Editorial
CritiqueInstituent Practices
The new issue of RTV Magazine, titled ‘Instituent Practices’, focuses on the roles art institutions play in artistic, activist, and social practices with regard to different historical, political, and economic contexts. The articles, selected through an open call, discuss issues associated with creating, maintaining, modifying, and contesting the notion of the institution across different social and cultural spaces. The authors address tensions between social actors in the face of processes of institutional change, consider the need to rethink the existing models of institutional governance, and draw attention to the expansion of the institutional field at a time of crisis. In this way, the texts comprising the issue provide an update to Gerald Raunig’s remarks about the need for practices that focus on both institutional self-reflection and respond to social issues.
In the Critique section, Maria Beburia discusses the plight of migrant cultural workers in Poland and highlights the lack of systemic, long-term support for this particular group. Paweł Wodziński, disputing Raunig’s perspective, proposes an infrastructural critique aimed at ‘reinventing the world’. In the Affirmation section, Alya Segal recounts the history of the grassroots exhibition movement that has been carried out in privately owned flats during the ongoing war in Ukraine. Segal points out, based on a number of examples, that such non-formalized exhibition spaces, despite their challenges, play an important role in democratizing art and conveying it to marginalized groups. In turn, Flóra Gadó and Judit Szalipszki propose a turn towards redefining institutional practices with an emphasis on the category of care. They point to the pressing need to broaden the notion of care and take into account a holistic understanding of care in the context of curating exhibitions and public programmes.
In the Art Channel section, Dorota Nieznalska, Marta Lisok, and Jaśmina Wójcik put forth their own strategies for the social engagement of art institutions. Nieznalska revisits the protest action ‘NOMUS is Aneta’, Lisok shares her experiences related to the project ‘Anti-Handbook: How to Construct an Invisible Space’, and Wójcik suggests an exercise in institutional imagination. Finally, in the Interviews section, we feature a conversation with Uladzimir Hramovich about the self-organizing efforts of Belarusian artists, and an interview with Waldemar Tatarczuk, who discusses the upcoming plans of the Labyrinth Gallery in Lublin.
Enjoy!
Editorial team: Zofia nierodzińska, Mateusz Nowacki, Jakub Walczyk
