Introduction
For a long time, the possibility of commissioning an artist to create a work was available only to a few. The process of making the artwork remained hidden, accessible only to selected individuals.
Today, working in dialogue with communities, we want to open ourselves to other modes of collaboration. We aim to create a space in which communities themselves can initiate the creation of a work, and artists — with respect for their own practice — can undertake a process based on mutual attentiveness.
Questions that have been asked in the field of art for years — what? for whom? and why? — have become an impulse for us to search for different paths. One of these is the model proposed by François Hers in his 1990 manifesto Les Nouveaux commanditaires. Hers pointed to the need to move away from curatorship as a form of deciding on behalf of others, in favor of a practice grounded in co-presence and responsible listening.
BGSW sees its role here as mediating: accompanying, connecting, and attentive. The program Other Curators is also a practice of reflecting on how to make the institution more permeable
Protocol – Manifesto
The following protocol enables anyone in civil society — individually or in collaboration with others, and without any restrictions — to assume responsibility for commissioning an artist to create a work of art. It is the duty of the commissioning person or group to define the need for the artwork and to justify why the community should become involved (invest) in this particular undertaking.
The protocol offers artists the possibility to develop forms of cooperation capable of responding to the needs of society, and to establish a distribution of roles that makes artistic creation and responsibility for it a shared matter. Artistic production is no longer solely a private concern or an individual responsibility.
For mediators, whose task is to build relationships between artworks and the public, the protocol proposes contributing to the creation of ties among artists, funders, and all other engaged social actors. Mediators organize their collaboration and provide the knowledge needed to select an appropriate artist, as well as the skills necessary to ensure the smooth completion of production, in keeping with the commissioning requirements and the nature of the artistic practice.
Mediators may also act as public producers, incorporating initiatives proposed by artists when they believe these address contemporary needs.
— The protocol invites social representatives and those responsible within private and public institutions to engage in the development of what it calls “initiative-based democracy,” and to undertake political negotiations that will make it possible to devise ways of including communities. They may also personally assume responsibility for a commission that responds to a collective need.
— The protocol proposes that researchers across various fields contribute to recognizing the necessity of art understood in this way, to situating undertaken actions within their broader context, and to making the circumstances and challenges of the entire process comprehensible to all.
By engaging in an equitable sharing of responsibility for the process of creating an artwork, all participants acknowledge the need for negotiation in order to find solutions should tensions or conflicts arise—an inherent aspect of public life in a democracy.
The artwork, becoming likewise a participant in public life, is no longer merely an expression of a single individual but of people committed to shaping society by giving shared meaning to contemporary creation.
Financed through private and public funds, the artwork becomes the property of the community. Its value is no longer defined by the market but emerges from its use by the community and from the symbolic significance it is given.
Self-prepared translation of François Hers’s protocol-manifesto, based on the German-language version and compared with the English- and French-language versions. For these texts, see http://www.nouveauxcommanditaires.eu/en/, [15.05.2024 — Agnieszka Kilian]
