Everything Is New focuses on change in today’s arts infrastructure. Starting at the time of the global pandemic and lockdown with an exploration of the art scene in the Netherlands, the project expands beyond a single locality and looks at the state of urgency in which institutions and practitioners have found themselves globally. The scope of structural changes happening at this very moment — the universal shift towards remote work environments, institutional and independent programming in the arts being digitized, efforts towards rethinking financial sustainability and mechanisms of care for the cultural sector — seems to be not only a symptom of the unusual times we happen to live in, but are indicative of the excessive rigidity of the arts infrastructure, which has kept its main characteristics unchanged since the first wave of institutional critique in the 1960-70’s.

It is during this time of emergency that change becomes an urgent and practical task with a pressing deadline. Everything Is New aims at mapping structural change in the arts by examining growing pains and struggles on the one side, moments of ease and advancement on the other, taking into account the social, health and economic crises we are experiencing throughout this year and will be affected by in the foreseeable future.

Conceived as a means of navigating through the multiplicity of structural changes in today's art institutions, the project starts in the form of a digital exhibition and online publication consisting of commissioned essays and interviews, complemented by artists’ interventions.

Colophon

Curator and editor: Nikolay Alutin
Art director: Dora Đurkesac
Paperweight logo: Austin Redman, Natalia Jordanova, Octave Rimbert
Proofreading: Hannah Cheney
Coding: N/A Moscow
Typeface: Darker Grotesque

Partners

The project is realised in the framework of De Appel 2019/20 Curatorial Fellowship
with generous support from De Appel Amsterdam, Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst (AFK) and Goethe Institut.

Everything Is New

Contents