Art Writing Workshop by Ignacio Szmulewicz
Location: U10 Art Space, Kosovke devojke 3, Belgrade
Dates: Monday, January 20 – Thursday, January 23, 2025
Hours: 12:00–14:00
We are thrilled to announce the Art Writing Workshop hosted at U10 Art Space. This four-day workshop is designed for art history students and art historians eager to explore the transformative power of writing about art. The workshop will be conducted in English.
Description
The workshop is an invitation to write about art. But, in a world full of violence, war, diaspora, climate crisis, why do it? Why not just resign to all creative process? Why inssist on art criticism or critical thinking at all? I believe in the transformative power of art. By this I mean the power of looking at the world from another perspective through images, or words, that can illuminate, focus or paint reality with peculiar colors.
More than ever, write to think,
to open up a conversation,
to give voice,
In the workshop we will discuss three aspects: a) the context in which or from which art writing emerge, what I call the ethical understanding of reality; b) the point of view from which the art writer shares his/her thoughts; c) the rules of art writing structures (magazines, editors, audience), how to occupy, bend or break them.
Excercises
- read something you like (one or two paragraph of any author) and explain why do you like it, give especific reasons based on their writing,
- read something (one page in English) yours that you trully like and explain why. The others have to share their thoughts on your piece,
- write a paragraph on who you are, how will you describe yourself, try to make it on style, or like a story,
- select a work of art of the current or last exhibition at U10, that you wish to write about and explain why do you like it,
- search and select a magazine, printed or digital, that you wish to write and tell the group why you choose it.
Final delivery
- write and read a pitch for that magazine (300 words, angle, main ideas, reasons why the work or exhibition is important, small description of the pieces, personal point of view). This one to be presented at U10 community accompanied with a set of 3-5 images.
Workshop Coordinator
The workshop will be led by Ignacio Szmulewicz, an art historian, curator, and critic based in Santiago of Chile. He is a PhD student of Architecture and Urban Studies at Catholic University. He holds a BA in Art History and Theory from University of Chile, and an MA in Architecture from the Catholic University. He was the Director of the Documentary Center for Visual Arts at the National Center for Contemporary Arts (2017-20) and has published books including “Arte, ciudad y esfera pública en Chile” (Metales Pesados Editions, 2015), “Fuera del cubo blanco” (Metales Pesados Editions, 2012), and “El acantilado de la libertad” (Kultrun Editions, 2015). He was the guest curator of “Bienal en Resistencia” and the curator of “Santuario: arte contemporáneo en Valdivia,” “Lejos, muy lejos,” and “Collective Roadmap”. He writes regularly for La Panera Magazine and Artforum.
Applications
There are 10 spots available. Applications are open until Friday, January 17, 2025, at 12:00 AM. Interested participants should send their applications to opencall@u10.rs.
The text of the workshop can be found here.
- This workshop is free of charge!
