A pilot episode for a television talk show about contemporary art
Is there such a thing as too much talking and, by implication, too much listening? In a community comprised of art makers, presenters, viewers, financial supporters and aficionados, there currently appears to be an overwhelming presence of symposia, artist talks, lectures and panel discussions to a point where the presentation of visual art is incomplete without an official occasion to articulate and debate its own discourse. Alongside what could be framed as the academization of the exhibiting institution, this hyper-articulation of arts discourse has also been led by artists themselves, with projects that take the establishing of occasions for the production and development of knowledge as their primary goal. Although critical conversation and research cannot (and should not) be divorced from art practice, giving the discursive such a dominant, formal presence creates new expectations for a specific kind of performance in artistic practice.
Simplistically speaking, there is the seeming paradox of a visual field being preoccupied by talking. Does that reflect an urgency to articulate a new set of criteria, equivalences, positions, players or centers? Are these discursive occasions expanding, bypassing or replacing our ideas of the exhibition, and our ability to imagine the art-work? What kinds of production and consumption conditions are triggering those shifts? If the spotlight has indeed shifted this radically, it seems important to ask what is now being left in the dark. Alternatively, can this erasure of binaries manifest within an expanded and invigorated field in which conventional boundaries no longer dictate who does the showing, what does the telling and where the listening takes place?
It is with these questions in mind that a group of artists currently undertaking the first year of the Master Fine Art program with the Piet Zwart Institute, Rotterdam, are embarking on a collaborative documentary film making project led by curator, documentary filmmaker and Piet Zwart tutor Hila Peleg. The film will take as its form a two-fold structure combined under the umbrella of a pilot episode for a television talk show. Comprised of, on one hand, a studio-based “talk-show” organized by the group and, on the other hand, footage made during public events at local museums and galleries, the pilot episode will attempt to weave together these two parallel threads. The goal of this project is not to advocate for a return to the artist as romantically mute, but to attempt a complex understanding, and formulate a position towards, a significant condition of production within the field of contemporary art. Furthermore, it aims to critically represent the inner workings of this field and to serve as a potential model of art discourse that is engaged in a dialogue that includes not just the ideas and concerns of professionals and experts, but that of cultural discourse and practice at large.
The show’s title comes from ‘The Art of Conversation, Part I’, a recent e-flux Journal article by Monika Szewczyk.
A thematic project by Hila Peleg (January-June 2009)
To view the film produced as a result of this thematic project, please see
To see a discussion with Edgar Schmitz on the film held at ADA on March 20, 2011, please see
The press kit to the film can be found here:…