Raphael Fonseca, Denver Art Museum and 14th Mercosul Biennale, Porto Alegre
Sunjung Kim, Art Sonje Center, Seoul
Sarah Johanna Theuer, Haus der Kunst, Munich

Biennials and museums should offer Artists’ Cinema the conditions required for the
proper commissioning, production and presentation of technically complex and often costly works. They also enable these artworks to reach broader publics across all age groups, beyond peers and specialist audiences, thereby engaging with fundamental social, political and aesthetic questions. During Ons and Offs, museum directors, curators and artists reflect on the recent history of large-scale art and film events, considering their role in stimulating the creation of new works, ensuring their sustained exhibition and providing critical visibility. The discussion will explore commissioning strategies, presentation formats and the afterlives of moving-image artworks presented during large exhibitions and biennials, asking how they might create lasting infrastructures of support. It will also consider recent changes in the relevance, role and economic capacity of these events, and their impact on artists’ cinema circuits. By sharing examples from different contexts, speakers will examine how large individual and group shows, biennials and festivals can remain agile environments for commissioning, experimentation and viewership.

Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Documenta 13, Kassel
Barbara Cueto, LAS – Art Foundation, Berlin
Alistair Hudson, ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe
Kay Watson, Serpentine Galleries, London

In a widely read 2009 essay, artist Hito Steyerl made a case for the “defence of poor
images”: artworks converted into lower resolution in order to circulate digitally. More than 15 years later, her assessment of the fundamental relationship between image creation, distribution and the digital realm remains pertinent. By providing materials, technologies, networks and related systems of production, archiving, circulation and communication, the digital realm has radically transformed the context of Artists’ Cinema. New hardware and software have offered alternative ways for films and videos to be created, edited and preserved, while digital networks open new possibilities for presenting, distributing and owning moving-image artworks, from digital certificates and NFTs to online streaming platforms. Ubiquitous access to videos uploaded on the Internet has made works once confined to collections or archives widely available, while also challenging copyright laws and generating new concepts of ownership, exhibition and viewership. Videos, apps, images and games are now created and shared through digital tools and networks, giving rise to new models of individual and collective access and ownership. As moving images circulate online at unprecedented speed, questions of authorship, ownership and fair compensation are more pressing than ever. Virtual Trust brings together artists, collectors and curators to address the challenges and opportunities of exhibiting, sharing and collecting works in virtual spaces. Through specific case studies, it will consider matters of trust between creators and platforms, and the protocols needed to ensure the ethical use of digital media. The panel will explore frameworks for licensing, streaming and protecting artists’ rights, while considering how digital distribution and ownership may expand audiences and reinvent notions of value and authorship.

Manuel Segade, MNCARS, Madrid
Sandra Terdjman, Kadist, Paris & San Francisco
Daniela Zyman, TBA-21, Vienna and Venice

In recent years, the word care has been overused in contemporary art discourse. Yet, in essence, it remains far more than a fashionable term. It signals a call to transform how curators, institutions, artists and collectors relate to one another and to the artworks at the core of their relationships. To care is not only to be attentive and considerate about what happens now, but also to anticipate and create conditions for relationships between people, spaces and artworks to evolve sustainably and endure. Inspired by politics and practices of care, Forms of Care focuses on how collecting moving-image artworks — films, videos and installations — can act as a manifesto for the preservation, advocacy and attention required by formats that need special dedication. Leading museum directors, curators and collectors will discuss the responsibilities that come with acquiring time-based media, from ensuring conservation and inventing new systems of co-ownership and shared exhibition duties to championing artists’ rights and recognition. The panel will address case studies that help envisage models of support that transcend ownership, investigating how collections can nurture sustainable, long-term practices for both emerging and established creators. The conversation will highlight how caring for Artists’ Cinema today shapes what will be seen and understood tomorrow.