18 Nov 2011

ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS IN PROJECT ART PRACTICES by Ben Kinmont

A presentation by Laurel George and Ben Kinmont
The Classroom, Performa Institute. 18 Nov 2011, 6:30 PM

Organized by Kunstverein NY for Performa 11 in relation to Prospectus: New York at the Fales Library, NYU

Digger dug, Considérations éthiques poster, streets of Paris, April, 2011

Kunstverein NY and Performa 11 are pleased to announce ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS IN PROJECT ART PRACTICES, a presentation by cultural anthropologist Laurel George and artist Ben Kinmont.

 This project combines Kunstverein’s interest in examining conditions mediating participation and multi-disciplinary approaches to contemporary cultural practice.

ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS IN PROJECT ART PRACTICES is a document in constant transformation through the involvement of new participants. The evolving nature of the content of this project, and the various formats it can take published in magazines, distributed as posters, pasted in public space, or found within exhibition spaces exemplifies a new type of document of reference that is transformative by nature.

The questions around ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS addresses questions artists and cultural producers can have about interaction-based art conducted outside of the institutional space, modes of working Kinmont has practiced for over two decades.

Digger dug archive, Considérations éthiques, Kadist Foundation, Paris, 2011

The document started in 2005 when Kinmont and a group of graduate students wrote Towards a definition of project art and Ethical considerations in project art as part of a class Kinmont taught at the California College of Arts, San Francisco.  A year later, Kinmont spoke with cultural anthropologist Laurel George’s Art Worlds class at New York University’s Draper Program.  By 2010, these discussions had developed into an expanded edition of the original text, which included George’s comparison of the “Ethical considerations in project art” to the American Anthropological Association’s “Code of Ethics.”

For the Kunstverein NY and Performa 11 commission, George and Kinmont will begin with a student workshop at New York University.  The workshop will generate cross-disciplinary conversations on the ethics and aesthetics of project art, ethnographic fieldwork, and other forms of collaborative cultural production.  Participants will also collectively revise the text Ethical considerations in project art practices and issue a new edition of this evolving text.

 Its content will be discussed on Friday November 18, 6:30 PM at the Performa Hub.

ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS IN PROJECT ART PRACTICES is organized in conjunction with Ben Kinmont’s exhibition PROSPECTUS: NEW YORK on view at the Fales Library, New York.  The workshop and public presentation are made possible with the support of the Fales Library, the Faculty of New York University, the Richard J. Massey Foundation for Arts and Sciences, and Performa 11.

 Kunstverein would also like to thank Flash Art for supporting sections of the project.

The project in its published form can be found in the journals and magazines Mouvement, July-September 2011; Troubles, 2006 and FlashArt, November 2011. More information is available at Antinomian Press.

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