Significant changes

The new series of public discussions will examine how curatorial practices have responded to significant changes in the art world. The talks will address the fallout of an increasingly globalised art world; the growing significance of the role of collectors; the reshaping of public sector art economies and the ways in which the development of new technologies has redefined how artworks are made, understood and disseminated.

Speakers during the first phase of talks will include:

• Erika Balsom, Senior Lecturer in Film Studies, King’s College, London and author of Exhibiting Cinema in Contemporary Art 
• Steven Bode, Director of Film and Video Umbrella
• Achim Borchardt-Hume, Director of Exhibitions, Tate Modern 
• Paul Goodwin, UAL Chair of Contemporary Art and Urbanism & Director of TrAIN (Transnational Art, Identity and Nation Research Centre)
• Chrissie Iles, Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art
• James Lingwood, Co-director, Art Angel
• Lisa Le Feuvre, inaugural Executive Director, Holt-Smithton Foundation
• Polly Staple, Director Chisenhale Gallery

The series builds on the The Producers: Contemporary Curators in Conversation initiated in 2001 by Professor Susan Hiller in collaboration with Newcastle University and the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art. Recognising the changes that the curatorial profession and the art world have undergone since the original series, these talks will open up the conversation to new positions on curating.

New positions

The first talk will take place later this month. The speakers are Erika Balsom and Steven Bode. 

Erika Balsom is senior lecturer in Film Studies at King’s College London. She is the author of After Uniqueness: A History of Film and Video in Circulation (2017) and Exhibiting Cinema in Contemporary Art (2013), as well as the co-editor of Documentary Across Disciplines (2016). Her work has been published in journals such as Grey Room and e-flux, and she is frequent contributor to magazine such as Artforum and Sight and Sound.

Steven Bode is director of Film and Video Umbrella, a London-based agency who are Britain’s primary commissioners of artists’ film and video. During his time with the organisation, he has initiated and overseen more than 150 different projects, including major new works from internationally-acclaimed artists such as Isaac Julien, Gillian Wearing, Jane & Louise Wilson, Mark Leckey, Johan Grimonprez, Duncan Campbell, Tacita Dean and Ed Atkins.

Alongside this commissioning activity, he has also curated a number of group exhibitions, including, most recently, ‘Somewhere Becoming Sea’ for Hull UK City of Culture, 2017. He has written extensively about video, film and contemporary art for several publications, and has contributed essays to many artists’ monographs.

The talk will be chaired by Chris McCormack Associate Editor of Art Monthly, who devised the series with Uta Kögelsberger, Senior Lecturer in Fine Art at Newcastle University. 

First talk

The series is funded by Newcastle University. It has been supported by staff at the Hatton Gallery, the School of Arts and Cultures and Art Monthly.

The talks will be distributed via the Art Monthly website.

The Producers Part II: New Positions in Curating will take place at 5pm on 30 January, in the Fine Art Lecture Theatre, in King Edward VII Building at Newcastle University. It is free to attend.