• Summer School as School 2016
Course 3: Producing Shows - A Practical Guide to Exhibition Making and Project Management
Course 3: Producing Shows - A Practical Guide to Exhibition Making and Project Management
Course leader: Martin Fritz
11 - 15 July, 2016
Course Description:
Exhibition-making is a complex affair. In addition to the many artistic, conceptual and curatorial and artistic challenges it is just as much an exercise in project-management. Contrary to popular the production environments in contemporary arts are highly structured, internationally networked and usually highly disciplined. Contemporary exhibition-making requires manifold skills ranging from financing and logistics to the proper production of newly commissioned work by interdisciplinary teams. Traditional loan agreements are still needed for existing works while specific commissions for a great variety of contexts are an everyday practice. The production realities of the contemporary art system with its internationally distributed labor, precarious working conditions and "flexible" funding conditions require an equally flexible approach to project management.

Martin Fritz will draw from his last experience in curating and management and will introduce his knowledge with real life examples. As close to reality as possible we jointly work on all phases of a project from its initial concept, via budgeting and financing to production agreements, to text-production and promotion.

Participants should be prepared to develop the key documents for their own exhibition proposals. Based on these concepts each session will be devoted to the practicalities of its implementation. Participation is also possible for participants without a specific project as the work will be done in groups. The workshop will follow the chronology of a project. Each day will be devoted to specific project-phases.


Biography
Martin Fritz has studied law in Vienna from 1981 to 1986. Since then he has worked in the field of contemporary art production in Vienna, New York, Germany and other countries. Starting with independent projects in theatre, visual arts and film in the 1980ies, he has specialized on producing and conceiving visual arts projects in collaboration with curators and institutions, with a special emphasis on project- management and art-production in the public space.

Among many other assignments he has worked as Director of Operations for the re- opening of P.S.1 Contemporary Art Centre in New York, General Co-ordinator of Manifesta 4 – European Biennial of Contemporary Art in Frankfurt (Main) and Managing Director of In Between - The Art Project of EXPO 2000 in Hanover.
Recently he has worked as a consultant on structural and organizational issues for art- funding initiatives such as relations - a project initiated by the German Federal Cultural Foundation in Berlin and ERSTE Foundation in Vienna. His curatorial work includes art- projects for the Hospital in Meran / Merano, Italy and art projects for the University in Klagenfurt, Austria and Beziehungsarbeit – Kunst und Institution, a large scale exhibition on Institutional Critique and more for Künstlerhaus in Vienna. From 2001 to 2007 he was a member of the Board of the International Foundation Manifesta. From 2004 to 2009 he was the Director of the Festival of Regions a Biennial for site-specific art and culture in rural regions in the Austrian province of Upper Austria. Among other teaching assignments ( DonauuniversitätKrems, Department fürBildwissenschaften, ECM – University of Applied Arts Vienna) Martin Fritz was an Adjunct Professor, teaching »Cultural Organizations -Structure and Theory« at Webster University – Vienna Campus, and a guest lecturer at CuMMa, Aalto University, Helsinki.

Currently his research focuses on the Imperial Palace in Vienna and its use for museums and exhibitions throughout the 20th century.