Artists’ Program 2020–21

The Artists’ Program is a space for artists, critics, and curators interested in participating in an intensive experience featuring discussion, theoretical courses and production in a university context. For a year and a half, the 25 selected participants will take part in a series of workshops, seminars, lectures, and visits by local and international professors. They will be provided with a shared studio to gather and work on group and individual projects. Participants in the program must commit to attending classes at least three afternoons a week and to engage in collaborative work. All courses are held in spanish, so applicants should have a basic knowledge of the language.

The 12th edition of the program, to be held in 2020, will look into the mechanics of how a work of art produces intensity and meaning. This implies a focus on the unique material characteristics of the artwork, its interactions with verbal discourses and theoretical frameworks, how it is conceptualized, and how it is articulated into the physical and social space.

The program will be structured around the annual group critique coordinated by Jorge Macchi, Marcelo Pombo and Josefina Carón. The Critique is a space for in-depth discussion of the proposals from the participating curators, critics, and artists.

During the first part of the year, the artist and director of the Art Department Carlos Huffmann will teach the Extraña Materia seminar. It will examine the intersection between material/visual language and discursive/verbal language. The tension between them as the engine that produces the artistic experience will be examined in assigned readings, hands-on exercises with simple materials, and visits to exhibitions.

Throughout the year, a series of technical/authored workshops will be offered to participants in the Program and to a limited number of individuals from the general public. The workshops will focus on a specific aspect of the teacher’s praxis, such as painting, animation, digital photography, and others. They explore how an artwork’s material characteristics and conditions of production determine what the work does upon reception. Sebastián Gordin, Mónica Heller, Juliana Iriart, Juan Tessi and Rosana Schoijett will direct these workshops.

Three elective theoretical seminars, taught by Tomás Borovinsky, Mariana Dimópulos and Graciela Speranza, will be offered to Program participants and the general public.

During August 2020, US art critic David Joselit will be giving a closed seminar on painting as language and vehicle of social interaction, and a public conference on his work. He will also meet the participants and make studio visits.

The selected critics and curators will participate in the Program alongside the artists, fostering an ecosystem of material and discursive production that includes all of the primary players in contemporary art, an indisputably collective phenomena. Critics and curators in the program as well as members of the general public can participate in a series of Curatorial Units with classes on the history of exhibitions, theoretical debates, a legal seminar, and other pertinent topics. Lara Marmor, Cintia Mezza, Lucrecia Palacios, Fernanda Pinta, and Ivan Rosler will direct these units.

The 12th edition of the Artists’ Program will take place from March to December, 2020, and from March to June, 2021. The final semester includes a critical art writing workshop and will also focus on working with various tutors on the Final Project to be carried out in June 2021.

The selection committee is composed of Carla Barbero, Flavia Da Rin, Jorge Macchi and Marcelo Pombo.

For further information or to download the application form see our website or contact us at arte [​at​] utdt.edu.