OPEN CALL - LIVING WITH ART

Sariev gallery and Open Arts Foundation are glad to announce the OPEN CALL:

LIVING WITH ART
A Workshop with Christian Kaspar Schwarm
on the Wonder of Collecting

April 24, 2021, online (full day)
Working language: English
Host: Vesselina Sarieva

Entrance free. Only after a prior application

Application deadline: April 20, 2021

The LIVING WITH ART workshop with Christian Kaspar Schwarm on the "Wonder of Collecting" is our last event of the spring session of the Collectors’ Forum, organized by Open Arts Foundation. It will be held online and in English, on April 24, 2021, and an application in advance, by April 20, is required.

The international collector Christian Kaspar Schwarm is the founder of Independent Collectors – an online chronicle of contemporary collecting. For his global activity in the field of art and related mediation, Christian was awarded the prestigious Art Cologne Prize in 2019. Christian Kaspar Schwarm has been keeping track of the Bulgarian art scene since he visited Plovdiv and Sofia the same year to give a lecture in Bulgaria, realized by Open Arts Foundation.

The workshop LIVING WITH ART will provide the participants with a lot of personal insights about the mechanics of collecting. There will also be plenty of impulses on how to design a collection best and what things to consider. All participants will be asked to share their own thoughts and plans with the group, in order to reflect on them with Christian Kaspar Schwarm.

This free workshop is intended for both Bulgarian and international young collectors. We will have a special focus on what it is like to start a collection in a place that is not one of the international centres of the art world. For participation, it is not essential how large or extensive a collection already is – what matters is a passion for and curiosity about the subject.

Christian Kaspar Schwarm says: "I know that many people have a problem with the term 'collector'. They associate collecting art with large collections, with which they do not want to compare their own passion for art. But much more important than the definition of collecting is the openness and willingness to live with art. That is what makes the much bigger difference in the end."

For greater effectiveness of the workshop, only a limited number of participants will be invited. Please, submit your application by April 20, 2021, at the latest. Please e-mail us a few words about your intention and about yourself, at: assistant@sariev-gallery.com. Make sure to include your name, place of residence and phone number.

The selected participants will be contacted personally on April 21, 2021, and their names will not be made public without their consent.

Workshop program:

April 24, 2021, Zoom
host: Christian Kaspar Schwarm
host: Vesselina Sarieva

10.00-10.15: Welcome and introduction – Vesselina Sarieva

10.15-11.45: Opening lecture (The Rediscovery of Wonder) – Christian Kaspar Schwarm

11.45-12.00: Questions and answers – Christian Kaspar Schwarm and Vesselina Sarieva

12.00-12.30: How to think about your own collection? Assignment of tasks – Christian Kaspar Schwarm

12.30-14.00: Lunch break

14.00-16.00: Presentations of individual participants, a discussion on topics and questions by Christian Kaspar Schwarm, a group discussion

16.00-16.30: Short break

16.30-17.30: Summary and concluding thoughts

Christian Kaspar Schwarm (born 1972) is the founder of Independent Collectors, an online chronicle of contemporary collecting. His global work in art and related fields was awarded with the prestigious "Art Cologne Award" in 2019. As well as his passion for contemporary art, Christian is a dedicated book lover and turned his own Berlin office into a library. He works self-employed, as a strategy consultant and teaches on a regular basis at the Mannheim based "Popakademie", a state academy of popular music and culture.

Christian Kaspar Schwarm describes his collection as a constant movement between two different poles: the dimension of "conflict" – most often in a political or societal meaning – is confronted with the contemporary interpretation of devotion and emotion. The latter seems to symbolize an almost spiritual chance of facing the obscure complexity of our world today. The artists in his collection are Fiona Banner, Nina Canell, Guan Xiao, David Horvitz, Raimer Jochims, Jonathan Monk, Mario Pfeifer, Peter Piller, Lin May Saeed, Karin Sander, Slavs and Tatars, Michael E. Smith, Martina Vacheva and Hague Yang.

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Collectors’ Forum of Open Arts Foundation was initiated in 2011 as an educational and exchange platform, which introduces, raises questions, brings into focus recognized international and Bulgarian private and corporate collectors’ practices, guides and encourages young collectors in establishing and keeping a collection and creates a communication environment between the individual units within the art system. Collectors’ Forum spans across multiple genres and its regular annual programme includes diverse formats: presentations, lectures, publications, campaigns, international visits, public and private meetings between collectors and artists, gallerists and curators.

In 2021, in the post-pandemic situation of an art system in crisis, Collectors’ Forum is taking action to expand its traditional format on a thematic, structural and temporal level, followed by the intention to provide participants on the Bulgarian art scene support for adaptation. As it upholds the core idea that the knowing and acceptance of others in a micro-community, the unification and sharing of problems and solutions is a way out of the present and into the future, Collectors’ Forum intends to create a common environment of sharing and visibility that will offer a wider view, possible coping guidelines and premises for future cooperation. In addition to this new line directed towards the micro-community, Collectors’ Forum continues to implement its traditional programme by conducting international exchange and introducing international collecting practices.

In 2021, the project is being implemented with the financial assistance of the Support Programme for Professional Art Organizations of National Culture Fund.