We are pleased to invite you all to join us for a public talk with Cuban artist Tania Bruguera (via videoconference) and curator Pablo León De La Barra.

This talk will address the concept of “Arte Útil” roughly translates into English as ‘Useful Art’ but it goes further suggesting art as a tool or device. For the past ten years the artist Tania Bruguera has been teaching and researching “Arte Útil” through an academy in Havana; the “Arte Útil” Lab at Queens Museum, residencies at Immigrant Movement International, New York and
 most recently at the Museum of “Arte Útil”, in the Old Building of the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven.

Whether through self-organised groups, individual initiatives or through the rise of user generated content, people are developing new methods and social formations to deal with issues that were once under the domain of the state. “Arte Útil” case studies show how these initiatives are not isolated incidents, but part of a global movement shaping our contemporary world.

The notion of what constitutes “Arte Útil” arrived via a set of criteria that was formulated by Tania Bruguera and curators at the Queens Museum, New York, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven and Grizedale Arts, Coniston.

The criteria of “Arte Útil” state that initiatives should:

1-  Propose new uses for art within society
2- Challenge the field within which it operates (civic, legislative, pedagogical, scientific, economic, etc)
3- Be ‘timing specific’, responding to current urgencies
4- Be implemented and function in real situations
5- Replace authors with initiators and spectators with users
6- Have practical, beneficial outcomes for its users
7- Pursue sustainability whilst adapting to changing conditions
8- Re-establish aesthetics as a system of transformation

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INFO

Talk with Tania Bruguera and Pablo Leòn de la Barra – Art and Activism in Latin America, year I
When: 18 October, 7 pm
Where: Despina
Time: 7 pm
Free admission

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ART AND ACTIVISM IN LATIN AMERICA is a project conceived by Despina, with the support from the Dutch organization Prince Claus Fund. The project extends for three years (2016, 2017 and 2018). Each year, a theme guided a series of actions and events, including occupations, workshops, talks, film screenings, exhibitions, public talks with important names from the contemporary artistic + activist thought and a residency programme. For this first edition, the theme is Public Space. For more information, click here.

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CREDIT OF THE IMAGE

Museum of Arte Útil
Year of conception: 2000
Development years: 2013 – present
http://arte-util.org/
Courtesy: Studio Bruguera