Institutions by Artists | Institutional Time: Facts and Fictions

The histories of artist-run initiatives inextricably belong to the sociopolitical contexts in which they develop, but a purely historical review of these initiatives and contexts elides their critical significance to artistic production, presentation, and discourse even while these histories are yet to be written, revised, and completed. In this session, presenters compared and contrasted key episodes from the annals of artist-run initiatives against a range of topics, including censorship, historical re-enactments and reconstructions, as well as established and problematic narratives of institutional critique, among other considerations. By looking retrospectively at these moments through the thematic lenses of the conference, participants went beyond the mere facts and fictions of institution-building to generate new questions about artist-run initiatives and practices today.