图片/image: Jeronimo Voss

幸存艺术

19:00—> 2013年10月19日

继今年四月对空间模式的热烈讨论之后，家作坊现在推出下一个议题：艺术家在北京（但不仅限于北京） 组织自己的“工作-生活”的不同方式。

• 生活工作在阿姆斯特丹的Maja Bekan 和 Angela Serino目前是北京IFP（Institute for Provocation)的驻地艺术家，她们的项目是“行动中的身体：文化工作者的未来会是怎样？”
  Maja Bekan是一名行为和视觉艺术家。她是艺术家鹿特丹艺术组织“论辩与艺术区”（ADA，Area for Debate and Art)的发起人与策划者。
  Angela Serino是生活工作在阿姆斯特丹的意大利策展人和作家,自2010年起出任荷兰艺术机构Kunsthuis SYB的项目策划委员会委员。
• 方璐是一位生活和工作在北京的录像艺术家、录像局的发起人之一。录像局是设在北京和广州的独立录像档案资源库，主要致力于为录像艺术提供展览，组织和存档的平台。
• 来自德国的访问艺术家Jeronimo Voss是艺术工作者联盟（Art Workers Coalition）的组织者之一。艺术工作者联盟主要研究职业艺术工作者的政治和组织可能性及其与其它社会运动之间更为广泛的联系，如他们的项目Philosophicum就以法兰克福住房短缺问题入手，向政府提议将一个废弃的大学校园建成住房合作社。
• 在北京工作和生活的艺术家吴玉仁通过自己的装置与摄影作品阐释权力结构及其对个体的影响。2010年，吴先生参与组织了包括多名艺术家与当地民众在内的抵抗强拆活动。

Surviving Art

7:00 pm—> October 19th, 2013

In a followup to our lively discussion on different models of “spaces” in April, HomeShop hosts a discussion on the ways that artists organize their working lives, in Beijing and beyond.

In China (and elsewhere), while artistic work has often meant self-employment and being one’s own boss, it has not always translated as “self-determination.” We start this discussion from a common inquiry that unites a variety of positions: what structures can we create to endow our work with a little more stability?

Participants:

• Amsterdam based Maja Bekan and Angela Serino are currently in residence at IFP in Beijing working on the project “BODIES AT WORK: What is the future of the cultural worker?”
  Maja Bekan is a performance and visual artist. She is a co-founder and developer of the Rotterdam based artists’ initiative ADA, Area for Debate and Art.
  Angela Serino is an independent curator and writer based in Amsterdam (NL). She is member of the Programming Committee of Kunsthuis SYB, artists in residency devoted to research, experimentation and new collaboration, and co-initiator of noalanguageschool, icw artist M.Al Solh.
• Fang Lu is a Beijing-based artist working primarily in video. She is co-founder of Video Bureau, an independent video archive resource in Beijing and Guangzhou that aims to provide a platform to exhibit, organize and archive video art.
• Visiting from Frankfurt, Germany, artist Jeronimo Voss talks about his experiences with artist self organization in Frankfurt am Main. Jeronimo will talk about new urban development plans in Frankfurt, Germany as well as ways of dealing with it, both artistically and on a self-organized daily life basis.
• Beijing-based artist Wu Yuren represents power structures and their effects on individuals in his installations and photography. In 2010 Wu and a group of artists and residents in northeastern Beijing were involved in resistance against evictions.

Two interviews in 3 days in March by Asta of Peking University, and photographer and writer Lo Yin Shan. Is this community-based practice?

In the springtime HomeShop had a few visitors, as well as some very curious though inevitable vacancies (including the seeming concerted evaporation of occupants from the workshare space a month ago; now much ameliorated). During this time, and facing an uncertain future, a number of us began considering our established models of supporting and running the space. A discussion among various Beijing-based art spaces and projects also attempted to find some answers to the question of what kinds of activities are felt to be needed now in this city, and how they could be sustained.

On a return, the Teapot Exhibitions space was found to have been shattered to pieces, December 2012.

For a brief moment, following the positive experience of having UK-based artist Maurice Carlin here as first “official” resident, the idea to pursue a residency program seemed like a good way to regularly fill space and provide some inquisitive new energy, as it keeps many a Beijing institution afloat or well-padded. We consulted our friend at a space in Caochangdi to hear about how their program is run, but found that—however viable such an option might turn out—in our case it would veer down a path of specific identity and program that few of the organizers at HomeShop were really willing to adjust to. Add to that the preparation time required, and we would be looking at the rest of the year singularly geared to making this transition to something we didn’t necessarily feel consensus about achieving.

Reinaart Vanhoe and Maurice Carlin each sojourned in HomeShop, April/May 2013.

Likely an existing truism: many of the awkward feelings come from more than the reality of money, but from inside the organizational structure itself. Personal relations ripple through everything we do as a group, as well as all the effects palpable to others. And to us, or to me, at least, it hasn’t always been a desired separation, us and others. But how many others? And who? On that cusp of inside and out, the question of who gets to say, who gets to decide, has never been quite satisfactory to many. “Business” and “art group” sections were proposed at one meeting that seems like ages ago; institutional affiliations too; not to mention suggestions of becoming a real shop or a gallery. (Even old Uncle Long Beard came by one day to ask about starting a restaurant in the front space—if not at our friend’s place across the hutong, which looked empty to him.)

A curious neighbour ponders the latest question on the 問題 blackboard, May 2013.

The physical and social scale of HomeShop seems perfect for trying out the sticky substance of collaborative authorship, but each move has been prone to all the foibles and concentrations of skills and interests particular to the individuals involved. We could say this is natural, but it essentially means a certain recurring, quasi-naturalized predisposition of roles.

The Party Project does portraits! And political parties! Find out more! Ongoing deal!

This is me editorializing—when my tone turned whiny, another recent returning visitor, Reinaart Vanhoe, recommended giving space and recognizing the specific qualities of the individuals involved. This is true. If part of HomeShop’s character these last couple of years (regardless of which direction it goes in) might have been in prioritizing the values that exist in between those frequenting HomeShop, this may also be seen as its radical difference from many other spaces, organizations, and groups in Beijing. This is also what has left it open to critiques of opacity, inwardness and lack of structure; at the same time, this is what makes it exhausting and insecure. It’s a fiction.

The Aquaponics Workshop, started in early Spring 2013, is finally achieving system operation, with fish on the way any week now!

Giving space: how to understand that at this point? A time that oscillates between a feeling of latter-day busywork and a sense that we are only now achieving certain promises embedded in this inhabitation of HomeShop? Ambiguity and ambivalence sit side by side in the shopfront window with all its virtuality, while this discussion on giving space is for the most part conducted behind closed doors (like this one). In such discussions we talk about what will happen next year when the space’s contract meets its maker. Sometimes it feels a decision has already been made, and sometimes it feels that oscillation has produced the possibility that this decision is not up to us. It might appear in the question, will this given space be missed? or maybe rephrased as, who wants to take it? The offer is there.

Pointy, circa 2011, one of the many errant cats who have lived and loved and left HomeShop.

*Fine print: Taking the given space wouldn’t be a deal made for survival. In any case, debts may be incurred, facilities and signatures may be withdrawn, free labour may be cut back partially or in whole, and name may be subject to change. Then, you ask, what is offered, exactly? What is it without those things, and what can it become? If you’ll excuse the slippery language, what would be circumscribed by a survivability clause would be a set of possibilities, a certain kind of ground for particular approaches to say, art, design, critical engagement, social organizing, self-determination etc. to come into their own forms. Survivability in a sense meaning, to live beyond the lives of the individuals involved. Again, this is not about legacy, nor about feeling good about taking exits—it is about seeing that value is held by more than this current group of individuals, and recognizing the limits of these individuals in giving space.
My friend, a plurality is on offer! The Beijing wind is on offer!

**Disclaimer: these statements (which are actually questions) are the responsibility of the author and do not reflect the views of HomeShop; no offer is valid unless expressly stipulated by HomeShop.

***Note: This text was written several months ago but put on hold pending a host of unresolved questions that may have caused confusion about what was really being addressed here. At the present time, there are indeed more open discussions about the uncertain future and ways to confront the realities of rising rents, authorship, structure, and cooperation. If you are interested in joining this discussion, get in touch! More people are needed. More info on that soon…