Butcher heads for Frankfurt and Zagreb
Set up Chus Martinez, chief curator at the Museo d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA),the programme is primarily a site of activation for the Frankfurter Kunstverein- a space where ideas within the institution can be drawn out and worked on by invited artists, curators and mediators, who may then also work on a project focused on the city of Frankfurt or together with an institution there. 'I will be using this time to further my research around exhibition histories, primarily looking at the work of Brecht in its German context,' says Butcher, a Zimbabwean/ South African curator and writer, who writes for a number of art journals and has published in Aperture magazine, Art South Africa and Artthrob.
She has also been invited to participate in a programme in Zagreb called Micropolitics: New Territories of Art. The theme for 2011 is 'New Territories of Art' and the main idea is to talk about spaces where contemporary art is produced, generated and presented.'Curatorial practice has to say goodbye to the idea of the "exhibition space" as the only place where contemporary art can be presented, and embrace new places and locations for art are to be found,' reads the programme statement. 'Within the program for 2011 we want to focus on off-spaces - spaces that are in-between galleries and museums. Their in-between status is seen as an opportunity to allow diverse approaches to exhibiting that are context orientated and shaped accordingly while communicating specific socio-political issues.'
This year's programme is being curated by Vesna Vuković, Ivana Hanacek and Butcher, whose participation begins in October. It is organised through the association, [BLOK] - Local Base for Culture Refreshment. This non-profit, non-governmental organisation produces innovative artistic events through inspiring citizen participation, hybrid artistic research and projects focused on rethinking social phenomena and urban structures.