Joshua Citarella

Future of Critique Conference

Added 2022-11-23 17:28:08 +0000 UTC

Dear friends,

I’m writing to you this week from Bonn in Germany. Myself and New Models are speaking at Bundeskunsthalle for a program that very much aligns with many of the topics we address on this feed.

The Future of Critique, organized by curators Kolja Reichart and Angela Lammert, is a massive week long conference featuring 90 speakers, 6 days of programming, 2 cities and 2 national institutions.

Yesterday I spoke on a panel titled “Memes vs Museums” with Dena Yago and @Freeze_Magazine, moderated by Gregor Quack. We will publish the audio to the podcast feed in the coming weeks.

It’s a bit surreal to be here and (in the spirit of our panel discussion) reflect on the cultural transformation of the last few years where so much creative energy has moved online and away from legacy media and old institutions.

I started doing this work when I was 25. (The first Jogging group show was in 2012 at Massachusetts College of Art and Design.) It’s now ten years later and I’m still somehow the youngest person in the room? This doesn’t seem to bode well for the health of emerging creative industries. I’m hopeful that our presence here is part of a shift in institutional priorities. It’s a strange time when the most relevant cultural works are coming from meme accounts rather than museums.

I highly recommend watching the New Models keynote address, a tour de force of alt media and the new “public” sphere. The audio version is also available as a podcast on their private feed. My panel starts later into the stream at 3:30:00. Dena Yago has some especially insightful comments about the “content industrial complex” takeover of culture.

Tomorrow I will travel to Berlin to moderate a panel between May Dryhurst, Niklas Maak and Hito Steyerl at Akademie Der Kunst. I hope to see you (Berliners) there on Saturday 26th! You can find the full schedule and program here.

I’ll be back next week with a brand new episode featuring Mat Dryhurst. Shortly after, I’m traveling to Art Basel in Miami for another talk. (I feel like a touring musician right now but instead of music I give hot takes about the internet)

In the meantime I wanted to share a few links for guest episodes that I don’t usually get a chance to promote. I recently spoke with podcasters:

See you again very soon!

Josh