Ramdom’s DEFAULT13 Masterclass launched with an off-program discussion about the sustainability of art spaces with Alessio Antoniolli, director of the UK-based contemporary art organization Gasworks.

“Art’s away on business. Art & entrepreneurship”

In his presentation, Antoniolli addressed notions surrounding entrepreneurship driven by necessity in relation to the temporary nature of art spaces. He emphasized the role that his organization plays in meeting the local needs of artists and the importance of evolving in response to the present necessities inherent in the local situation. Since 1994, Gasworks established its niche by engaging the under-represented artists who comprise the ethnic diversity of London’s landscape. Representing the “international” beyond the typical points of art exchange, it seized the opportunity and fulfilled a void. The informal discussion addressed different practices and approaches to sustainability, the importance of building funding credibility and hurdles surrounding the superficiality of funding bodies.

“The sustainability of not-for-profit organisations in Asia and Europe, and their involvement in the implementation of public art”

 With the arrival of the masterclass participants, the official opening of the DEFAULT13 Masterclass opened with Davide Quadrio, founder and Director of Arthub Asia: a not-for-profit organisation based in Shanghai and operating internationally that promotes and produces contemporary art projects in collaboration with artists, private and public institutions.

With the participating artists, he shared the work he has been carrying out in China since the end of the 90s when he funded his first organisation Bizart that, for the first time in China, provided local artists with an alternative platform to the pre-existing government institutions and commercial galleries. The reinforcement of local validation promoted by individuals like Quadrio led to the creation of more genuine, fresher bodies of work that instigated change in the contemporary Asian art scene, both from an artistic and a curatorial point of view. Starting out as an artist, Quadrio himself mirrored an Asian reality where boundaries between professions are blurred, leaving space for a flexibility and versatility in practice that is no longer common in Europe.

The developments through BizArt led to another level of action that would promote international collaborations through the implementation of a wide network of like-minded professionals operating in the artistic world. Arthub Asia became a pivotal institution in being a mediator for Asian and Western institutions building long lasting bridges which alter the post-imperialistic attitudes of cultural projects.

The Artist Presentations

 DEFAULT13’s main goal is to engage the involved artists in discussion through shared experiences, analyses and implementation of creative projects. Participating artists received a quick overview of each other’s work, artistic practice and initial introduction to submitted proposals. All linked by the central topic of Cities, Public Art and Regeneration, the artists’ projects addressed four main areas: urbanism, interaction with local communities, cross cultural creations and the roles of local political and governmental institutions.

Participating artists will be spending ten days together, further developing proposals through lectures, discussions and workshops. To instigate the conversation regarding personal practice and the roles of the artist, we posed some general, but significant, questions:

Is an artist corruptible? / Are you corruptible?

Is an artist powerful? Do you like to be so?

Have you ever been doubtful of you being an artist?

How do you arrive at a price for your art? And how do you value your work?

How do you deal with critics and criticism of your world?

Do you think that people should understand your art?

*These questions are part of a project developed in 2007/2008 by film maker Lothar Spree and Davide Quadrio for a documentary project called 40+4, in which contemporary artists living and working in Shanghai were interviewed and asked to reply to forty questions with the aim of presenting internationally the situation of the local art scene.

The DEFAULT13 Masterclass is off to a good start!