopnik, What can A.I. Art teach us about the real thing?, New Yorker Magazine, March 1, 2023
During the session, further contributions by ChatGPT can be discussed as needed.
Crit Cross #19 organised by Verein K and in partnership with Depot – Kunst und Kommunikation and will take place in English at Depot.
Crit Cross #19 is supported by the City of Vienna and 7. District of Vienna (from the budget for culture of the Neubau district).
CRIT CROSS #18
Art and the hidden desire for Capitalism in Anticapitalism: A Conversation with Keti Chukhrov
Tuesday, 13. December, 7:30pm
Depot – Kunst und Diskussion
Breite Gasse 3
1070 Vienna
This Crit Cross looks at art writing and the question of engagement with Keti Chukhrov, an art theorist, academic and play-wright based in Berlin and Moscow. Her latest book Practicing the Good. Desire and Boredom in Soviet Socialism published with University of Minnesota Press/e-flux in 2020 deals with the impact of socialist political economy on the epistemes of historical socialism. It attempts to reveal the hidden desire for capitalism in contemporaneous anticapitalist discourse and theory. The conversation, facilitated by Klaus Speidel, will focus on the expiration of the contemporary art’s institutional power – based on Chukhrov’s text “Evil, Surplus, Power: the three Media of Art”, published in E-Flux Journal – and the expansion of the performance practices into wider social and critical context as featured in another paper “Institutes of Performativity. Towards an Institutional Ethics” and the wider context of art theory, critique and art writing.
Crit Cross #18 is organised by Verein K and in partnership with Depot – Kunst und Kommunikation and will take place in English at Depot.
Keti Chukhrov holds a ScD in philosophy. She is a visiting professor at Hochschule der Künste in Karlsruhe and a professor at the Department of Сultural Studies at the Higher School of Economics, Moscow. From 2017 to 2019, she was a Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellow at the University of Wolverhampton in the UK. She has authored numerous texts on art theory and philosophy. Her full-length books include: Practicing the Good. Desire and Boredom in Soviet Socialism (UNMP, 2020), To Be—To Perform. ‘Theatre’ in Philosophic Critique of Art (European Un-ty, 2011) and Pound &£ (Logos, 1999), as well as a volume of dramatic writing: Merely Humans (2010). Her dramatic work and video plays were featured at Steirischer Herbst (2019, 2022), Bergen Assembly 2013, Ljubljana Triennial 2016, Kiev Biennial 2012.
Texts for the session:
“Evil, Surplus, Power: the three Media of Art”, eflux Journal, Issue #110, June 2020
“Institutes of Performativity. Towards an Institutional Ethics”, Springerin, Issue 3/2018
Admission according to the Covid rules that are relevant at the time of the meeting.
Crit Cross #18 is supported by the City of Vienna and 7. District of Vienna
CRIT CROSS #17
The Appeal of Geography in Art Writing
Friday, 27. May, 6:30pm
Depot – Kunst und Diskussion
Breite Gasse 3
1070 Vienna
This Crit Cross takes place in the context of the Spring Curatorial Program 2022: Art Geographies, co-organised by the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and Verein K in collaboration with Jelena Petrović, who conceptualised and curated the first edition.
To connect with the subject of the program, we selected recent writing on art that brings in a geographical dimension to elucidate the life and work of three artists whose art developed in a trans-national, trans-cultural context: Etel Adnan, Adji Dieye and Shirin Neshat. As we’ll try to analyze the value and limits of an approach to art based on geo-cultural dimensions, we will also be discovering three genres of art writing: the review, the portfolio and the obituary.
Texts we will discuss:
-> Quinn Latimer, “Etel Adnan (1925 – 2021)”, Texte zur Kunst, Issue 25, March 2022: Genres and Gestures of Dissent
-> Anna Karima Wane, “Portfolio: Adji Dieye”, EIKON 117, Februar 2022
-> Ramona Heinlein, “Shirin Neshat: Living in One Land, Dreaming in Another”, EIKON 117, Februar 2022
Crit Cross #17 will take place in English at Depot and be facilitated by Klaus Speidel.
Crit Cross #17 is supported by the City of Vienna and 7. District of Vienna (from the budget for culture of the Neubau district).
CRIT CROSS #16
Engaging with Theory-Fiction: Tjaša Pogačar from Šum
Tuesday, 22. March, 7pm
Depot – Kunst und Diskussion
Breite Gasse 3
1070 Vienna
This Crit Cross looks to the European East, with Tjaša Pogačar from Šum, based in Slovenia. Šum is a journal and a platform focusing on contemporary art and theory, established in 2013 by artists and theorists. The conversation, facilitated by Klaus Speidel, could focus on theory-fiction, the form of writing exemplified by Šum, which happens, as Tjaša Pogačar explains, «alongside art» rather than being «about art» like traditional art criticism, as well as collective editing and the wider context of art criticism and art writing.
Crit Cross #16 is organised by Verein K and in partnership with Depot – Kunst und Kommunikation and will take place in English at Depot.
Tjaša Pogačar works as a freelance curator, editor and writer. Her work considers how contemporary art practices are informed by radical transformations that new technologies bring to our socio-economic reality and ecological systems, and what challenges these encounters present for curatorial and institutional practice. She frames this inquiry against the backdrop of industrialization and chemical alteration of the planet to examine also how they entwine with and condition our embodiment. She is also a co-founder and editor in chief of Ljubljana based ŠUM journal focused on art, philosophy and theory-fiction.
Works by ŠUM:
-> Enea Kavčič’s “A Peculiar Transformation” is from a recent issue of Šum journal and serves as a good examle of a “theory-fictional” text in Šum
-> The plaza protocol platform is run by Šum and Projekt Atol Institut. It includes theoretical and theory-fictional texts (commissioned and edited by ŠUM)
Further Readings:
-> Gregory Marks “Theory-fiction” list of references
-> Simon O’Sullivan’s “Art Practice as Fictioning” is a good start for thinking about the relationship between fiction and art
Admission according to the Covid rules that are relevant at the time of the meeting.
Crit Cross #16 is supported by the City of Vienna and 7. District of Vienna.
CRIT CROSS #15
Art Writing beyond Bubbles: The American South: with Jasmine Amussen
Thursday, 16. December, 7pm
ZOOM
Meeting-ID: 885 9413 3626
Passcode: 244546
How can you crack open the art bubble and bring in new audiences? What role can art writing play in this context? How do you try to create a sustainable context in a place that is often considered culturally “poor” and has suffered from “brain drain” like the American South? and How to put different art practices on the map?, are some of the questions we want to address in this Crit Cross. A Forum on Art Criticism by Verein K and in partnership with Depot – Kunst und Diskussion.
To do so, we reached out to Jasmine Amussen, editor of Burnaway, an Atlanta-based magazine of contemporary art and criticism from the American South. Publishing online weekly and in print annually, the magazine has brought vital critical dialogue to one of the most politically polarized, historically fraught, ecologically threatened, and economically disadvantaged parts of the United States since 2008. The issues facing Southern artists, institutions, curators, and writers often represent the country’s most pressing social and cultural challenges. Despite this, contemporary art in and from the region receives little national coverage or inclusion in major survey exhibitions, and even less internationally. After an introduction to her practice and the magazine Burnaway, we will have an open dialogue with Jasmine Amussen, faciliatated by Klaus Speidel from Verein K. Given the current situation in Austria, this Crit Cross will happen through Zoom. Here is the link.
As always, we chose two texts that can represent our guest’s practice, one reflective of a certain approach to art writing and one review:
“OLD TOWN FURY ROAD: Lil Nas X, “Daddy Lessons,” and the Black Yeehaw Agenda
„A Love Letter in Louisville: Breonna Taylor at the Speed Museum“
The conversation will be facilitated by Klaus Speidel and take place in English.
Jasmine Amussen is a writer and editor of Burnaway, an Atlanta-based magazine of contemporary art and criticism was born in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, she has lived in the South for most of her working life. She is a 2020 MacDowell Calderwood Fellow of Journalism.
Crit Cross #15 is supported by the City of Vienna and Bildrecht.
CRIT CROSS #14
Postpandemic Global(s) and Local(s): with Noit Banai
We are very happy to invite you to Crit Cross #14 with a very dear guest, Noit Banai, art historian and critic who specializes in modern and contemporary art in transcultural and transdisciplinary perspectives.
The conversation will be facilitated by Klaus Speidel and take place in English in the garden of Volkskundmuseum, our partner for this event.
Noit Banai was Professor of Contemporary Art at Tufts University/School of the Museum of Fine Arts (2007-2014) and the University of Vienna (2014-2019) before joining Hong Kong Baptist University as Associate Professor of Art History and Theory in August 2021. Her monograph on Yves Klein appeared in 2014 (London: Reaktion) and she is completing a book titled Between Nation State and Border State: Modernism from Universal to Global Subject. She served as assistant editor for the journal RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics and is a regular contributor to Artforum International.
Crit Cross #14 is supported by the City of Vienna and Bildrecht.
CRIT CROSS #13
ZOOM (details below)
- Will NFTs Revolutionize the Art Market or Repeat Its Greatest Failures? These 4 Factors Will Determine Their Fate, Tim Schneider, artnet, March 2021
- NFTs Are Shaking Up the Art World—But They Could Change So Much More, Andrew R. Chow, Time, March 22, 2021
- How Nigeria’s leading crypto artist makes and sells NFTs, Alexander O. Onukwe,Tech Cabal, March 2021
- Why NFTs are not the future of art but just the latest get-rich-quick scheme for the ‘cryptosphere’, Jemima Kelly, Financial Times, March 2021
- Think cryptocurrency is bad? NFTs are even worse, Amanda Yeo, Mashable, March 2021
- One in Eight Museums Worldwide May Never Reopen, According to the International Council of Museums, Sarah Cascone, artnet, May 2020
We will use Zoom for our discussion, which will take place in English. Please find the link here.
CRIT CROSS #12
A Forum on Art Criticism
Talk with Rosalyn D’Mello
Friday, 4. December, 6:30pm
ZOOM (details below)
In cooperation with Depot – Raum für Kunst und Diskussion
Like each December’s, this year’s last Crit Cross has an international guest. After great dialogues with Zarina Muhammad from The White Pube in 2018 and Stephanie Bailey from Ocula in 2019, we are excited to be able to have a conversation this year with Rosalyn D’Mello from STIR.
Rosalyn D’Mello is a feminist writer, editor, and art critic. She moved from India to South Tirol earlier this year and has been reporting on events in our vicinity for the India-based publication STIR ever since, adding a different voice to Austrian and Italian art criticism. We’ve been following her ambitious writings in the last few months – during which she asked timeless questions like «Do audiences matter to artists?» or «Can the artist speak?», developing personal answers and also offered valuable perspectives on shows we saw in Salzburg («Friedl Kubelka vom Gröller», Museum der Moderne), Graz («Paranoia TV», Steirischer Herbst) or Vienna («…of bread, wine, cars, security and peace», Kunsthalle Wien).
Please find below some of D’Mello’swritings as an introduction to her critical practice:
The Freudian Glitch, D’Mello’s take on the Steirischer Herbst
Self-harm versus self-care, what does the art world enable? is about the way the art world deals with – and potentially commodifies – suffering.
Seeing a work of art in the age of coronavirus addresses the ongoing present moment.
All of D’Mello’s texts for STIR can be accessed here.
For a longer piece of writing on her perspective, we recommend The empathy drink: reflections from a brown-eyed museum visitor.
In order to socialize while keeping the necessary physical distance, we will use Zoom for our discussion, which will take place in English.
The link for the Zoom please find here.
About Rosalyn D’Mello:
She is the author of A Handbook for my Lover (HarperCollins India, 2015; Hardie Grant Australia, 2016) and her writing has appeared in numerous anthologies. She writes a weekly feminist column for mid-day and is a regular columnist for the web-based publication STIR and the weekly magazine OPEN, where she writes about her visits to artists’ studios, the subject of her forthcoming book for Oxford University Press, India, thanks to an arts research grant from the India Foundation for the Arts. She was previously the editor of BLOUINARTINFO India and was nominated for the Forbes’ Best Emerging Art Writer Award in 2014. She was also shortlisted for the Prudential Eye Art Award for Best Writing on Asian Contemporary Art in 2014. She was an evaluator for The Andy Warhol Foundation Art Writers Grant in 2020. She is presently based in Tramin in Südtirol, in the Italian Alps, and is working on the sequel to her non-fiction memoir.
Crit Cross #12 is supported by the City of Vienna and the 7. District of Vienna.
CRIT CROSS #11
A Forum on Art Criticism in cooperation with Depot
–> Art & Criticism in Times of Crisis <–
Tuesday, 21. April, 6:30pm
ZOOM (details below)
Does the shutdown bring an overproducing artworld to a heathy halt or is it an exciting opportunity to find new ways of producing? Does the quarantine expose the shortcomings of the gallery system or does it prove the irreplaceability of the physical experience of art in the age of Instagram? Will cancelled art fairs be replaced by thriving online salesrooms or does the crisis show that an altogether different way of financing art – and perhaps everything else – is necessary and possible?
Times of crisis are times for reflection. We thus want to use this Crit Cross. A Forum on Art Criticism to step back and reflect on the puzzles, impacts and paradoxes of the Covid-19 Crisis. As we move through the evening, we will look at three aspects, namely the creation, circulation & presentation and the financing of art.
And to socialize while keeping the necessary physical distance, we will use Zoom for our discussion.
Zoom can be downloaded here.
If you click on this link, you can join the meeting.
While we will not physically be at Depot. Raum für Kunst und Diskussion, Depot still is our partner for this event.
As always, our debate will be nourished by contemporary critical writing. Here’s a choice of our readings:
‘This Is the Biggest Challenge We’ve Faced Since the War’: How the Coronavirus Crisis Is Exposing the Precarious Position of Museums Worldwide
One third of French galleries could shut before end of 2020 due to coronavirus impact
Will coronavirus-related cancellations spell the end of ‘fairtigue’?
Post-pandemic, the art market might return to ‘normal’—but do we want it to?
‘What I like about coronavirus’ by Slavoj Žižek
Letters against Separation on e-flux conversations
Thoughts Within the Coronising Siege: A Work in Progress
Crit Cross #11 is supported by the 7. District of Vienna and The City of Vienna.
CRIT CROSS #10
A Forum on Art Criticism
The Secession Edition
Thursday, 27. February, 6:30pm
Vienna Secession
Friedrichstraße 12
1010 Vienna
How do reviews from 1998 compare to those of 2020? Do we feel that things are still fundamentally the same? Or is it the opposite? How has art criticism and the discourse about art evolved in the last 20 years? What appears to be the role of criticism and what can be takeaways for an institution who may be subject to critique?
These are some of the questions we want to discuss at Crit Cross. A Forum on Art Criticism #10.
For the first Crit Cross in 2020, Verein K will be a guest with the Secession Member’s Club, which will exceptionally open its doors to the participants of Crit Cross.
We chose exemplary reviews from the archive. Two exhibitions are in focus: the recent Tala Madani show Shit Moms and the show Sod and Sodie Sock Comp O.S.O. by Mike Kelley/Paul McCarthy from 1998.
Crit Cross #10 is realized in collaboration with Vienna Secession and is supported by the 7. District of Vienna.
CRIT CROSS #9
A Forum on Art Criticism
Two year celebration and a guest!
Friday, 13. December, 6:30pm
Depot – Raum für Kunst und Diskussion
Breite Gasse 3
1070 Vienna
For the last Crit Cross in 2019, Verein K is back at Depot, has a guest from Hong Kong and hosts a party. We have a lot to celebrate: Not only is it Friday the 13th – Verein K also turns 2!
Our guest, Stephanie Bailey, based in Hong Kong and Berlin, is the editor in chief in Ocula. She also writes regularly for Artforum International, Art Monthly, Yishu Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art, Art Papers, LEAP and D’ivan, A Journal of Accounts. Bailey will tell us about her work as a writer and editor, her relationship to art, what she tries to achieve in her own texts and what she looks for in those of others. Because Crit Cross. A Forum on Art Criticism is a forum where we usually take them time to read before we discuss, we asked Bailey for texts reflecting her practice and she generously invited us to weigh in on her debate with Morgan Quaintance about the politicality of art criticism that had three chapters: her review, its critique by Quaintance and Bailey’s reply. London-based artist and writer Morgan Quaintance will join our debate by Skype.
Klaus Speidel, art and image theorist and art critic as well as co-founder of Verein K, will facilitate the discussion.
There are three pieces:
Athens: Future Past, Stephanie’s review of the Athens Biennale, Art Monthly, April 2019
Morgan’s critique of Stephanie’s take and Stephanie’s response
After the dialogue, we will hold a party to celebrate the end of the year and Verein K’s two years of existence. In these two years, we’ve organized 2 residency programs for international curators, 2 residency programs for international art critics and 9 Crit Cross events, brought together over 20 art critics and 23 curators, organized visits with 65 artists, and many theorists and other art professionals, toured institutions, off-spaces and galleries and organized 12 public conversations and talks.
CRIT CROSS #8
Kunsthalle Wien
Crit Cross #8 is realized in collaboration with Kunsthalle Wien.
CRIT CROSS #7
A Forum on Art Criticism
From Portraits to Language
Thursday, 13. June, 6:30pm
mumok, museum of modern art
Museumsplatz 1
1070 Vienna
Can empathy materialise as visual art? When is a realistic painting the only ethical representation? What pictures are prisoners entitled to? And…What is International Art English? Is it pornographic? And is it populistic to ask art writers to avoid it?
These are some of the questions we will discuss in this session. In other words: This Crit Cross is about portraits. And about language.
Most importantly: it has a foreign guest, Hatty Nestor, who is currently a critic in residence at Studio Weisses Haus in Vienna. Hatty just finished Ethical Portraits, a book about pictures of prisoners.
We will discuss her “Facing future feelings: The portrait of Chelsea Manning”, an essay which will appear in the book and was first published in The White Review in 2018. “There Are No More Ports For Flying Dutchman.
On the Populism of the IAE Critique”, the second text we will discuss in this session was written by Chris Buden for Die Springerin. In it, Buden revisits the influential essay “International Art English” (IAE) published in 2012 in Triple Canopy, in which Alix Rule and David Levine argue that the artworld has developed its own version of English. According to Buden’s analysis the argument against IAE is anti-elitist in a way typical of populism of the Make America Great Again kind.
The texts can be accessed here:
Facing future feelings: The portrait of Chelsea Manning by Hatty Nestor, The White Review, March 2018
Es gibt keine Häfen mehr für den Fliegenden Holländer. Über den Populismus der „IAE“-Kritik by Chris Buden, Springerin, Heft 2/2019
(the English original of the text will be made available online by Springerin before Crit Cross)
Crit Cross #7 is realized in collaboration with the mumok library and Studio Weisses Haus.
CRIT CROSS #6
A Forum on Art Criticism
Special Edition: Manifestos
Friday, 12. April 2019, 6:00pm
FRANZ JOSEFS KAI 3
1010 Vienna
For its sixth edition, Crit Cross organizes a special program, hosted at FRANZ JOSEFS KAI 3 in the context of Francis Ruyter’s exhibition “Hurricane/Time/Image” curated by Mohammad Salemy.
The two texts for Crit Cross #6 are:
The Critique of Art Criticism, by Sabeth Buchmann and Isabelle Graw,Texte zur Kunst.
(Thanks to Pia-Maria Remmers for this suggestion!)
In it, the question is raised whether the discrimination performed in art criticism is necessarily a problematic one.
The Xenofeminist manifesto, by Laboria Cuboniks
(Thanks to Mohammad Salemy for this suggestion!)
An older text where issues of discrimination are also at stake, but are being tackled from a different perspective:
CRIT CROSS #5
Friday, 15. February 2019, 6:30pm
Belvedere 21
Arsenalstraße 1
1030 Vienna
The four texts for the Crit Cross #5 are:
The Athens Biennale Negligently Satirizes the Aesthetics of the Alt-Right by Dorian Batycka, Hyperallergic, 7.12.2018.
(Thanks to Aleksei Borisionok for this suggestion!)
Batycka criticizes the Athens Biennale for what he considers superficially referencing « a bevy of well-known contemporary tropes including post-truth, accelerationism, overidentification, and corporate aesthetics » and piling up references. His hyper-critical review calls for a critical discussion, especially as many of the points he mentions are by no means unique to the event.
“Happy trees” and culture-death by Julia Friedman, The New Criterion
(Thanks to Patrick Schabus for this suggestion!)
Julia Friedman takes an interest in the attempt to canonize Bob Ross, a well-know American painter famous for teaching painting on TV. While this is a seemingly specialized question, the article asks the more general question what criteria of admission to the art historical canon should be and when concessions to popularity are warranted.
Bruce Nauman. Cosmogony and the clown: on the occasion of Nauman’s PS1/MoMA retrospective by Philippe Parreno, 4 Columns
(Thanks to Kimberly Bradley for this suggestion!)
Parreno’s review is not only interesting because it is an artist’s review of a show by another artist, but also because he asks questions about the format itself as he wonders how to write.
Working without the pressure of success. Wider den sexistischen Vorurteilen im Kunstbetrieb by Martina Schöggl, Arts of the Working Class, No. 4, text at the event and on request beforehand.
(Thanks to Marianne Dober for suggesting Arts of the Working Class!)
Schöggl’s short text tackles the subject of sexism in the art world, ending with a call for action and offering a hands-on approach which are worthy of discussion.
CRIT CROSS #4
Thursday, 6. December, 7pm
mumok, museum of modern art
Museumsplatz 1
1070 Vienna
The three texts for the Crit Cross #4 are:
Der Angriff der Gegenwart auf die Historie by Matthias Dusini, Falter 45/18, 7.11.2018.
(Thanks to Fiona Liewehr for her suggestion!)
Die Beauty und das Biest by Matthias Dusini, Falter 43/18, 24.10.2018.
Dusini’s texts invite a critical reflection on the role of museums as public institutions and the prize they pay in their quest for new audiences in Austria and beyond.
One Take: Invitation to Freedom by Lou Cornum, Frieze, No. 199, November-Decemer 2018.
Lou Cornum’s text about a performance by Rebecca Belmore appeared in Frieze’s edition on decolonialization. It asks questions about art audiences, identity and the relationship between art and politics, introducing a completely different, but not less relevant, discussion than the two texts by Dusini.
CRIT CROSS #3
Depot – Raum für Kunst und Diskussion
Breite Gssse 3
1070 Vienna
For its third edition, Crit Cross is inviting an international curator, Zarina Muhammad from the critics collective The White Pube, founded by her and Gabrielle de la Puente in 2015.
As a duo and individually, they have introduced the emoji review, the baby essay, Twitter and Instagram criticism and do podcasts and youtube. Recently, they were on the Dazed & Confused 2018 Dazed 100 list for “the people whose moment is now”. They criticize white artists who put black bodies on display in galleries, have their word to say about Turner Prize nominations and speak up whenever they feel something is going wrong in the art world. Their reviews are permeated by personal experience instead of simulating objectivity and they make all their incomes public on their website.
The two texts for Crit Cross #3 are:
* the position paper B2B OBJ// SUBJ// ECTIVITY
* review of Tai Shani @ Tramway for Glasgow International to learn how the position plays out concretely.
CRIT CROSS #2
Friday, 13. July 2018, 6:30pm
Belvedere 21
Arsenalstraße 1
1030 Vienna
The two texts for Crit Cross #2 are:
Let’s be clear: “We are at war” by Mohammad Salemy, Ocula
(Thanks to Christoph Chwatal for his suggestion!)
Conversation between Steffen Mau and Uwe Vormbusch, Texte zur Kunst
(Thanks to Sabeth Buchmann for her suggestion!)
CRIT CROSS #1
Thursday, 24. May, 6:30pm
mumok, museum of modern art
Museumsplatz 1
1070 Vienna
The three texts for the first Crit Cross are:
Kunst: Der zwiespältige Boom der Privatsammlungen in den Museen by Nina Schedlmayer, Profil, 13.2.2018.
Nina Schedlmayer critically reflects the practice of exhibiting private collections in public museums
(English translation available on request at critcross@verein-k.net).
Why is there no criticism in fashion? by Jack Self, Spike 55, Spring 2018.
Jack Self argues that art has lost its role at the forefront of contemporary culture.
Anselm Kiefer and Leon Golub: Separate and Together at The Met Breuer by Cathy Nan Quinlan, Talking Pictures, 27.4.2018.
Cathy Nan Quinlan discusses the absence of women in Kiefer’s and Golub’s art and the impossibility for German artists to „recreate‚ the amber waves of grain‘ so a new generation can see them, really see them and find new meaning in them“, without being accused of being a Nazi.
CRIT CROSS #24
ETC. Magazine. Emerging art from the Baltics to the Balkans
Monday, 25. November 2024, 7pm
Depot – Kunst und Diskussion
Breite Gasse 3
1070 Vienna
Counting 250 pages and appearing yearly since 2022, ETC. magazine was founded with the aim of bringing attention to “emerging art from the Balkans to the Baltics”. Created by a collective of curators and art professionals, it’s team is based in Ljubliana and run by Hana Čeferin, Ajda Ana Kocutar and Lara Mejač. In recent years, the founders have emerged as important contributors to the art landscape in Slovenia and beyond, not only through the magazine, but through their contributions to Ljubljana Art Weekend or Biennial of Design, which Hana Čeferin has been heading since 2023. Talking to Čeferin and Mejač, we will discuss the intentions, their curation of the magazine and its subjects, specifically the current issue « Selling Out » and hopefully enjoy a preview of the upcoming edition: What can we learn from the curation of ETC.? How do they choose writers and artists? What has changed since the magazine was launched?
Hana Čeferin is an art historian and curator, who has been head of the Design Biennial at the Museum of Architecture and Design (BIO) since 2023 and head of the programme of Mala Galerija in Ljubljana since 2024. Since 2021, she is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of ETC. magazine.
Lara Mejač works as an independent curator and producer in the field of contemporary visual and intermedia art. Between 2016 and 2023 she was the curator, producer and programme coordinator at DobraVaga Gallery. In addition, she has curated and produced exhibitions in various galleries in Slovenia and abroad.
Crit Cross #24 will take place both online and at Depot.
Crit Cross #24 is supported by the City of Vienna and 7. District of Vienna (from the budget for culture of the Neubau district).
CRIT CROSS #23
Christian Liclair, Texte zur Kunst, writing on art with an accent on theory
Monday, 24. June 2024, 7pm
Depot – Kunst und Diskussion
Breite Gasse 3
1070 Vienna
„The diagnosis of a crisis, it seems, is one of the constitutive rituals of (art) criticism itself“
(Christian Liclair).
Texte zur Kunst is internationally renowned as one of the most rigorous publications on art and one in which art theory plays an essential role. Featuring Christian Liclair, editor in chief of the magazine since 2022, this edition of Crit Cross can thus be seen as a counterpoint to Crit Cross #22 which focused on newspapers and their crises. As a scholar who published a monograph on sexually explicit art and its different perceptions, Liclair occupies an interesting position at the crossroads of different partisan and non-partisan approaches, practicing, commissioning and reflecting writing on art. The invitation is therefore an opportunity to deepen our investigations of different forms and problems of writing about art and those who practice it: How can a journal or magazine define and redefine its role in view of the crises of the present? How can a personal position in art writing be articulated with an editorial role? Is there still a place for evaluation in art criticism? And what, exactly, makes for a successful text (according to Texte zur Kunst)? The dialogue will be facilitated by Klaus Speidel.
As always, we chose some text to prepare the session with our guest:
As an editor:
WIE „NACHHALLIG“ IST EINE REZENSION? ANDREAS BEYER ÜBER WISSENSCHAFTLICHE BESPRECHUNGEN ALLGEMEIN UND SEINE AUSGEBLIEBENE ZUR JÜNGSTEN DONATELLO-AUSSTELLUNG IM BESONDEREN situated between art criticism and academic art history.
Richard Hawkins: The Forrest Bess Variations
Christian Liclair is an art historian and critic and currently editor-in-chief of Texte zur Kunst. He previously completed his doctorate as part of the DFG-funded research group “Aesthetics of Desire” at the Freie Universität Berlin and has researched and taught at various international institutions. He has written for Texte zur Kunst, Brooklyn Rail, FKW: Zeitschrift für Geschlechterforschung und visuelle Kultur, among others, and his first monograph was published by Routledge in 2022 under the title Sexually Explicit Art, Feminist Theory, and Gender in the 1970s. He is also currently editing an anthology on queer art history with Susanne Huber and Daniel Berndt, which will be published by Diaphanes next year.
Crit Cross #23 is supported by the City of Vienna and 7. District of Vienna (from the budget for culture of the Neubau district).
CRIT CROSS #22
“It doesn’t pop that much”. Art criticism in the age of user optimization
Monday, 18. March 2024, 7pm
Depot – Kunst und Diskussion
Breite Gasse 3
1070 Vienna
In a plea for the arts section in the press, Hannah Bethke from Zeit Online recently explained: “It doesn’t pop that much”, describing the way reviews are often perceived, in other words: they do not produce the required number of clicks. Adding, somewhat ironically, that the reason they still have a place in print is simply because readership is not easy to measure in the papers. It is against the backdrop of this skepticism that Crit Cross. A Forum on Art Criticism by Verein K will talk to Viennese art critics who work for two major daily newspapers. How do they see their role in the current critical landscape? What is their approach to criticism?
Guests:
Michael Huber, Kurier, Vienna
Almuth Spiegler, Die Presse, Vienna
Texts we will discuss:
– Ende der Kritik: Welche Macht hat sie noch? – Almuth Spiegler
– Das „Presse“-Kultur-Briefing: Gegen alles Ungelöste – Almuth Spiegler
– Augen-Fasten? Nicht mit diesen Tüchern! – Almuth Spiegler
– “Immersive Experience”: Frida Kahlo würde weinen, ganz in echt – Almuth Spiegler
– Bäume, Brokkoli und irgendwas mit Kunst – Michael Huber
– Vermeer bringt die Welt in Ordnung – Michael Huber
– Ein Superwahljahr für die Kunst – Michael Huber
– Die Vorteile der Vielfalt – Michael Huber
Crit Cross #22 will take place in German both online and at Depot.
Crit Cross #22 is supported by the City of Vienna and 7. District of Vienna (from the budget for culture of the Neubau district).
CRIT CROSS #21
Memes as Art Criticism
A conversation with Cem A. aka @freeze_magazine
Monday, 20. November, 7pm
Depot – Kunst und Diskussion
Breite Gasse 3
1070 Vienna
More honest, more efficient, more direct, more fun – less demanding? Are memes the art criticism of the 2020s? As our exploration of the varieties of criticism in the framework of Crit Cross approaches its sixth year, we are happy to bring Cem A. – who runs the successful artworld meme account freeze_magazine with 164 K followers – to Vienna for a conversation. Our talk will be guided by – what else? – the memes themselves, addressing topics like artworld privilege, politics vs. political art, the coyness of art criticism, unintelligible exhibition texts, conceptual Extractivism, artspeak, career art, what makes for a good joke and the power of memes.
Cem A. is an artist with a background in anthropology. He is known for running the art meme page @freeze_magazine and for his site-specific installations. His work explores topics such as survival and alienation in the art world, often through a hyper-reflexive lens and collaborative projects. He is an artistic advisor to documenta Institut.
Cem A.’s selected solo exhibitions and installations include Louisiana Museum, Barbican Centre, Berlinische Galerie, Grimmwelt Museum and Museum Wiesbaden. His group exhibitions include documenta fifteen and 14. Biennial of Young Artists, Museum of Contemporary Art Skopje. He has held lectures at Royal College of Art, Central Saint Martins, Haus der Elektronischen Künste, HDK Valand, Universität der Künste and Istanbul Modern. He is a member of Hœr NY, a feminist queer and bisexual lesbian art collective.
CRIT CROSS #20
FEMINIST ART CRITICISM
Monday, 5. June, 7pm
Depot – Kunst und Diskussion
Breite Gasse 3
1070 Vienna
The art world has long been dominated by male perspectives and has often neglected or marginalised women. For many years there was no space for more than one woman to emerge per art movement. This iswhy Verein K has decided to invite two very different but equally influential voices of feminist art criticism for the twentieth edition of Crit Cross. A Forum on Art Crticism: Nina Schedlmayer and Rosalyn D’Mello.
With her art blog Artemisia, Nina Schedlmayer created something that did not exist before in the German-language publishing world: a place for outspoken feminist writing about art. Detached, humorous, straightforward, she reviews exhibitions by feminist artists, counts the number of women in exhibitions or goes after the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna for its Baselitz show.
Rosalyn D‘Mello has been one of the most important feminist voices in Indian literature since her autobiographical novel A Handbook for My Lover (2016). Managing to combine criticism, empathy, food and poetry, her writing on art is always personal. Now based in Tramin, South Tyrol, she also regularly writes about art and cooking in Austria.
In their texts, Schedlmayer and D‘Mello spare the art world even less than the art itself. While D‘Mello oftenfocuses on personal interactions, Schedlmayer also observes the art market and its small and large arrangements, at times performing investigative journalism and institutional critique.
Because we at Verein K have been observing, admiring and discussing the work of both for many years, we have now invited them to join us.
Crit Cross #20 will take place in English both online and at Depot and be facilitated by Klaus Speidel, an art critic, theorist and curator.
Nina Schedlmayer studied art history in Vienna and did her doctorate on art literature under National Socialism. For a long time she was responsible for visual arts in the culture department of the news magazine profil.
She has been editor-in-chief of the cultural magazine morgen since 2019. She continues to publish for media in Austria and Germany such as profil Handelsblatt, art magazines Weltkunst, Parnass, Die Zeit. She runs the blog artemisia.blog, where she writes about art and feminism, and has published numerous catalogue and book contributions. Since 2022 she has been editor of the online magazine ask – art & science krems.
Rosalyn D’Mello (she/her/they) is a feminist writer, art critic, columnist, essayist, editor and researcher. She is the author of A Handbook for My Lover. She writes a weekly feminist column for mid-day, and a monthly memoir-based art column on contemporary art for STIR. She was a fellow at Künstlerhaus Büchsenhausen (2021-22), an Ocean Fellowship Mentor (2021), and the recipient of an India Foundation for the Arts research grant (2019-2022). Her writing has been internationally published and anthologised. She is represented by David Godwin Associates.
Crit Cross #20 organised by Verein K and in partnership with Depot – Kunst und Kommunikation and will take place in English at Depot.
Crit Cross #20 is supported by the City of Vienna and 7. District of Vienna (from the budget for culture of the Neubau district).
CRIT CROSS #19
Artificial Intelligence, Art and its Critics
Tuesday, 28. March, 7pm
Depot – Kunst und Diskussion
Breite Gasse 3
1070 Vienna
„Contemporary art has become a playground for careerists and narcissists, where self-promotion and shock value have replaced creativity and meaningful engagement with society. Artists like Joseph Beuys, Jeff Koons, and Marina Abramovic have perpetuated this trend, creating works that prioritize shock and spectacle over substance and critical reflection. […]. It is time for a shift towards art that engages with the complexities and challenges of our world, rather than pandering to the whims of the wealthy and powerful.“
This call for change in a densely intertwined contemporary artworld, where most art magazines only publish descriptive or even promotional texts, was not written by Hito Steyerl or Ben Davis, neither was it published by Hyperallergic. These fearless words were strung together by Open AI’s ChatGPT. A.I. is indifferent to hierarchies and allegiances. Does this not make it a better critic? Might the future of art writing lie with AI? Or is there something to the human appreciation of art that remains unique and irreplaceable? As ChatGPT writes: “As an AI language model, I do not have emotions or personal opinions.“ But will people be willing to pay for those in the future?
The same or similar questions could – and should – be asked concerning the production of art itself. Can works produced by A.I. models such as Stable Diffusion or Open Dall-E be creative? Can they be artworks? And how about the copyright of all the works they were trained with – and the works they produce? These are only a few of the most pressing questions this Crit Cross. A Forum on Art Criticism will address.
Texts we will discuss:
Martin Herbert, “I’m an Art Critic. Will AI Steal My Job?“, ArtReview, January 2023
Adam Gopnik, What can A.I. Art teach us about the real thing?, New Yorker Magazine, March 1, 2023
During the session, further contributions by ChatGPT can be discussed as needed.
Crit Cross #19 organised by Verein K and in partnership with Depot – Kunst und Kommunikation and will take place in English at Depot.
Crit Cross #19 is supported by the City of Vienna and 7. District of Vienna (from the budget for culture of the Neubau district).
CRIT CROSS #18
Art and the hidden desire for Capitalism in Anticapitalism: A Conversation with Keti Chukhrov
Tuesday, 13. December, 7:30pm
Depot – Kunst und Diskussion
Breite Gasse 3
1070 Vienna
This Crit Cross looks at art writing and the question of engagement with Keti Chukhrov, an art theorist, academic and play-wright based in Berlin and Moscow. Her latest book Practicing the Good. Desire and Boredom in Soviet Socialism published with University of Minnesota Press/e-flux in 2020 deals with the impact of socialist political economy on the epistemes of historical socialism. It attempts to reveal the hidden desire for capitalism in contemporaneous anticapitalist discourse and theory. The conversation, facilitated by Klaus Speidel, will focus on the expiration of the contemporary art’s institutional power – based on Chukhrov’s text “Evil, Surplus, Power: the three Media of Art”, published in E-Flux Journal – and the expansion of the performance practices into wider social and critical context as featured in another paper “Institutes of Performativity. Towards an Institutional Ethics” and the wider context of art theory, critique and art writing.
Crit Cross #18 is organised by Verein K and in partnership with Depot – Kunst und Kommunikation and will take place in English at Depot.
Keti Chukhrov holds a ScD in philosophy. She is a visiting professor at Hochschule der Künste in Karlsruhe and a professor at the Department of Сultural Studies at the Higher School of Economics, Moscow. From 2017 to 2019, she was a Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellow at the University of Wolverhampton in the UK. She has authored numerous texts on art theory and philosophy. Her full-length books include: Practicing the Good. Desire and Boredom in Soviet Socialism (UNMP, 2020), To Be—To Perform. ‘Theatre’ in Philosophic Critique of Art (European Un-ty, 2011) and Pound &£ (Logos, 1999), as well as a volume of dramatic writing: Merely Humans (2010). Her dramatic work and video plays were featured at Steirischer Herbst (2019, 2022), Bergen Assembly 2013, Ljubljana Triennial 2016, Kiev Biennial 2012.
Texts for the session:
“Evil, Surplus, Power: the three Media of Art”, eflux Journal, Issue #110, June 2020
“Institutes of Performativity. Towards an Institutional Ethics”, Springerin, Issue 3/2018
Admission according to the Covid rules that are relevant at the time of the meeting.
Crit Cross #18 is supported by the City of Vienna and 7. District of Vienna
CRIT CROSS #17
The Appeal of Geography in Art Writing
Friday, 27. May, 6:30pm
Depot – Kunst und Diskussion
Breite Gasse 3
1070 Vienna
This Crit Cross takes place in the context of the Spring Curatorial Program 2022: Art Geographies, co-organised by the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and Verein K in collaboration with Jelena Petrović, who conceptualised and curated the first edition.
To connect with the subject of the program, we selected recent writing on art that brings in a geographical dimension to elucidate the life and work of three artists whose art developed in a trans-national, trans-cultural context: Etel Adnan, Adji Dieye and Shirin Neshat. As we’ll try to analyze the value and limits of an approach to art based on geo-cultural dimensions, we will also be discovering three genres of art writing: the review, the portfolio and the obituary.
Texts we will discuss:
-> Quinn Latimer, “Etel Adnan (1925 – 2021)”, Texte zur Kunst, Issue 25, March 2022: Genres and Gestures of Dissent
-> Anna Karima Wane, “Portfolio: Adji Dieye”, EIKON 117, Februar 2022
-> Ramona Heinlein, “Shirin Neshat: Living in One Land, Dreaming in Another”, EIKON 117, Februar 2022
Crit Cross #17 will take place in English at Depot and be facilitated by Klaus Speidel.
Crit Cross #17 is supported by the City of Vienna and 7. District of Vienna (from the budget for culture of the Neubau district).
CRIT CROSS #16
Engaging with Theory-Fiction: Tjaša Pogačar from Šum
Tuesday, 22. March, 7pm
Depot – Kunst und Diskussion
Breite Gasse 3
1070 Vienna
This Crit Cross looks to the European East, with Tjaša Pogačar from Šum, based in Slovenia. Šum is a journal and a platform focusing on contemporary art and theory, established in 2013 by artists and theorists. The conversation, facilitated by Klaus Speidel, could focus on theory-fiction, the form of writing exemplified by Šum, which happens, as Tjaša Pogačar explains, «alongside art» rather than being «about art» like traditional art criticism, as well as collective editing and the wider context of art criticism and art writing.
Crit Cross #16 is organised by Verein K and in partnership with Depot – Kunst und Kommunikation and will take place in English at Depot.
Tjaša Pogačar works as a freelance curator, editor and writer. Her work considers how contemporary art practices are informed by radical transformations that new technologies bring to our socio-economic reality and ecological systems, and what challenges these encounters present for curatorial and institutional practice. She frames this inquiry against the backdrop of industrialization and chemical alteration of the planet to examine also how they entwine with and condition our embodiment. She is also a co-founder and editor in chief of Ljubljana based ŠUM journal focused on art, philosophy and theory-fiction.
Works by ŠUM:
-> Enea Kavčič’s “A Peculiar Transformation” is from a recent issue of Šum journal and serves as a good examle of a “theory-fictional” text in Šum
-> The plaza protocol platform is run by Šum and Projekt Atol Institut. It includes theoretical and theory-fictional texts (commissioned and edited by ŠUM)
Further Readings:
-> Gregory Marks “Theory-fiction” list of references
-> Simon O’Sullivan’s “Art Practice as Fictioning” is a good start for thinking about the relationship between fiction and art
Admission according to the Covid rules that are relevant at the time of the meeting.
Crit Cross #16 is supported by the City of Vienna and 7. District of Vienna.
CRIT CROSS #15
Art Writing beyond Bubbles: The American South: with Jasmine Amussen
Thursday, 16. December, 7pm
ZOOM
How can you crack open the art bubble and bring in new audiences? What role can art writing play in this context? How do you try to create a sustainable context in a place that is often considered culturally “poor” and has suffered from “brain drain” like the American South? and How to put different art practices on the map?, are some of the questions we want to address in this Crit Cross. A Forum on Art Criticism by Verein K and in partnership with Depot – Kunst und Diskussion.
To do so, we reached out to Jasmine Amussen, editor of Burnaway, an Atlanta-based magazine of contemporary art and criticism from the American South. Publishing online weekly and in print annually, the magazine has brought vital critical dialogue to one of the most politically polarized, historically fraught, ecologically threatened, and economically disadvantaged parts of the United States since 2008. The issues facing Southern artists, institutions, curators, and writers often represent the country’s most pressing social and cultural challenges. Despite this, contemporary art in and from the region receives little national coverage or inclusion in major survey exhibitions, and even less internationally. After an introduction to her practice and the magazine Burnaway, we will have an open dialogue with Jasmine Amussen, faciliatated by Klaus Speidel from Verein K. Given the current situation in Austria, this Crit Cross will happen through Zoom. Please find the link here.
As always, we chose two texts that can represent our guest’s practice, one reflective of a certain approach to art writing and one review:
– “OLD TOWN FURY ROAD: Lil Nas X, “Daddy Lessons,” and the Black Yeehaw Agenda
– „A Love Letter in Louisville: Breonna Taylor at the Speed Museum“
The conversation will be facilitated by Klaus Speidel and take place in English.
Jasmine Amussen is a writer and editor of Burnaway, an Atlanta-based magazine of contemporary art and criticism was born in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, she has lived in the South for most of her working life. She is a 2020 MacDowell Calderwood Fellow of Journalism.
Crit Cross #15 is supported by the City of Vienna and Bildrecht.
CRIT CROSS #14
Postpandemic Global(s) and Local(s): with Noit Banai
We are very happy to invite you to Crit Cross #14 with a very dear guest, Noit Banai, art historian and critic who specializes in modern and contemporary art in transcultural and transdisciplinary perspectives.
The conversation will be facilitated by Klaus Speidel and take place in English in the garden of Volkskundmuseum, our partner for this event.
Noit Banai was Professor of Contemporary Art at Tufts University/School of the Museum of Fine Arts (2007-2014) and the University of Vienna (2014-2019) before joining Hong Kong Baptist University as Associate Professor of Art History and Theory in August 2021. Her monograph on Yves Klein appeared in 2014 (London: Reaktion) and she is completing a book titled Between Nation State and Border State: Modernism from Universal to Global Subject. She served as assistant editor for the journal RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics and is a regular contributor to Artforum International.
Crit Cross #14 is supported by the City of Vienna and Bildrecht.
CRIT CROSS #13
ZOOM (details below)
- Will NFTs Revolutionize the Art Market or Repeat Its Greatest Failures? These 4 Factors Will Determine Their Fate, Tim Schneider, artnet, March 2021
- NFTs Are Shaking Up the Art World—But They Could Change So Much More, Andrew R. Chow, Time, March 22, 2021
- How Nigeria’s leading crypto artist makes and sells NFTs, Alexander O. Onukwe,Tech Cabal, March 2021
- Why NFTs are not the future of art but just the latest get-rich-quick scheme for the ‘cryptosphere’, Jemima Kelly, Financial Times, March 2021
- Think cryptocurrency is bad? NFTs are even worse, Amanda Yeo, Mashable, March 2021
- One in Eight Museums Worldwide May Never Reopen, According to the International Council of Museums, Sarah Cascone, artnet, May 2020
We will use Zoom for our discussion, which will take place in English. Please find the link here.
CRIT CROSS #12
A Forum on Art Criticism
Talk with Rosalyn D’Mello
Friday, 4. December, 6:30pm
ZOOM (details below)
In cooperation with Depot – Raum für Kunst und Diskussion
Like each December’s, this year’s last Crit Cross has an international guest. After great dialogues with Zarina Muhammad from The White Pube in 2018 and Stephanie Bailey from Ocula in 2019, we are excited to be able to have a conversation this year with Rosalyn D’Mello from STIR.
Rosalyn D’Mello is a feminist writer, editor, and art critic. She moved from India to South Tirol earlier this year and has been reporting on events in our vicinity for the India-based publication STIR ever since, adding a different voice to Austrian and Italian art criticism. We’ve been following her ambitious writings in the last few months – during which she asked timeless questions like «Do audiences matter to artists?» or «Can the artist speak?», developing personal answers and also offered valuable perspectives on shows we saw in Salzburg («Friedl Kubelka vom Gröller», Museum der Moderne), Graz («Paranoia TV», Steirischer Herbst) or Vienna («…of bread, wine, cars, security and peace», Kunsthalle Wien).
Please find below some of D’Mello’swritings as an introduction to her critical practice:
The Freudian Glitch, D’Mello’s take on the Steirischer Herbst
Self-harm versus self-care, what does the art world enable? is about the way the art world deals with – and potentially commodifies – suffering.
Seeing a work of art in the age of coronavirus addresses the ongoing present moment.
All of D’Mello’s texts for STIR can be accessed here.
For a longer piece of writing on her perspective, we recommend The empathy drink: reflections from a brown-eyed museum visitor.
In order to socialize while keeping the necessary physical distance, we will use Zoom for our discussion, which will take place in English.
The link for the Zoom please find here.
About Rosalyn D’Mello:
She is the author of A Handbook for my Lover (HarperCollins India, 2015; Hardie Grant Australia, 2016) and her writing has appeared in numerous anthologies. She writes a weekly feminist column for mid-day and is a regular columnist for the web-based publication STIR and the weekly magazine OPEN, where she writes about her visits to artists’ studios, the subject of her forthcoming book for Oxford University Press, India, thanks to an arts research grant from the India Foundation for the Arts. She was previously the editor of BLOUINARTINFO India and was nominated for the Forbes’ Best Emerging Art Writer Award in 2014. She was also shortlisted for the Prudential Eye Art Award for Best Writing on Asian Contemporary Art in 2014. She was an evaluator for The Andy Warhol Foundation Art Writers Grant in 2020. She is presently based in Tramin in Südtirol, in the Italian Alps, and is working on the sequel to her non-fiction memoir.
Crit Cross #12 is supported by the City of Vienna and the 7. District of Vienna.
CRIT CROSS #11
A Forum on Art Criticism in cooperation with Depot
–> Art & Criticism in Times of Crisis <–
Tuesday, 21. April, 6:30pm
ZOOM (details below)
Does the shutdown bring an overproducing artworld to a heathy halt or is it an exciting opportunity to find new ways of producing? Does the quarantine expose the shortcomings of the gallery system or does it prove the irreplaceability of the physical experience of art in the age of Instagram? Will cancelled art fairs be replaced by thriving online salesrooms or does the crisis show that an altogether different way of financing art – and perhaps everything else – is necessary and possible?
Times of crisis are times for reflection. We thus want to use this Crit Cross. A Forum on Art Criticism to step back and reflect on the puzzles, impacts and paradoxes of the Covid-19 Crisis. As we move through the evening, we will look at three aspects, namely the creation, circulation & presentation and the financing of art.
And to socialize while keeping the necessary physical distance, we will use Zoom for our discussion.
Zoom can be downloaded here.
If you click on this link, you can join the meeting.
While we will not physically be at Depot. Raum für Kunst und Diskussion, Depot still is our partner for this event.
As always, our debate will be nourished by contemporary critical writing. Here’s a choice of our readings:
‘This Is the Biggest Challenge We’ve Faced Since the War’: How the Coronavirus Crisis Is Exposing the Precarious Position of Museums Worldwide
One third of French galleries could shut before end of 2020 due to coronavirus impact
Will coronavirus-related cancellations spell the end of ‘fairtigue’?
Post-pandemic, the art market might return to ‘normal’—but do we want it to?
‘What I like about coronavirus’ by Slavoj Žižek
Letters against Separation on e-flux conversations
Thoughts Within the Coronising Siege: A Work in Progress
Crit Cross #11 is supported by the 7. District of Vienna and The City of Vienna.
CRIT CROSS #10
A Forum on Art Criticism
The Secession Edition
Thursday, 27. February, 6:30pm
Vienna Secession
Friedrichstraße 12
1010 Vienna
How do reviews from 1998 compare to those of 2020? Do we feel that things are still fundamentally the same? Or is it the opposite? How has art criticism and the discourse about art evolved in the last 20 years? What appears to be the role of criticism and what can be takeaways for an institution who may be subject to critique?
These are some of the questions we want to discuss at Crit Cross. A Forum on Art Criticism #10.
For the first Crit Cross in 2020, Verein K will be a guest with the Secession Member’s Club, which will exceptionally open its doors to the participants of Crit Cross.
We chose exemplary reviews from the archive. Two exhibitions are in focus: the recent Tala Madani show Shit Moms and the show Sod and Sodie Sock Comp O.S.O. by Mike Kelley/Paul McCarthy from 1998.
Crit Cross #10 is realized in collaboration with Vienna Secession.
CRIT CROSS #9
A Forum on Art Criticism
Two year celebration and a guest!
Friday, 13. December, 6:30pm
Depot – Raum für Kunst und Diskussion
Breite Gasse 3
1070 Vienna
For the last Crit Cross in 2019, Verein K is back at Depot, has a guest from Hong Kong and hosts a party. We have a lot to celebrate: Not only is it Friday the 13th – Verein K also turns 2!
Our guest, Stephanie Bailey, based in Hong Kong and Berlin, is the editor in chief in Ocula. She also writes regularly for Artforum International, Art Monthly, Yishu Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art, Art Papers, LEAP and D’ivan, A Journal of Accounts. Bailey will tell us about her work as a writer and editor, her relationship to art, what she tries to achieve in her own texts and what she looks for in those of others. Because Crit Cross. A Forum on Art Criticism is a forum where we usually take them time to read before we discuss, we asked Bailey for texts reflecting her practice and she generously invited us to weigh in on her debate with Morgan Quaintance about the politicality of art criticism that had three chapters: her review, its critique by Quaintance and Bailey’s reply. London-based artist and writer Morgan Quaintance will join our debate by Skype.
Klaus Speidel, art and image theorist and art critic as well as co-founder of Verein K, will facilitate the discussion.
There are three pieces:
Athens: Future Past, Stephanie’s review of the Athens Biennale, Art Monthly, April 2019
Morgan’s critique of Stephanie’s take and Stephanie’s response
After the dialogue, we will hold a party to celebrate the end of the year and Verein K’s two years of existence. In these two years, we’ve organized 2 residency programs for international curators, 2 residency programs for international art critics and 9 Crit Cross events, brought together over 20 art critics and 23 curators, organized visits with 65 artists, and many theorists and other art professionals, toured institutions, off-spaces and galleries and organized 12 public conversations and talks.
Crit Cross #9 is realized in collaboration with Depot – Raum für Kunst und Diskussion.
CRIT CROSS #8
A Forum on Art Criticism
Kunsthalle Wien
Crit Cross #8 is realized in collaboration with Kunsthalle Wien.
CRIT CROSS #7
A Forum on Art Criticism
From Portraits to Language
Thursday, 13. June, 6:30pm
mumok, museum of modern art
Museumsplatz 1
1070 Vienna
Can empathy materialise as visual art? When is a realistic painting the only ethical representation? What pictures are prisoners entitled to? And…What is International Art English? Is it pornographic? And is it populistic to ask art writers to avoid it?
These are some of the questions we will discuss in this session. In other words: This Crit Cross is about portraits. And about language.
Most importantly: it has a foreign guest, Hatty Nestor, who is currently a critic in residence at Studio Weisses Haus in Vienna. Hatty just finished Ethical Portraits, a book about pictures of prisoners.
We will discuss her “Facing future feelings: The portrait of Chelsea Manning”, an essay which will appear in the book and was first published in The White Review in 2018. “There Are No More Ports For Flying Dutchman.
On the Populism of the IAE Critique”, the second text we will discuss in this session was written by Chris Buden for Die Springerin. In it, Buden revisits the influential essay “International Art English” (IAE) published in 2012 in Triple Canopy, in which Alix Rule and David Levine argue that the artworld has developed its own version of English. According to Buden’s analysis the argument against IAE is anti-elitist in a way typical of populism of the Make America Great Again kind.
The texts can be accessed here:
Facing future feelings: The portrait of Chelsea Manning by Hatty Nestor, The White Review, March 2018
Es gibt keine Häfen mehr für den Fliegenden Holländer. Über den Populismus der „IAE“-Kritik by Chris Buden, Springerin, Heft 2/2019
(the English original of the text will be made available online by Springerin before Crit Cross)
Crit Cross #7 is realized in collaboration with the mumok library and Studio Weisses Haus.
CRIT CROSS #6
A Forum on Art Criticism
Special Edition: Manifestos
Friday, 12. April 2019, 6:00pm
FRANZ JOSEFS KAI 3
1010 Vienna
For its sixth edition, Crit Cross organizes a special program, hosted at FRANZ JOSEFS KAI 3 in the context of Francis Ruyter’s exhibition “Hurricane/Time/Image” curated by Mohammad Salemy.
The Critique of Art Criticism, by Sabeth Buchmann and Isabelle Graw,Texte zur Kunst.
(Thanks to Pia-Maria Remmers for this suggestion!)
In it, the question is raised whether the discrimination performed in art criticism is necessarily a problematic one.
The Xenofeminist manifesto, by Laboria Cuboniks
(Thanks to Mohammad Salemy for this suggestion!)
An older text where issues of discrimination are also at stake, but are being tackled from a different perspective:
CRIT CROSS #5
Friday, 15. February 2019, 6:30pm
Belvedere 21
Arsenalstraße 1
1030 Vienna
The four texts for the Crit Cross #5 are:
The Athens Biennale Negligently Satirizes the Aesthetics of the Alt-Right by Dorian Batycka, Hyperallergic, 7.12.2018.
(Thanks to Aleksei Borisionok for this suggestion!)
Batycka criticizes the Athens Biennale for what he considers superficially referencing « a bevy of well-known contemporary tropes including post-truth, accelerationism, overidentification, and corporate aesthetics » and piling up references. His hyper-critical review calls for a critical discussion, especially as many of the points he mentions are by no means unique to the event.
“Happy trees” and culture-death by Julia Friedman, The New Criterion
(Thanks to Patrick Schabus for this suggestion!)
Julia Friedman takes an interest in the attempt to canonize Bob Ross, a well-know American painter famous for teaching painting on TV. While this is a seemingly specialized question, the article asks the more general question what criteria of admission to the art historical canon should be and when concessions to popularity are warranted.
Bruce Nauman. Cosmogony and the clown: on the occasion of Nauman’s PS1/MoMA retrospective by Philippe Parreno, 4 Columns
(Thanks to Kimberly Bradley for this suggestion!)
Parreno’s review is not only interesting because it is an artist’s review of a show by another artist, but also because he asks questions about the format itself as he wonders how to write.
Working without the pressure of success. Wider den sexistischen Vorurteilen im Kunstbetrieb by Martina Schöggl, Arts of the Working Class, No. 4, text at the event and on request beforehand.
(Thanks to Marianne Dober for suggesting Arts of the Working Class!)
Schöggl’s short text tackles the subject of sexism in the art world, ending with a call for action and offering a hands-on approach which are worthy of discussion.
CRIT CROSS #4
Thursday, 6. December, 7pm
mumok, museum of modern art
Museumsplatz 1
1070 Vienna
The three texts for the Crit Cross #4 are:
Der Angriff der Gegenwart auf die Historie by Matthias Dusini, Falter 45/18, 7.11.2018.
(Thanks to Fiona Liewehr for her suggestion!)
Die Beauty und das Biest by Matthias Dusini, Falter 43/18, 24.10.2018.
Dusini’s texts invite a critical reflection on the role of museums as public institutions and the prize they pay in their quest for new audiences in Austria and beyond.
One Take: Invitation to Freedom by Lou Cornum, Frieze, No. 199, November-Decemer 2018.
Lou Cornum’s text about a performance by Rebecca Belmore appeared in Frieze’s edition on decolonialization. It asks questions about art audiences, identity and the relationship between art and politics, introducing a completely different, but not less relevant, discussion than the two texts by Dusini.
CRIT CROSS #3
Depot – Raum für Kunst und Diskussion
Breite Gssse 3
For its third edition, Crit Cross is inviting an international curator, Zarina Muhammad from the critics collective The White Pube, founded by her and Gabrielle de la Puente in 2015.
As a duo and individually, they have introduced the emoji review, the baby essay, Twitter and Instagram criticism and do podcasts and youtube. Recently, they were on the Dazed & Confused 2018 Dazed 100 list for “the people whose moment is now”. They criticize white artists who put black bodies on display in galleries, have their word to say about Turner Prize nominations and speak up whenever they feel something is going wrong in the art world. Their reviews are permeated by personal experience instead of simulating objectivity and they make all their incomes public on their website.
The two texts for Crit Cross #3 are:
* the position paper B2B OBJ// SUBJ// ECTIVITY
* review of Tai Shani @ Tramway for Glasgow International to learn how the position plays out concretely.
CRIT CROSS #2
Arsenalstraße 1
1030 Vienna
The two texts for Crit Cross #2 are:
Let’s be clear: “We are at war” by Mohammad Salemy, Ocula
(Thanks to Christoph Chwatal for his suggestion!)
Conversation between Steffen Mau and Uwe Vormbusch, Texte zur Kunst
(Thanks to Sabeth Buchmann for her suggestion!)
CRIT CROSS #1
Thursday, 24. May, 6:30pm
mumok, museum of modern art
Museumsplatz 1
1070 Vienna
The three texts for the first Crit Cross are:
Kunst: Der zwiespältige Boom der Privatsammlungen in den Museen by Nina Schedlmayer, Profil, 13.2.2018.
Nina Schedlmayer critically reflects the practice of exhibiting private collections in public museums
(English translation available on request at critcross@verein-k.net).
Why is there no criticism in fashion? by Jack Self, Spike 55, Spring 2018.
Jack Self argues that art has lost its role at the forefront of contemporary culture.
Anselm Kiefer and Leon Golub: Separate and Together at The Met Breuer by Cathy Nan Quinlan, Talking Pictures, 27.4.2018.
Cathy Nan Quinlan discusses the absence of women in Kiefer’s and Golub’s art and the impossibility for German artists to „recreate‚ the amber waves of grain‘ so a new generation can see them, really see them and find new meaning in them“, without being accused of being a Nazi.
Verein K is an independent arts and cultural organization from Vienna, founded in 2017. Verein K focuses on projects in the field of contemporary art and culture connecting diverse cultural and social interests: critical approaches to contemporary art, creating curatorial platforms as well as enabling innovative cultural practices including diverse social groups.