Following the usual habit of vivisecting concepts which we, as artists, have to internalize, Irina Costache & BMR have established a mobile team with the purpose of monitoring voluntary work during NAG #5 (the Long Night of the Galleries in Bucharest).
After the myth of creativity in 2009 and the combating of poverty and social exclusion in 2010, this year (2011) EU celebrates voluntary work - another moral duty towards the motherly fortress. Not the patriotic work performed to the rhythm of national anthem,but the voluntary work prescribed by supra-democratic ethical codes for the cleanliness of your conscience and the puffing up of private sector's bank accounts.
On this night shift we have started a survey comprising relevant questions directly or indirectly connected to voluntary work. Let's see if the sound of voluntary work shares the same major key with Ode to Joy. What does artistic voluntary work mean today? How to learn the institutional etiquette, how to train ourselves to better play the role of the social state after the apocalypse of public funding? How do we exploit ourselves by doing the everyday voluntary work, how do we become flexible? When are we going to swap roles of the voluntary artist/curator with that of the corporate artist, voluntary incorporated in the art market and blithely bowing down before Mecena-banks. Has the voluntary artist already learned the lesson of fidelity and moral engagemen towards the benevolent financier? Saint Precarie does protect artists.
The results of the investigations will be analyzed and presented post-NAG #5 by the mobile team, expecting voluntary as well as involuntary effects.
More on: www.noapteagaleriilor.ro
