Now more than ever, we are facing challenges of how to develop social and economic models for the upcoming era that create less ecological burden, more equal opportunities, and meaningful lives. Artist strategies can come into the picture by formulating emerging methodologies, catalyzing cross-domain practices and probing into organizational development. In this seminar, we will explore how art can be reskilled to promote social transformation and social intelligence, beyond the art institutional space of performativity and critique.
We will analyze historical practices such as the Artist Placement Group and ‘Modellversuch Künstlerweiterbildung’, and contemporary initiatives such as the Future Art Ecosystems to understand the shifting contexts and identify emerging methodologies.
The title borrows the term ‘the missing third client’ from the Artist Placement Group, which was an artist-run organization that sent artists into a company or a governmental body for extended periods of time in the 60s and 70s and looked to serve “the missing third client”, one that does not serve the agenda of the company or governmental agency, nor art itself. The missing third client is a role yet to be articulated in the society, which art can potentially fill.