Open Call & ArtWiki: Digital venue of the 7th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art
In November 2010 curator Artur Żmijewski announced a call to artists from all over the world, asking them to send in artistic material as part of the research of the 7th Berlin Biennale. In addition to the standard information usually requested in such a call (documentation of art works and projects, CVs, etc.), it included the following addition, which generated attention in and of itself:
As the research also focuses on the question of whether artists consider themselves to be political, please inform us about your political inclination (e.g. rightist, leftist, liberal, nationalist, anarchist, feminist, masculinist, or whatever you may identify yourself with) or whether you are interested in politics at all.
The call was published in various languages. The Berlin Biennale ultimately received over 5,000 submissions in reaction to the Open Call.
In response, we invited all those who sent materials to become artists of the digital venue of the Berlin Biennale. Together with Berlin-based media activist and writer Pit Schultz we developed ArtWiki, a digital art library based on the model of Wikipedia, which is a sustainable project that will continue into the future. It aims to present artists as political and social entities, to lay open the artistic resources of our society and abandon the typical curatorial stance of a politics of selection and exclusivity. Furthermore, art representation on the Internet has been strongly dominated and positioned by market speculation and financial interests, and artists are often hesitant to upload their work for fear of it being misappropriated or even stolen. ArtWiki is the tool through which we want to extend the Biennale exhibition and create an open, not-for-profit platform for information exchange for artists, their activities, and their political standpoints, to show today’s spectrum of artistic attitudes. ArtWiki is also a form of social contract, which is about free exchange of information and trust—something very unusual in times when the art system is based on fully controlled access to art works, images, and even ideas.
by Joanna Warsza
ArtWiki will go public on April 26, 2012 - the opening day of the 7th Berlin Biennale. www.artwiki.org
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william monachesi
09.03.2012 at 01:32
I would like to know if I was one of the artists chosen to participate in the seventh berlin biennial. if I have been chosen, please send the access code to my e.mail. thank you, William.
Milos Djordjevic
09.03.2012 at 19:35
How and when can one finally get to know outcome of contest for 7th Biennial? After several emails, periodically sent during past year, I haven’t received any answer or even respond!? Not so professional.
Dam Dang Lai
10.03.2012 at 03:31
I would like to know how can I access for the artists chosen to participate in the seventh berlin biennial. Please send access code to my email too. Thanks. Lai.
joaquin
11.03.2012 at 17:24
Dear William and Milos : I would assume at this late point in time, that NONE of us was selected for the REAL show.Since we all sent stuff ( ok, material) in response to this open call, and knowing that the show is less than 2 months away, I would say that is 99% a fact that NONE of us was invited.A show of this magnitude, would have informed us months ago about our participation.
We got some sort of consolation price : we were included in their database project, this ArtWiki thing.nevertheless, I must say that their idea is good, even brilliant, and a decent effort on part of the people in charge ( Arthur Zmijewski and his team) to be more inclusive.
Dam, I dont think they will disclose that information to anyone, except for the artists invited.
Soon we will see the show open , and if you have the time and the patience to go through the monstrous 5000 plus list of artists invited to ArtWiki, the same ones that answer their open call, you may be able to match the list of the real show with the ArtWiki´s list.That way you would spot the winners.
How´s that?
new logo
11.03.2012 at 18:19
please change the logo as it looks too much like this one:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_ibctKKIKAsM/Su9zHIiBpwI/AAAAAAAAAb8/E9T_xHdZSkA/s400/nazi+runes.jpg
Dragica Milunovic
12.03.2012 at 06:24
Can you please email me the access code to my email.Thank you. Dragica
Natasa Stanisic
15.03.2012 at 15:13
I am so happy to be a part of this project
Thank you.
Natasa
Milos Djordjevic
15.03.2012 at 20:02
@joaquin – yes, the glass is half full
Completely agree with everything you said, just expected some kind of respond to my queries.
Cheers
Suzana
16.03.2012 at 10:31
The art system, as any other system, always wins, regardless to whatever it does, or doesn’t for its associates! Artists as the most important elements of the art system do not get any answers to their queries or are not even informed after two years of their applications whether they have been invited to the BB, but they still should be happy with whatever “bits and pieces” they receive from the “big table” under the cover of “all-inclusiveness”! The hope dies the last and the BB manipulates with the enormous energy of the promise, hope and expectation! We’ve seen it so many times (in almost all Biennials today there are certain kinds of open calls but hardly any artists enter the shows through them and I doubt that some of the received materials are reviewed at all by the curators). ArtWiki concept thus sounds so deja vu, but it is rather sad when the artists as Artur Zmijewski become system’s accomplices with advertising this hypocritical process of selection as a kind of new transparent art policy.
Flimster
18.03.2012 at 06:43
Yes, it really is the feeding of the 5000.
Simona
19.03.2012 at 13:59
I completely agree with you Suzana, especially
“…ArtWiki concept thus sounds so deja vu, but it is rather sad when the artists as Artur Zmijewski become system’s accomplices with advertising this hypocritical process of selection as a kind of new transparent art policy.”
Rebel Leber
01.04.2012 at 09:24
“Life in the late Artwiki era is a constant initiation rite. Everyone must show that he/she wholly identifies himself with the power which is belaboring him. This occurs in the principle of email syncopation, which simultaneously derides stumbling and makes it a rule. The openness like voice of the crooner on the web, the heiress’s smooth suitor, who falls into the Artur Żmijewski pool in his dinner jacket, are models for those who must become whatever the Berlin Bienniale wants. Everyone can be like this omnipotent society; everyone can be happy, if only he/she will capitulate fully and sacrifice his intellectual property.”
Mohammad bader hamdan
18.04.2012 at 17:35
I received your e-mail, thanks for your interest and for your invitation to join to art wiki, it is a good idea to publish artists works.
http://www.hamdanart.com
zoran
25.04.2012 at 15:05
Sent in the application, never heard back from you.
datatect
26.04.2012 at 21:11
welcome
it’s not a real wiki; it’s not open at its source.
appears more as a circle closed by deadlines and archivists (greek for governor)
please open it at some point.
don’t you prefer a database to a databank?
keep going…
Issam Kourbaj
01.05.2012 at 14:28
I’ve also sent in the application back in January 2011 and never heard back from you!?