Echo Chamber 2014

"A great dealer does a good job for the collector but a great job for artists. A great adviser does a good job for the artists but a great job for the collector" – (7Days in the art world)

This has been the second summer that I have taught the Art and the Echo-Chamber course/workshop for TransArt Institute Low-residency MFA program (based in New York City) as they pass through Berlin.   
It was packed with 16 MFA candidates passing through the program which spends about a month here in Berlin. Aside from my course I spent some time giving a (pecha-kucha styled) presentation of my art-practice as well as an afternoon of critiques to about 4 students of the program. I previously posted about last years first-edition here on this Diary/Blog at Art & the Echo Chamber workshop 2013*

The course addresses artists working in various modes of operation, be it small or large, crafty or not, abstract paintings to horse & pony paintings. We had photographers working within a social consciousness framework, we had a part time gallerist as well as a dancer/performer as well as teachers engaged in creative practice in the USA as well as in the middle-east and Africa. 
The course was given at the Ufer Studios facilities which is know as a growing venue of good repute mostly for movement/performance works in Berlin.

This year I expanded the course work a bit more to accommodate the phenomena of Art as spectacle.    
as well as a number of small other alterations.    
The MFA students were very motivated by the daunting complexity of the necessary conversations about the international art-world(s) artists must currently navigate. It was an exhausting experience for us all given the stress and anxiety the various topics elicit. The MFA candidates were required to read/hear/watch all of the blog posts (as well as PDF reading materials distributed through our internal system) as preparation for the conversations. And, as we also experienced last year, there were students of varying degrees of experience and knowledge (admittedly this is not a course for beginners). Next year we are discussing expanding the workshop and perhaps this will allow for the additional nuances of the many topics covered in an extremely full day of discussions and activities. 
In an effort to keep their minds alert and sharp to the many modalities of artistic practice I sent the participants in late August a recommendation to see a show (currently on view) at the Victoria Albert museum in the uk www.vam.ac.uk/content/exhibitions/disobedient-objects  In 2015 I will consider expanding the coursework.   
– Jean-Ulrick D   
PS- An artist advocacy website: www.artanddebt.org

The "Value" of art 
From one of the blog audio interviews 
The great art "bubble" 
The great art "bubble" 
End of a Gagosian era 
Art Market is less Ethical than the Stock Market / Part1 of 13

75min DIY documentary film on new art and the young artists behind it. Filmed on ®NOVA Contemporary Culture 2010, MIS-Museum of Image and Sound, and SESC Pompeia, São Paulo, Brazil.