caveat

Caveat is a collective research into the ecology of artistic practice. It is initiated by Jubilee, in partnership with Open Source Publishing, No New Enemies and Été 78. Caveat tries to find more sustainable, balanced ways of operating within the existing legal frameworks. And when the limits of the existing system are reached, it tries to come up with possible new narratives that open up space for reflection.

16 Dec 2019

Caveat Reading Room #12: Is it simply a conversation?

Collective reading and discussion of excerpts of the reflections written by Caveat 'dramaturgs' Steyn Bergs and Luke Mason.

18:00 - 20:00

Jubilee, Former Actiris building, 6th floor

Rue Paul Devauxstraat 3, 1000 Brussels

Steyn Bergs Luke Mason

The Caveat Reading Room of December 2019 proposes a collective reading and discussion of excerpts of the reflections that were written by Caveat 'dramaturgs' Steyn Bergs and Luke Mason. Reading Room #12 will take place at Hacktiris, 6th floor, rue Paul Devauxstraat 3 - 1000 Brussels

Steyn Bergs, Implied in the Contract. Occasional Reflections on Caveat, 2019

Luke Mason, Labouring under inauthentic conceptions: Some caveats to the predominant visions of artistic and contractual freedom, 2019

In Caveat both Steyn Bergs and Luke Mason, amongst others, acted as 'dramaturgs'. In their role as external experts they followed the research engaged but at arm's length and always starting from their own specific expertise. Steyn Bergs is an art historian. Steyn was involved in the start of the project in context of Lodgers, a research residency initiated by AIR Antwerp and MHKA. Luke Mason is a legal philosopher. He came across Caveat during a conference on labour and that is also the legal perspective he assumes in his writing about Caveat.

Reading excerpts from both texts would conclude the first phase of Caveat, dedicated to orienting and developing the research. At the same time these texts offer a candid mirror on Caveat, insights that can initiate a discussion on its future development.

20 Nov 2019

Collaborations écotone

Presentation by OSP at ERG of Ecotones of Collaboration, a series of interviews about modes of collaboration between graphic designers, artists and institutions.

13:00 - 14:00

ERG, auditoire

87 rue du Page/Edelknaapstraat 87, 1050 Brussels

OSP

Ecotones of Collaboration is an online publication of about twenty meetings with graphic designers, artists and sponsors established under different statutes in Brussels and elsewhere. Through interviews by Open Source Publishing as part of Caveat, Ecotones of Collaboations questions modes of collaboration between graphic designers, artists and institutions. The series of interviews attempts to highlight collaborative methods or experiences.

Which document or documents help to build a balanced and fertile relationship? What are methods or experiences in which designers have managed to escape commodification? How does a project do justice to the collaboration that is at its source?

Presentation of the website, reading of some excerpts, and discussions.

In the context of the programme Économies Interstices at ERG

Official language: French

13 Nov 2019

Caveat Reading Room #11: Ecotones of Collaboration & Caveat website release

Caveat presents a double programme hosted by OSP. The evening starts with a Reading Room where we collectively read and discuss parts of Ecotones of Collaboration, OSP's reseach into good practices in graphic design. This is followed by the festive public presentation of Caveat's website, developed and designed by OSP, a discussion and drinks.

13:00 - 14:00

OSP Studio

Former Actiris building, 6th floor

3 rue Paul Devauxstraat

1000 Brussels

OSP

How to survey the intersections of practices?

Ecotones of collaboration questions through long and short interviews the triangular relationship between graphic designers, artists and institutions. In particular the research tries to highlight the methods or positive experiences where the parties involved try to escape from the common mechanics of commodification.

An ecotone is a transition area between two biomes, river beds are a common example. Ecotones are areas where two communities meet and integrate. Through long and short interviews OSP is researching the modes of collaboration between graphic designers, artists and institutions. In particular, the research tries to highlight the methods or positive experiences where the parties involved try to escape from the common mechanics of commodification, read the interviews on ecotones.caveat.be.

7 Oct ― 30 Nov 2019

Canseira

Solo exhibition by Sofia Caesar at Centro Municipal de Arte Hélio Oiticica, Rio de Janeiro

Centro Municipal de Arte Hélio Oiticica

Rua Luis de Camões 68, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Sofia Caesar

Sofia Caesar's solo show Canseira ('a stubborn laziness, tiredness, or boredom') brings together works that the artist has developed over the past years, arising from the relationship between the body and its surroundings. The works in the exhibition are related to the appropriation of pleasure and leisure by western logics of productivity. They use resources ranging from Youtube videos to beach chairs, stock images of people working while resting, safety nets, smartphones, and documentation of installations by Hélio Oiticica and Neville de Almeida. Caesar shows us a body that allows itself to fall. Her gestures of appropriation and intervention manifest themselves through performances, videos, and installations, which raise the public's physical awareness of the complex condition of the body, intermingling pause and activity.

In the context of Caveat, Sofia Caesar has developed research by engaging with moving bodies, including her own. Through her performative work, she investigates the body’s resistance to the recuperation of pleasure and leisure within capitalist societies and the world of work. Inhabiting contradictions between leisure time and work time, she is looking for an escape from this binary opposition, exploring possibilities to improvise within the body’s constraints and conditions.

Engaging in Caveat, the artist worked towards the solo exhibition, Canseira, which showcases Caesar’s practice from the past three years, bringing together works that deal with the historical ghosts that haunt the Centro de Arte Helio Oiticica building due to its connection to the oeuvre of artist Hélio Oiticica and the Brazilian avant-garde. Caesar addresses how utopian practices like Oiticica’s have been incorporated in what Caesar calls ‘western play aesthetics’. Infantile, unproductive, bored, tired, playful, passive, and heavy, are a few of the bodily states Caesar brings awareness to in her performances and participatory works.

Curated by Raphael Fonseca and supported by Caveat, Rumos Itaú Cultural, Galeria Cavalo, Guerra Divulgacão and HISK. The exhibition, which occupies the entire second floor of the building, opens with a durational performance from 12h to 18h.

29 Sep ― 27 Oct 2019

Curating is Writing the Future. A Portrait

Solo exhibition by Stijn Van Dorpe at Eté 78 - one of Caveat's partners.

Eté 78

Rue de l'Eté/Zomerstraat 78, 1050 Brussels, Belgium

Stijn Van Dorpe Eté 78 Florence Cheval

Curated by Stijn Van Dorpe in collaboration with Convivial, Florence Cheval, Fonds du Logement, Olivier Gevart and initiated by Eté 78 and Caveat

As a kind of anthropologist, Stijn Van Dorpe started his exploration of the Eté 78 space and its surroundings, which he describes as a micro-environment. In doing so, he wants to investigate the space, mechanisms and potentiality of art. The micro-environment involves the exhibition space, the ‘give away’ library, the private collector’s house, the social housing project (Fonds du Logement) on the other side of the street… as well as the protagonists related to these spaces: the artist himself, the owners/co-initiators of the art space, the art collector, the curator, the craftsman, the civil servants…

Van Dorpe approaches the whole context of this micro-environment at short range, as a kind of test case to analyse and open up the art space and the relational positions floating around it. Van Dorpe uses the concept of third space (situated between institutional art space and other places created by society) in order to describe this opening up of different spaces towards one another, the creation of interstices between them, which also functions as a means to shift the ecology of the art field towards the wider society.

27 Sep 2019

Caveat Reading Room #10: Performing the Contractual

Collective reading and discussion of fragments from Contract & Contagion, from Biopolitics to Oikonomia (2012), a book by Angela Mitropoulos. The text is selected by Caveat dramaturg Steyn Bergs.

Jubilee, Former Actiris building, 6th floor

Rue Paul Devauxstraat 3, 1000 Brussels

Collective reading and discussion of parts of the chapter 'Contingency, Necessity, Performativity' from: Angela Mitropoulos, Contract & Contagion, from Biopolitics to Oikonomia, Minor Compositions, 2012.

The text is selected by Steyn Bergs, one of Caveat's 'dramaturgs'. He is an art critic and a researcher. Currently, he is conducting his PhD research on the commodification of digital artworks at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Together with Rosa te Velde, he was co-editor-in-chief of Kunstlicht from 2016 to 2018. His writing has appeared in various magazines and journals, and he has presented his work at conferences internationally.

Caveat Reading Room #9 with Patrick Bernier & Olive Martin

Collective reading and discussion of fragments from Zeros + Ones: Digital Women and the New Technoculture, 1998, a book by Sadie Plant selected by Patrick Bernier & Olive Martin.

Peniche Tenaceboot

Quai des Matériaux/Materiaalkaai, behind:

Allée du Kaai

Havenlaan 53 Avenue du Port, 1000 Brussels

The text is selected by Patrick Bernier & Olive Martin: an artist duo currently based in Nantes, France. Bernier & Martin have worked collaboratively for over a decade, developing a varied body of work that combines writing, performance, installation, photography and film. Throughout the years, they have developed a particular string of interests: migration, rights, colonial history, games, onomastics, weaving, etc. Their projects explore the issues of hospitality and hosting, as well as the porousness of identity. The works are nourished by open collaborations with storytellers, lawyers specialised in author and foreigner rights, an American auctioneer, chess players, and more recently, weavers. Patrick Bernier & Olive Martin are currently developing a specific research that focuses on the circulation of cultural products on a global scale while problematising the question of the global transmission of knowledge and techniques.

Copies will be available. Caveat's reading rooms are free of charge, and everybody is welcome.

Caveat Weaving Agreements

While in Brussels, Caveat artists Patrick Bernier & Olive Martin propose a collective research into weaving. They approach weaving as a means to record [[tag: contract | a conversational collective agreement]]. Together with Caveat, Allee du Kaai, and passers-by, we'll collectively ‘weave an agreement’ that links their research to Caveat.

Peniche Tenaceboot

Quai des Matériaux/Materiaalkaai, behind:

Allée du Kaai

Havenlaan 53 Avenue du Port, 1000 Brussels

Patrick Bernier & Olive Martin

Can fibers record relationships?

Patrick & Olive in their 'weaving machine' with participant, next to Allée du Kaai

Agreement in process of being woven. 15 'blocks' form the 'alphabet'. Orange thread: artists. Pink thread: Caveat. Yellow: passers-by. Green: Allee du Kaai

Patrick Bernier & Olive Martin have worked collaboratively for over a decade, developing a varied body of work that combines writing, performance, installation, photography and film. Throughout the years, they have developed a particular string of interests: migration, rights, colonial history, games, onomastics, weaving, etc. Their projects explore the issues of hospitality and hosting, as well as the porousness of identity. The works are nourished by open collaborations with storytellers, lawyers specialised in author and foreigner rights, an American auctioneer, chess players, and more recently, weavers. Patrick Bernier & Olive Martin are currently developing a specific research that focuses on the circulation of cultural products on a global scale while problematising the question of the global transmission of knowledge and techniques.

The interest in working with patterns or motifs was fuelled by the Native American wampums, and the Two Row Wampum Treaty belt in particular, brought forward during a presentation by Kenneth Deer, representative of the Mohawk nation, in the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. Wampums are belts made of beads woven by several nations in North-East America for sacred, diplomatic, or monetary purposes.

The Two Row Wampum, two rows of purple beads against a background of white beads, is offered during diplomatic meetings in order to formalise peaceful coexistence upon a land, therefore establishing the conditions for the peaceful coexistence of different communities on the same territory. In those circumstances, the patterns were codes representing the outcome of the talks. Stemming from another juridical fiction (which has nevertheless proved to exist in the past) in which a woven contract could be recognised as legally binding, they are working on configuring new woven graphics influenced by all these motifs existing and travelling on the globe.

In the context of this trajectory, Reading Room #9 was held right next to the weaving set-up.

3 & 4 Jun 2019

Artist Placement. Caveat at Argos

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Artist Placement is a two-day series of presentations and discussions on the Artist Placement Group (APG), its ongoing relevance, and current projects and initiatives that taking inspiration from it.

Argos, Center for Art & Media

Werfstraat 13 rue du Chantier, 1000 Brussels

ARGOS, Centre for Art & Media Gareth Bell-Jones David Hilmer Rex Antony Hudek Victoria Ivanova Joséphine Kaeppelin Patrick Bernier & Olive Martin Vijai Patchineelam Scott William Raby Steyn Bergs Greg Nijs

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What else can come of making art?

Artist Placement is a Caveat programme that aims to address the current search for new organisational models, production schemes, and hybrid forms of organization in the art world. The programme takes as a starting point the Artist Placement Group (APG), a milestone in Conceptual Art in Britain, to address the resurgent interest in reinventing the means of making and disseminating art.

APG provided an important historical counter model anticipating many of the issues facing cultural workers today, in terms of seeking different forms of patronage, repurposing and reutilising different spaces, and thinking of ways to reorganize the art world.

Between 1966 and the turn of the eighties, APG negotiated approximately fifteen placements for artists lasting from a few weeks to several years. First within industries (often large corporations such as British Steel) and later within UK government departments such as the Department of the Environment and the Scottish Office, APG arranged that artists could work to an ‘open brief’. Their placements were not required to produce tangible results, but the engagement itself could potentially benefit both host organisations as well as the artists in the long-term.

Today, there is a trend of artists reclaiming, or finding recuperative possibilities in practicing within, corporations and companies. Do these practices hold the promise of a transformative model for today's art world? Re-examing APG’s initial gesture, through looking at the present, is timely now.

Artist Placement offers a series of presentations and discussions that take inspiration from the Artist Placement Group (APG). With Gareth Bell-Jones, David Hilmer Rex, Antony Hudek, Victoria Ivanova, Joséphine Kaeppelin, Patrick Bernier & Olive Martin, Vijai Patchineelam, Scott William Raby, Barbara Steveni, Arno van Roosmalen and Caveat ‘dramaturgs’ Steyn Bergs and Greg Nijs, the programme will address the past and present relevance of APG. Through the presentation of current projects and initiatives that were inspired by APG, such as Diakron, Social Sensibility, Incidental Unit, the programme equally aims to open up perspectives for future activities of Caveat.

Caveat compiled a reader around this event. Download the reader here

Free entrance.

See programme

24 May 2019

Caveat Reading Room #8 with Scott William Raby

Collective reading and discussion of fragments from Inventing the Future: Postcapitalism and a World Without Work, a book by Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams, selected by Scott William Raby.

16:00 - 18:00

Former Actiris Building, 6th floor

Rue Paul Devauxstraat 3, 1000 Brussels

Collective reading and discussion of texts about APG (Artist Placement Group) with Scott William Raby. Fragments from Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams, 'Inventing the Future: Postcapitalism and a World Without Work'. Verso, 2015.

The texts are selected by Scott William Raby: an artist, writer, teacher, and researcher who works on art projects in a multitude of international contexts. He is currently researching the relationship between art and law under the specter of neoliberalism, primarily examining contracts in art. More specifically, his research is exploring artist-authored contracts, their radical history, present status, and future potential as a site of production for and within art as both written research and as artworks in and of themselves. His broader artistic practice consists of on-site hybrid discursive installations, pedagogical projects that seek critical, aware, and self-reflexive outcomes, and site and context specific discussions, writings, and readings, among other forms of art making. These projects often work between the (im)material intersections of art, architecture, infrastructure, and public spaces, and often seek to reframe, repurpose, and reconfigure socio-economic and geopolitical frameworks toward a multitude of exploratory, ameliorative, and aesthetic outcomes. He is currently a PhD researcher in the Art department at Goldsmiths in London and previously earned an MFA from Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles in 2012.

Copies will be available. Caveat's reading rooms are free of charge, and everybody is welcome.

Reading Room #7, Guest-Host Relations

Collective reading of "As If" We Came Together to Care' by the artist Andrea Fraser, reflecting on hospitality in the context of artist residencies. Hosted by No New Enemies.

09:00 - 11:00

Penthouse Art Residency, c/o Hotel Bloom - 8th floor

Rue Royale 250, 1210 Brussels

No New Enemies Harlan Levey Projects

Collective reading of "As If" We Came Together to Care' by the artist Andrea Fraser, reflecting on hospitality in the context of artist residencies. Hosted by No New Enemies.

This text was selected by Meghana Karnik, a visiting curator from EFA Project Space in New York City and 'guest' team member of Harlan Levey Projects, a co-producer of Caveat's collective research. Meghana Karnik is collaborating with Gatien Du Bois of Penthouse Art Residency on a salon series confronting themes of hospitality and care, presented at Penthouse throughout April 2019. In the context of Caveat, No New Enemies has been developing research on artist residencies within the Brussels landscape. Copies will be available. Caveat's reading rooms are free of charge, and everybody is welcome.

22 Mar 2019

Caveat Reading Room #6, Translating Creleisure

Collective reading and translation of original texts by Brazilian artist Hélio Oiticica in relation to stock images portraying a new model of worker, one who is both on vacation and at work. The texts and images were selected by Sofia Caesar, one of the artists at the core of Caveat’s collective research.

SB34 - the pool

34 rue St-Bernardstraat, 1060 Brussels

Sofia Caesar

Collective reading and translation of original texts by Brazilian artist Hélio Oiticica genealogy in relation to stock images portraying a new model of worker, one who is both on vacation and at work. The texts and images were selected by Sofia Caesar, one of the artists at the core of Caveat’s collective research. The texts are: Serie Dilmen Mariani 2, The Senses Pointing Towards a New Transformation, APOCALIPOPOTESIS, and As Possibilidades do Crelazer (Les Possibilités du Creloisir). These are available at Programa Helio Oiticica, an online archive by Itaú Cultural and Programa HO, or through the bibliography link below. The images come from different sources, resulting from a search for the term workation (work+vacation) in google images.

Notes from the Reading Room

Sofia: the images we printed for you are important for my work and I’ve been bringing them to Caveat events. They’re about Workation, - work and vacation – important notions in the work of Hélio Oiticica, as well as ‘crelazer’, creleisure. I use them also for the preparation of a show I have in Rio later this year. We will read the texts by ourselves, and when there are moments that make you stop, please mark it. I’d like to come back to them later, especially those that relate to the images.

Individual Reading

Sofia selects a paragraph from APOCALIPOPOTESIS.

Difference between creleisure and leisure (diversion from work, makes you more productive when returning to work, oppressing activity). Ronny chooses the same fragment, because it defines creleisure, but would continue with another fragment from the same text.

Image in bed with laptops, coffee and plants: relate it to creleisure? Sofia: no I think not, I think this image appropriates elements of creleisure, while actually opposing it.

Pauline: I have a question about the etymology of ‘leisure’ and ‘pleasure’: they are similar in all languages, is there a common root? Florence: maybe he plays with them like Derrida, suggesting a deeper relationship.

Ideology of pleasure-work

Greg Nijs: Hélio Oiticica is operating on the epistemological level: from the object as material thing, movement away from vision (performative vs representational), experience vs cognition, open field of signification. Object as event. From the metaphysical extent to their political potential. Vision is connotated with control (the regime since the renaissance), while touch seems related to change.

Julie: did he always show his work in exhibitions? Katleen: outside art spaces: architectural interventions, experiences, behaviour.

Julie reads this fragment from ‘Dilmen Mariani Series 2’. It’s interesting because it explains what he does believe in: in nothing but life.

Katleen: what images would he choose? Because I think the text and these images don’t correlate. Sofia: Indeed, they don’t. I use them as a counterpoint, an anchor to today. I googled ‘workation’. Katleen: google ‘workaholiday’.

Vijai Patchineelam: I relate this to the work of Mladen Stilinovic, but his thinking is more precise. Also more clear, politically. Discussion about Tropicalia, Caetano Veloso, contemporary Brazilian intellectual/art scene. There are also wealthy artists living in favelas...

Sofia explains the mechanisms of her exhibition About museum vs experience

Greg about Merleau-Ponty

'Workation' images used during the reading

21 Feb 2019

Caveat Reading Room #5: The Logic of the Collection

Collective reading and discussion of The logic of the collection, a text by Boris Groys. This article was selected by Stijn Van Dorpe, one of the artists at the core of Caveat's collective research.

16:00 - 18:00

Jubilee, Former Actiris building, 6th floor

Rue Paul Devauxstraat 3, 1000 Brussels

Collective reading and discussion of The logic of the collection, a text by Boris Groys. This article was selected by Stijn Van Dorpe, one of the artists at the core of Caveat's collective research.

Publishing & Performing Relationships. Caveat at Bâtard Festival

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Each day during the festival, an artist will present a proposal as a sharing ground for thoughts, discussions, and reflections on authorship, value, economy, distribution, participation...

Bâtard Festival, Beursschouwburg

Rue Auguste Ortsstraat 20-28, 1000 Brussels

Eva Barto Sofia Caesar Loraine Furter Laurie Charles Ben Kinmont franck leibovici Eric Schrijver OSP

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Why would artists contractualize relationships?

How do artists engage into working conditions?

How to survive as an artist?

These questions will develop in a back and forth movement from publishing to performance and the other way around. Indeed, the artists invited by Caveat approach publishing as a means to make things public, as a medium for emancipation and coalition, as a tool for thinking, and as a (third) sculpture.

With: Eva Barto, Sofia Caesar, Loraine Furter & Laurie Charles, Ben Kinmont, franck leibovici, Eric Schrijver & OSP

The practices of the invited artists testify both for an intense research in and a sharp awareness of the conditions and context in which their work come into life, are exhibited, circulated, and archived. Furthermore, they engage actively and critically in sharing, coming together, disseminating these issues not only amongst their peers but also towards a wider audience. Because, as Ben Kinmont put it once, "There is also a need outside of here."

The display module used during Publishing & Performing Relationships was conceived by graphic designer and researcher Loraine Furter and artist Laurie Charles.

The Zero Hour relational object by Sofia Caesar will be installed on the stage for the whole duration of the festival. It will be activated during her presentation-performance on Saturday.

Caveat is a collective research project reflecting and acting on the ecology of artistic practice. Convened in 2017 by the Brussels-based artists’ initiative Jubilee, the project title alludes to the legal principle caveat emptor (buyer beware), signaling the research's ambition to raise awareness and co-create alternatives.

Caveat Reading Room #4

Collective reading and discussion of 'Permanent Performance' (2012) by Dieter Lesage.

WTC, 25th floor

Koning Albert II laan 28-30, 1000 Brussels

We will read and discuss collectively a text by Dieter Lesage, 'Permanent Performance'(Performance Research Journal, Volume 17, 2012 - Issue 6: On Labour & Performance). PDF available upon request. Please send an email to info@caveat.be

Caveat at SOTA with Reading Room #3

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State Of The Arts (SOTA) invited Caveat to take part in its first annual camp on fair practice. Caveat presents Reading Room #3 and 2 presentations.

SOTA Almanac Camp, Allée du Kaai

Havenlaan 53 Avenue du Port, 1000 Brussels

Vermeir & Heiremans Louis Volont

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State Of The Arts (SOTA) invited Caveat to take part in its first annual camp on fair practice.

Caveat was present with a collective reading of a fragment of Anna Tsing's book, The Mushroom at the End of the World ('Reading Room #3'), and presentations by Caveat artists Vermeir & Heiremans, and commons researcher Louis Volont.

Caveat at SOTA addresses the sometimes unexpected entanglement of capitalism and freedom, searching and selling: the story of the mushroom that Anna Tsing describes shows that salvage is an essential element of capitalism - taking advantages of value produced without capitalist production. This raises the following question: how come, then, can it be that, quoting Anna Tsing, "the thrill of private ownership is the fruit of an underground common"?

The presentations go into that back and forth movement and try to focus on the fact that things are closely intertwined, from commons to private ownership and back again...

SOTA's first annual 'camp' is dedicated to writing the Fair Arts Almanac 2019, a practical guide for working, instituting and policy making in the arts.

See programme

19 May ― 23 Jul 2017

Caveat at LODGERS

Caveat is hosted by LODGERS, a collaboration between AIR Antwerpen and M HKA. LODGERS functions as Caveat’s first platform for public programmes, workshops, a display of artworks, legal material, and film screenings: a framework for research and artistic production as well as a public stage to negotiate possible futures of the artist contract.

M HKA

Leuvenstraat 32, 2000 Antwerp, Belgium

CAVEAT!!! presents a cabinet that will be activated during public programmes and workshops, with artworks, documents and books by Guillaume Bijl, Daniel Buren, Vaast Colson, Maria Eichhorn, Robert Filliou, Andrea Fraser, Goldin + Senneby, Judith Ickowicz, Ben Kinmont, Joseph Kosuth, Gareth Long, Gordon Matta Clark, Elaine Sturtevant, Philippe Thomas, Sarah Vanhee, Stijn Van Dorpe, Lawrence Weiner, and Carey Young.

Public programme May
Opening weekend 19 – 21 May (Antwerp Art Weekend)

Friday 19 May, 15-18h .Steyn Bergs & Florence Cheval (CAVEAT!!! curators): introduction on CAVEAT!!! .Sari Depreeuw (CAVEAT!!! legal advisor): keynote on CAVEAT!!!’s legal paradigm

Saturday 20 May, 15-18h .Scott Raby (CAVEAT!!! artist in residence): lecture, ‘The Contract in Art as a Site of Production: From Radical Histories to Speculative Possibilities’ .Sara Martinetti (art historian and curator): lecture, The Artist’s Reserved Rights Transfer and Sale Agreement from the Perspective of Diplomatics’

Sunday 21 May, 15-18h .Carey Young (artist): presentation of her work

Friday Workshops Program

CAVEAT!!! at LODGERS is also a number of thematic workshops. The workshops address authorship and contract issues in relation to Multiple authorship & collaboration, Artists and Curators, Distributing art, The artist's signature.

26 May 2017 Caveat at LODGERS: Co-production, multiple authorship, collaboration 15.00─18.00 Many practices in contemporary art today are distinctly collaborative. Whether it concerns a work realized in close dialogue with a commissioning institution or with, a community project where a larger group of people contribute significantly to the work, or an art piece in which the production is (partly) outsourced by the artist, or anything similar: in all of these cases, there takes place a sort of diffusion of authorship through the division of labour, destabilizing and problematizing the notion of authorship down to its very core. This has become quite common in artistic practice, but how is this reflected in law – for instance in intellectual property law? What legal tools exist for framing these practices in a suitable contract. With Adinda Van Geystelen (Extra City, Antwerp), Ulrike Lindmayr (Escautville, Antwerp), Kerstin Winking (Vriza, Amsterdam), Sari Depreeuw (legal advisor).

2 Jun 2017 Caveat at LODGERS: Artists and Curators: authorship & contracts 15.00─18.00 After having looked into multiple authorship and collaboration, it is still worthwhile to look into the nature of the working relation between artists and curators in more detail, as these relations can take the guise of a life-long, close partnership, a one-off commission, or anything in between. But what contractual obligations does the artist have in these different modalities of working together vis-à-vis the curator, and vice versa? How can both artists and curators think about best defending their interests (artistic, financial, and otherwise) contractually? What are the different negotiating positions in the process of thinking about this, who has leverage where and who has more power over what? With Antony Hudek (KASK, Ghent), Johan Pas (Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Antwerp), Josine de Roover (NICC, Brussels), Julie Van Elslande (legal advisor)

9 Jun 2017 Caveat at LODGERS: Distributing art: the gallery contract 15.00─18.00 One of the most prevalent contracts in the art world is certainly the sales contract drafted by a certain artist’s (commercial or non-commercial) gallery. This is not to say, however, that many galleries do not operate in a more sub rosa manner, with a significant amount of negotiations happening and deals being made behind the screen, possibly without the full knowledge of the artist, too. Again, what are the hierarchies and possible power asymmetries here, and how can artists empower themselves in their working relation with gallerists? But also, what other forms of gallery contracts already exist, and which different types of contracts would benefit which different types of galleries?

16 Jun 2017 Caveat at LODGERS: The artist's signature and resales rights 15.00─18.00 There is one thing that many artworks and many artists’ contracts have in common: they both bear the signature of the artist, which in both cases consolidates authorship over the work, and which possibly bestows it with economic value. But if authorship over a work does not change throughout time, this economic value certainly does, leaving room for speculation and other practices that might be opposed to the interest of the artist who remains the author. Hence, we will in this workshop also discuss an issue that has been at the core of debates concerning contracts in art since Seth Siegelaub’s time, namely resales rights – the possible right of an author to receive a percentage of the profits made on her or his work after it has been sold. With Anne-Sophie Radermecker (ULB, Cultural Management, Brussels), Maria Elena Minuto (European Neo Avant-Garde Research Unit (ENAG), KU Leuven).

Public programme June CAVEAT!!! and Philippe Thomas

Thursday 22 June, 18-21h & Friday 23 June, 15-18h A series of presentations and debates revolving around the work of Philippe Thomas with Agency, Patrick Bernier & Olive Martin, Antony Hudek, Judith Ickowicz, Sven Lütticken, Daniel McClean, Julia Wielgus (Jan Mot)

In this two-day event on 22 and 23 June, Caveat focuses on the work of French artist Philippe Thomas (1951-1995). In his work, a selection of which is on display thanks to the generous support of Jan Mot, authorship, and also co-authorship, was intensely questioned. In the case of Ready-mades belong to everyone® this was pursued to the point where it lead to “the ultimate erasure of [the artist’s] name”, inviting “collectors to take authorial responsibility for his works.” Furthermore, a large number of Philippe Thomas’ work displaces the legal notion of authorship as a juridical fiction in order to make it an artistic fiction, therefore underscoring the fictional dimension of both.

Caveat go es further into questions Thomas’ work raises, while at the same time opening them up to the current situation on authorship and production conditions of the artist. During these two days, artists, theorists, curators and experts from the fields of art history, law and economy are invited to address questions on authorship, contract and law in a discursive event that has the ambition to share knowledge and negotiate future realities.

CAVEAT!!! at LODGERS 19 May - 23 July daily 11-18h (Thursday until 21h), closed on Mondays

LODGERS visiting address, entrance free: M HKA top floor Leuvenstraat 32 2000 Antwerp, Belgium

AVEAT!!! is initiated and curated by JUBILEE, platform for artistic research and production. JUBILEE is a Brussels based artists' initiative committed to opening knowledge, common interests and networks. JUBILEE draws attention to artistic research as an integral element of artistic practice. The name JUBILEE is taken from the Sumerian tradition of a periodical debt cancellation, referred to as ‘jubilee’. JUBILEE’S team for CAVEAT!!! consists of Florence Cheval & Steyn Bergs (curators), Sari Depreeuw (legal advisor), and JUBILEE artists and staff. Thanks to the teams of AIR Antwerp, M HKA, and Jan Mot.

The LODGERS programme is a collaboration between AIR Antwerpen and M HKA. It invites imaginative artistic initiatives to come and occupy the 6th floor at M HKA. The programme offers a unique opportunity for public interface, to organisations and initiatives who focus specifically on producing and commissioning, and who do not have their own public space.