Art Administration as Performative Practice / Organizing Art as Institutional Critique By Jennifer J. Snider A thesis presented to OCAD University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts, April 2015 in Contemporary Art, Design and New Media Art Histories Jennifer Snider 2015 OCAD University This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. To see the license go to http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ or write to Creative Commons, 171 Second St., Suite 300, San Francisco, California 94105, USA. CREATIVE COMMONS: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. USERS ARE FREE TO: Share – copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format Adapt – remix, transform, and build upon the material TERMS OF USE: The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as the following license terms are honoured. 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Other rights such as publicity, privacy, or moral rights may limit how the material can be used. ii AUTHOR’S DECLARATION: I certify that the below materials describe work completed during my registration as graduate student in the CADN Program at OCAD University. I hereby declare that I am the sole author of this thesis. This is a true copy of the thesis, including any required final revisions, as accepted by my examiners. I authorize OCAD University to lend this thesis to other institutions or individuals for the purpose of scholarly research. I understand that my thesis may be made electronically available to the public. I further authorize OCAD University to reproduce this thesis by photocopying or by other means, in total or in part, at the request of other institutions or individuals for the purpose of scholarly research. iii ART ADMINISTRATION AS PERFORMATIVE PRACTICE / ORGANIZING ART AS INSTITUTIONAL CRITIQUE Master of Arts, April 2015 Jennifer J. Snider Contemporary Art, Design and New Media Art Histories OCAD University ABSTRACT: A propositional rethinking of art administration within the artist-run institution, this thesis contributes new conceptualizations of operations of the artist-run centre in Canada. The suggestion is that art administration practiced therein is a specialized embodied expression of the institution as apparatus. Proposing that the Canadian artist- run context is a form of and forum for institutional critique, this analysis argues that the art administrator is a unique practice of mediation in art called “diagnostic organizing;” a negotiative role gesturing toward performative relationships to protocol. Recontextualizing art administration as embodying the interface between art and policy, this study also names “performing the context” as an experimental and critical approach to arts facilitation. The work of artist Andrea Fraser is investigated for her writing and practices of institutional critique, as is the arts presentation project Kunstverein Toronto where Co-Director’s Kari Cwynar and Kara Hamilton’s performative language and gestures communicate their facilitative practices. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: It is my pleasure to acknowledge those who supported me during my research studies. I would like to express my deep appreciation to my primary advisor, Dr. Caroline Langill (Associate Professor; Dean, Liberal Arts & Sciences and the School of Interdisciplinary Studies, OCAD University), for her invaluable direction and support throughout this work. This thesis could not have been accomplished without her academic guidance and insight. I would also like to extend special thanks to my secondary advisor, Patricio Davila (Assistant Professor, Faculty of Design, OCAD University) for his guidance and insight, and my committee members, Dr. Kirsty Robertson (Associate Professor, Visual Arts, Western University), and Dr. Gerald McMaster (Professor, Indigenous Visual Culture and Critical Curatorial Studies, OCAD University). A thank you also goes to Dr. Andrea Fatona (Assistant Professor; Program Director, CADN, OCAD University) and all the graduate studies faculty and administrative staff for their kind direction, support, and cooperation during my time at OCAD University. I wish to thank Kari Cwynar and Kara Hamilton, Co-Directors of Kunstverein Toronto, for their generosity and enthusiastic participation in this research. My thanks also go to Andrea Fraser for providing permission to reproduce images of her work in this study. I wish to acknowledge Dr. Clive Robertson for his mentorship on matters of artist-run centre policy, history, and collaborative practices. I also thank the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council for the support of my research through the 2014 Joseph- Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarships program. Finally, I thank my friends and family, especially my parents Ron and Evelyn Snider and my sisters Cheryl and Emily, for their unconditional love and support. And thank you to my partner, Cian Cruise, for his assiduous and uncompromising care, and for the time spent listening during the development and execution of the final stages of this project. v TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures ….………………………………………………………………… vii Chapter 1 Introduction …….…………………………………….……… 1 Power Surging: Rewiring the artist-run centre’s capacity with Admin Propositional and Irreverent Methods …….………………………………….... 6 Positioning the Administrative Narrative ….…………………………………... 9 “Aren’t art administrators just failed artists?” ….…………………………..….. 11 Proceedings: chapter summaries ……………………………………………….. 20 Chapter 2 Literature Review …………………………………………… 24 Paradox and Policy: Artist-Run Centres and Institutional Critique Social Subject: Agency, identity, and paradox of critique ……..……………… 25 Canada’s artist-run culture and relationship to the State ……..….…………….. 28 The methods and concerns of Institutional Critique …………………………… 37 Conceptual Art and Social Art Practices ………………………………………. 40 Identity Politics and today’s Artist-Run Centre..……………………………….. 44 Chapter 3 ………………………………………………………………………. 49 Diagnostic organizing: What kind am I? What kind are we? Artist-run Administration and Institutions of Critique …………………………. 53 When the Professional is Parodic in Administration ………………………...…. 67 Conventions of Embedded Critique …………………………………………….. 73 Chapter 4 ………………………………………………………………………. 82 Organizing Art: Maneuvers of Policy and Negotiation Long division of cultural labour in the artist-run centre ……………………….. 86 Funding “professionalism” as paradigm shift ………………………………….. 91 Demarcating terms of administrative alterity ……….……………………..…… 97 Chapter 5 ………………………………………………………………………. 101 Performing the Context: Kunstverein Toronto’s Performative Gestures Kunstverein Toronto – About us ……………………………………………….. 103 Ethics of practice: Hospitality as a transitive tool ……………………………… 111 Accompaniment and hospitality: Making accommodations …………………… 114 Chapter 6 Conclusion ……………………………………………………… 118 Evidence of Irreverence and Future Relevancies References ………………………………………………………………………. 124 vi LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1 Gjen Snider, figurehead: an exercise in re-claiming publicly-funded 17 identity through multi-tasking and time management, 2006. Performance series, documentation; “Promotional walk, ‘Valentine's Day fundraiser’” February 14, 2006. Figure 2 Andrea Fraser, Museum Highlights: A Gallery Talk, 1989. 65 Live Performance at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia. Courtesy: the artist. Image credit: Kelly & Massa Photography. Figure 3 Andrea Fraser, still from Little Frank and His Carp, 2001. DVD. 66 Courtesy: the artist and Galerie Nagel Draxler Berlin/Cologne. Figure 4 Kunstverein Toronto: Marcos Lutyens and Raimundas Malasauskas, 105 Hypnotic Show, 2014. Performance with text by Angie Keefer. Courtesy: Kunstverein Toronto. Image credit: Marcos Lutyens. Figure 5 Kunstverein Toronto: Marcos Lutyens, K-Tanglement, 2014. Live 106 hypnosis performance at Dundas Square, Toronto. Courtesy: Kunstverein Toronto. Figure 6 Kunstverein Toronto: Carolee Schneemann, Dear Carolee: Carolee 107 Schneemann in Letters, 2014. Reading event with Mat Laporte and Laura McCoy. Courtesy: Kunstverein Toronto. Image credit: Joseph Devitt Tremblay. vii Ch. 1 Introduction – Power Surging: Rewiring artist-run capacity through admin Art Administration as Performative Practice / Organizing Art as Institutional Critique J. Snider Chapter 1 Introduction Power Surging: Rewiring artist-run capacity through admin Is there virtue in reconceptualizing curators and administrators as artists in order to maintain fidelity to the moniker “artist run”?