SOMA Summer 2012 will take place from July 02 to August 11, 2012.

This summer’s topic considers the transformation of labor in artistic practice from the Second World War to the present. Seminars and workshops will help the group reflect on the shift from a manufacturing to service economy in developed countries as well as new definitions of labor that have extended beyond all national boundaries.

SOMA Summer participants will revisit the legacy of conceptual art as a mode of production, the role of craft in contemporary art practices, and the pertinency of learning technical skills in art education. The group will also explore the possibilities of alternative economies, and look closely at the ways in which artists participate in decentralized, global networks of production.

Program 2012

*All activities and visiting artists/curators below posted have been confirmed. Nevertheless any information is subject to change.

WEEK 1 – Mon. July 2nd to Fri. July 8th

Group Critique: 12 hour group critique with Carla Herrera-Prats

These first two sessions allow participants to get familiar with each other. Everyone present a selection of works to the group for about fifteen minutes. We address the social, political and aesthetic implications raised by each project.

Off sideDF: 9 hour site specific workshop with Eduardo Abaroa
The workshop takes place in three different non-academic locations around Mexico City. By getting to know our surroundings and their history, we reflect and discuss on the concepts involving site-specificity and the possibilities of art to comment on specific cultural, political, social and geographical situations.

Miércoles de SOMA: Cuauhtémoc Medina.

Studio Visit: Yoshua Okón.

Individual critiques with: Cuauhtémoc Medina

WEEK 2 – Mon. July 9th  to Fri. July 13th

Seminar: 9 hour seminar with Cuauhtémoc Medina

This is a seminar on curatorial engagement within global exhibitions

Miércoles de SOMA: Daniel Hernández

Studio Visit on Thursday: Marcela Armas

Individual critiques with: Marcela Armas, Ruth Etevez, Carla Herrera-Prats, Yoshua Okón, Edgar Orlaineta, Luis Felipe Ortega

Visit on Friday: Museo Universtario de Ciencias y Artes and Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil

WEEK 3 – Mon. July 16th  to Fri. July 20th

Intersections between the critique of political economy and critical strategies of art production: 9 hour seminar with Mariana Botey

This seminar departs from the notion of reification in Lukács, the later theory of image production as the totalizing effect of capitalism in Debord’s texts and films, Marx’s argument of art as a “nonproductive production,” and Adorno’s concept of art’s autonomy.

In the course of this seminar we will revisit key notion such as production, market, exchange, distribution, objectification, cognitive and symbolic capital, value formation, commodification, fetishism, appropriation, residue and modes of circulation and tension between object and subject. Our discussions will mobilize these categories within concrete examples of art production and will touch upon a revision of related set of problems within post-Marxist and Marxist cultural criticism such as “materialism,” “hegemony”, and “collectivism.”

Miércoles de SOMA: Mariana Botey

Special lecture: Tyler Rowland

Studio Visit on Thursday: Abraham Cruzvillegas

Individual critiques with: Mariana Botey, Abraham Cruzvillegas, Irving Dominguez, Carla Herrera-Prats, Gonzalo Ortega, Raúl Ortega, Tyler Rowland

WEEK 4 – Mon. July 23th to Fri. July 27th

Critical Theory and Art Criticism: 9 hour seminar with Sande Cohen

This seminar will discuss the increasingly globalized situation where critical theory has been banished from public life. Such theory is not doing too well in the schools, either… This seminar will read in a few sources of criticism, Deleuze, Foucault and Baudrillard, and discuss their notions of art and discourse and pose a few problems: is critical art an oxymoron? Is art-history always reactionary? Might artists develop alternatives and what might that be?

Miércoles de SOMA: Sande Cohen

Studio Visit on Thursday: Silvia Gruner

Individual critiques with: Magalí Arriola, Silvia Gruner, Sande Cohen, Carla Herrera-Prats, Chip Lord, Vicente Razo, Amy Sara Caroll.

Special lecture series: Chip Lord, Amy Sara Caroll and Ricardo Dominguez

WEEK 5 – Mon. July 30th to Fri. August 3th

I am my own money: 9 hour seminar with Julieta Aranda and Anton Vidokle

This seminar  will develop around the ideas of alternative economies, self-sustaining models of organization and production, and modes of circulation, applied to the artistic field.

Miércoles de SOMA: Julieta Aranda and Anton Vidokle

Studio Visit on Thursday: Mario García-Torres

Individual critiques with: Mario García-Torres, Nate Harrison, Carla Herrera-Prats, Víctor Palacios, Bárbara Perea, Julieta Aranda.

WEEK 6 – Mon. August 6th to Fri. August 10th

Preparation for Open Studio (August 8th)

Individual critiques and group critiques with: Anthony Graves and Carla Herrera-Prats

Miércoles de SOMA: SOMA SUMMER OPEN STUDIOS

The Open Studios will be coordinated by Szu-Han Ho.

Visit on Friday: Jumex Collection and Teotihuacán.