o Programme description

The applicant is invited to take part in preparation of the project Critical Endevour /Travelling research series Austria / Russia in 2012

While the Art Scene in Moscow is internationally established the official and private art institutions in the Russian regions struggle for a higher international standing and Austrian Art Institutions are most interested in learning more about the artistic development in Russian regions.

The project Critical Endevour wants to create a network of Russian and Austrian Curators of contemporary Art and want contribute to the local Russian Art Discussion by visiting them in Russia offering independent critics and consulting.

The Project enables 3 selected visiting critics from Austria (selected by accordance of the project partners) and 4 Russian curators from the local scenes to travel to the Russian cities of Jekaterinburg, Perm, Novosibirsk and Kaliningrad. In each of these cities there will take place meetings with the local scenes, debates about the running art projects. These meetings and discussions are clearly project- and result-orientated with the idea to connect Austrian and Russian Curators on the basis of discussing concrete projects, exchanging ideas and discussing the structural problems and esthetic views in the participant s art scenes.

The reports and discussions of that research project will be published in an issue of the Springerin in 2012.

For the realization of the project, it is scheduled August 2012 as in this period of the year curators should be more flexible.

Partners of the programme:

Die Springerin, magazin for contemporary art, as one of Austria s leading medias specialized on the field of contemporary art , is a quarterly magazine dedicated to the theory and critique of contemporary art and culture. Springerin addresses a public that perceives cultural phenomena as socially and politically determined. Springerin informs about current events and tendencies in the cultural field und tries to describe their conditions and meanings. The magazine is published in German and distributed internationally. A special section of every issue (Netzteil) is examining the potentials of new technologies and media. The main section is dedicated to positions, motives, conflicts and debates around a controversial topic in contemporary culture. A section titled Artscribe critically informs about important exhibitions, events and publications.

Die Springerin addresses a broad public interested in the wide spectrum of contemporary culture. Artists, gallerists, collectors, art pedagogues are served by die Springerin as well as readers from the field of the humanities and those generally interested in new media and popular culture are.

Tranzit.at (or " tranzit.at, Verein zur Förderung von Kunst und Wissenschaft" as it is stated in the founding papers), established in 2004 as a contributing part to the already existing tranzit bodies in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. tranzit.at was intended to be the " outer-voice" of tranzit.org, communicating the concerns and requests to an international art world. As well tranzit.at brought numerous international contacts constisting of artists, theorists, curators, philosophers and so on into the tranzit.org network. In its self conception as a mediating element within the network all joint activities, such as :

- a serie of city screenings and public as well as private seminars and colloquia in Innsbruck, Bucharest, Belgrade and Prague that involved the local opinion leaders and experimental scenes of the local art world and the tranzit Project leaders as well as prominent international guests.

-the conception of the website of tranzit.org, 2006

-the exhibition " Auditorium, Stage, Backstage" in Frankfurter Kunstverein, 2007

-the establishment of the Julius Koller Society, 2008

-the conference on the oeuvre of Julius Koller, 2008/09 were coordinated, organized and financed by tranzit.at. Also all of the tranzit.org general legal and infrastructural concerns were dealt, coordinated and financed by tranzit.at.

Already in 2008 tranzit.at was undergoing a change in its structure by becoming a more active part in the programme conception of tranzit.org. Other than organizing and coordinating only the joint projects, tranzit.at started in 2008 additionally to participate in international projects as well. With the increasing international recognition , especially for the exemplary network structure of tranzit , tranzit.at reacted on proposals by international partners to do projects abroad and also spread the idea of connected organisational structures. Institutions, such as the Gyumri Biennial in Armenia or the Visual Culture Research Center National University of Kiev-Mohyla Academy (NaUKMA) were able to benefit from that so far.

tranzit.at is a non-profit charitable Civic Association. Its highest decision making body is the General Assembly, that is electing the local board for a 3 years function period (currently consisting of the writer Erich Klein, the curator Silvia Eiblmayr, the artist Dorit Margreiter). The chairman Georg Schöllhammer is delegated by the General Assembly to fulfill the function of the project head of tranzit.at and is responsible for the programme and content of tranzit.at.

The Austrian Cultural Forum Moscow is the cultural institute responsible for the cultural exchange between Russia, Belarussia and Austria being specialized on contemporary art. The Austrian Cultural Forum is part of the Austrian Foreign Ministry.

The candidate will perform the following tasks :

The successful candidate for the residency at the Springerin will start to work on the 2nd November 2011 for 6 weeks. The task will be the preparation and organization of the project CRITICAL ENDEVOUR mentioned above in coordination with the participants and project partners.

The candidate is offered 3 weeks of internship at Springerin and 3 weeks at Tranzit.

Candidate requirements /Individual Specification

Recommendation of at least one senior curator or institution, respectively documentation of an art project launched by the candidate

Age: 22 /35 years

Good level of spoken & written English and (or) German is essential

What will be provided to the applicant

The Austrian Cultural Forum will take care of the travel costs, the accommodation and a sum of 800 Euros pocket money for the stay.

The host institutions care about the intern helping him or her to get an insight into the Vienna Art scene and getting to know the structure of Vienna s Art institutions.

Contact person:

Austrian Cultural Forum: Simon Mraz, director of the Austrian cultural forum. Simon.MRAZ@bmeia.gv.at

Die Springerin and Tranzit are represented by Georg Schöllhammer, chief editor of Springerin and artistic director of ViennaFair.