BIOGRAPHY
ABOUT alcramer [Alfredo Cramerotti]
Writer, curator, editor and artist.
Education
Fellow Theory and Art Criticism Kuenstlerhaus Büchsenhausen Innsbruck, Austria.
Post-MA Critical Studies Program Lund University/Malmö Art Academy, Sweden
MA Art in Context UdK - University of the Arts in Berlin, Germany
Expertise and current occupation
Writer, curator, editor, artist. I work with TV, radio, publishing, internet, art exhibitions, festivals and curating.
Co-curator (as CPS) of Manifesta 8, the European Biennial of Contemporary Art (Murcia & cartagena, Spain, 2010-11) and Curator at QUAD, Derby's £11million centre for Art, Media and Film.
Editor of Critical Photography at Intellect Books, Bristol, UK and Wilmington, North Carolina, USA.
Among other research and curatorial activities, the itinerant project “AGM-Art & Media roaming project” (2003–), the media production unit CPS-Chamber of Public Secrets (2004-) with which I co-produced the television formats LAPTALK and CPS for tv-tv Copenhagen (2004-05), the festival of citizen journalism “Made in Video,” Copenhagen (2006) and a number of contemporary art exhibitions and media projects (see 'exhibitions' section) .
My job concerns generating, planning and delivering art & media projects, and provide opportunities for dialogue and exchange between artists, producers and audiences. I am also keen to support the professional development of creative practitioners. My interest lies in the relationship netween reality and its representation tackled across exhibitions, seminars, books, public projects, artist's talks, residency programmes and new / mass media.
As an artist, I work with narratives by means of photography, installation, video, performance and writing. I keep the following blogs: Coach Update, Media Geographies, alcramer and the group Video essay on Vimeo.
I am visiting lecturer in institutions such as University of Westminster London, University of Derby, Nottingham Trent University, DAI Dutch Art Institute (Holland), Iasi University (Romania) and others.
Professional Memberships
AICA International Association of Art Critics (2010-)
IKT International Association of Curators of Contemporary Art (2010-)
VAGA Visual Arts and Galleries Association,UK (2009-)
New Work Network, UK (2009-)
Contemporary Art Society, UK (2008-09)
FIC - Federazione Italiana Coach, Italy (2007-08)
Media Bloggers Association, USA (2004-08)
Axis/Visual Association, UK (2002-)
Interest Groups
Vimeo video essay group & channel (2010-)
UiU Universes in Universe / Nafas Magazine (2010-)
Exibart (2010-)
Kran Film Collective (2009-)
c/k Curatorial/Knowledge PhD research programme Goldsmiths College, London (2009-)
LabforCulture cultural network (2009-)
Open Dialogues, critical writing, online (2008-)
Prosolvit Group, problem-solving consultancy, online (2008-)
Professional Fine Art Network, online (2008-)
Chamber of Public Secrets, media production, Denmark (2005)
Florence Trust Alumni, UK (2003)
Committees and Steering Groups
Fondazione Furla Bologna, Italy, selecting Curator of nominees for Contemporary Art Prize (2010-11)
University of Derby, Art and Design Industrial Liaison, UK (2009)
Radiator Biennial Festival of New Media, UK/Germany (2008)
REFERENCES and ENDORSEMENTS
2010
Shyama Abeysinghe, Artist and Art Manager, University of Derby / Birckbeck College, Univesity of London
Motivated and inspired as a result of working within QUAD and by discussions with Alfredo, my career path has become more focused towards either Project Management or Art Management.
My sincere thanks to [QUAD] staff again for the opportunity and the inspiration I gained from QUAD. I am specially indebted to my mentor - Alfredo Cramerotti, for his support and the example he set as a Curator and his qualities of Leadership.
Shyama Abeysinghe, 4 May 2010
2009
Iben Bentzen, Curator and project manager Crossroads Copenhagen / Mobile Mondays
Alfredo is full of energy and ideas. He is innovative and able to work both on a theoretical and practical level. I have been working with Alfredo for more than 7 years on AGM - Annual General Meeting and it is a pleasure every time.
Iben Bentzen, 3 June 2009
2009
Adam Buss, Deputy Director (Interim), QUAD Derby
Alfredo is a talented, versatile and passionate curator and artist with a flair for understanding the needs of audiences and artists alike. Hi world view and understanding of arts practice in its widest sense makes him an invaluable and integral member of the QUAD team.
Adam Lloyd Buss, 29 May 2009
2009
Marianna Grassano, former Junior Manager, Madame Tussauds London
" I worked with Alfredo in London. He's a very active, motivate and charming person. Very keen on public relations and to working under pressing. Always positive with a huge sense of art, I would recommend him instantly. "
Marianna Grassano, 29 January 2009
2008
Chus Martinez, Chief Curator at MACBA, Museo D'art Contemporani de Barcelona, Spain
On-Curating online magazine,
http://www.on-curating.org/documents/oncurating_issue_0108.pdf
I confess that I cannot give any particular reference apart from online platforms such as Multitude, media geographies (a blog), KEIN THEATER (also a blog), critical special practice (blog)....
These are some of the sources I use in order to attend some theoretical discussions in relation with visual and curatorial practice.
Chus Martinez, August 2008
2008
Renée Ridgway, Owner n.e.w.s., Artist and Curator
" I have known Alfredo Cramerotti since 2005. We met at the Piet Zwart Institute in Rotterdam where we both, having already had professional careers, decided to place ourselves within this creative laboratory and British based MA structure in order to sharpen our practise and develop new modes of articulation.
Alfredo and I share a similar set of frames. We are both curator, writer and artist only I would change the hierarchy. Engaged with not only the didactic and academic systems of art, Cramerotti works by means of narratives, seeking the political, social, economical within the aesthetics, not with the aesthetics. His projects are usually collaborative, involving many co-authors but also a wide range of prospective audiences. Inclusive of media, verging on video journalism to industrial heritage and the relation between media and art, all of these could be considered endeavours of publishing. Here the publication, book or website is the media after the event itself, thus engaging an even greater audience and participation.
See links: http://www.annualgeneralmeeting.net http://www.derbyquad.co.uk http://www.derbyquad.co.uk/about-quad/latest-news/international-appointment-for-quad http://www.chamber.dk http://www.coachupdate.com http://www.fahre.wordpress.com (short stories and narratives) http://www.mediageographies.blogspot.com (text archive).
Furthermore, Cramerotti likes to talk and can share his ideas in three languages: Italian, German and English. He is committed in supporting professionals in the creative sector (artists, art managers, producers in various disciplines), in order to change their approach toward a sustainable career (values, focus, creating opportunities, accountability, feedback).
A second area of activity is his professional development practise to shift one's career toward the arts and creative sector. I can imagine that with his superior social skills, he gathers together many professionals in different fields who have creative skills and enlightens them to the ways in which their talents can become remunerative - fulfilling a life expectancy and providing a drive toward self-realisation. Presently Cramerotti is working as Exhibitions Officer at QUAD in Derby, UK where the above mentioned expertise is applied. His dexterity and well-rounded abilities enable him to work in diverse media; a mentor/coach who can introduce novel solutions for the creative sector. As a representative within the cultural field who constantly searches information regarding curators/consultants, I find Alfredo Cramerotti an outstanding professional. "
Renée Ridgway, 4 June 2008
2008
Khaled Ramadan, Lecturer, KUA Copenhagen University, Artist and Curator
" Alfredo, as a colleague and follow artist manage to add high quality to our cooperation in TV, new media production and art exhibitions. Through the years, we cooperated together and still do. Some of the projects where we manage to work on and gain international recognition, were the artistic documentary Comrade Alfredo Neri and the experimental TV production tv-tv, together with the production unit Chamber of Public Secret. It was great time with a great man, honour to work together always."
Khaled. D. Ramadan, 4 March 2008
2006
Anke Bangma, Curator and Critic, former Fine Art Director Piet Zwart Institute - Postgraduate studies and research Institute Rotterdam
" I have come to know Alfredo Cramerotti over the last year when he spent a working period of several months at the Piet Zwart Institute in Rotterdam. What struck me during our discussions is how his projects are guided by a research interest which has recurred in many of his projects and have gained in prominence and urgency. Pivotal is his interest in the predominant methods for the representation, accounting and mediation, often of specific histories and events, while simultaneously exploring alternative possibilities for recounting, re-presentation and mediation.
Many of Alfredo’s previous projects were based on an interest in connecting the scale of the particular and specific – of particular events, local situations, personal histories – to the scale of the general and globalised – of general flows of capital and information, universalised narratives and hegemonic power structures. This often went hand in hand with an interest in location and situation, as the site where the particular and specific can be traced, but also as the site where the general and globalised take on specific forms and effects, and thus as a site for potential resistance and transformation.
More recently, Alfredo has started looking more specifically at tools and paradigms of mediation. His research proposal around the phenomenon of ‘aesthetic journalism’ is an important step in this direction. Challenging about Alfredo’s proposal is the thesis that, with the art world’s eager embrace of documentary and journalistic approaches, the production of truths has shifted from the domain of the news media to the domain of art. From this thesis a range of challenging and highly relevant research questions can be opened up, ranging from the need to find new ways of producing, communicating and reading documents and reports, to the inherent problems of approaching any form of truth speak as self-evident or given.
In previous projects and texts, Alfredo’s own experience as an artist, curator and writer informed an approach to and understanding of representation and mediation that exceeds the conventional definitions of artistic, curatorial or critical practise. This intertwining of different perspectives and professional experience is also crucial to his current research proposal, and I am confident that it will prove to contribute greatly to a more complex and precise understanding of the paradoxical connections and frictions between artistic and journalistic approaches to contemporary realities. "
Anke Bangma, 4 April 2006
2005
Simon Sheikh, Critic and Curator, Ass Professor Malmö Art Academy/Lund University
" Alfredo has participated in our Critical Studies course, a one-year post graduate study programme that allows a small number, 8-10, of international participants each year. The course accepts both artists and art theorists, as it is our aim to merge theory and practise together. Alfredo has impressed in both regards, and in his seamless way of integrating these aspects in his work. He has shown himself to be skillful both as a reader and thinker, and always with an understanding of how to implement ideas into practise, into activities, which is indeed as rare a feature as it is commendable. In addition, Cramerotti has also shown an interest and constantly increasing skill as a scholar and researcher, which I believe will bring him further in his professional and academic career.
While at the programme Alfredo has collaborated with the others in the group, as well as developing his own research project, which I believe will be a valuable contribution to the theories of art and media. Alfredo has been investigating the an-, or at least under-, theorised field of practise, namely the current surge to merge art practise with the spheres of documentary and journalism. Alfredo is attempting a mapping of a field, where the artist-producer works as a journalist and/or documentarist in relation to current events, in an overturning of the traditions of both fields. He is attempting to theorise and problematise this field, as well as to point to its potentials within the contemporary mediascape. I am convinced that Cramerotti's research is as valuable as it is pertinent, if not to say indispensable. "
Simon Sheikh, 15th December 2005
2005
Monica Ross, Artist and Writer. Guest Professor Institut für Kunst in Kontext, Universität der Künste, Berlin 2004; Arts and Humanities Research Fellow in Fine Art, University of Newcastle-on-Tyne 2001-2004; Subject Leader, Critical Fine Art Practise, Fine Art BA Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, London, 1990-98.
" I have known Alfredo since April 2004. Alfredo’s approach to his activities is characterised by an open minded spirit of enquiry which is sustained by a passionate appetite for extending his knowledge and experience of art practise through the instigation of creative and curatorial projects, in depth research and an active interest in the work and ideas of others.
Completely immersed in the practise of contemporary art and its discourses, Alfredo’s investigative involvement with discursive processes of cultural production and curation, is evidenced in his commitment to collaborative, networked and trans-national projects. From the documentation I have seen, Alfredo’s projects are professionally produced and presented. They have a refreshingly non-prescriptive approach to the issues of cultural difference, subjectivity, political and cultural geography, and related art practises, within which his study proposal is grounded.
A significant characteristic of his previous projects is a capacity for risk taking which is matched by a sense of responsibility both to the demands of art and the challenge of bringing demanding work into the public domain without a loss of integrity. (This is most evident in the performance series AGM 03 Alfredo has curated in Italy.)
Alfredo is a highly capable, energetic and self-motivated man who combines experimental, speculative and open-ended development processes with the pragmatic skills of an efficient organiser and producer. He is a skilled and experienced team worker and, clearly, often inspirational to those with whom he works. Having worked and studied at art institutions in Italy, UK, Holland and Germany, he brings both the fluency of multi-languages and his mature, trans-national life experience to the negotiating modes of his work.
Alfredo is able to address issues of cultural complexity from a highly developed sensibility of cultural awareness which, while always both visually and critically rigorous, is also tolerant and generous toward the perspectives of others.
I have no reservations in recommending Alfredo. I am certain he would make an excellent and generous contribution to any cultural scene and programme or artistic community with which he is associated.
My expectation of Alfredo’s work is that it will be researched, developed and realised successfully within the terms outlined. I would expect the outcomes to be critically and visually innovative and that his projects will make a valuable contribution to the areas of contemporary practise with which it is consonant. "
Monica Ross, by email, 7 January 2005
2004
Katharina Jedermann, Senior Lecturer University of the Arts Berlin, Institute of Art in Context
" I know Alfredo Cramerotti since he started the postgraduate MA-Course at the UdK Institut für Kunst im Kontext in October 2003, which he finished in summer 2005 with great success.
Alfredo is professional in his approach to work. His contributions in different projects and seminars in which he has been involved have been much appreciated.
He worked on themes and issues in the field of current political and media-theoretical questions, migration and the representation of geography in the media. His wide knowledge of current discourses and his artistic approach between theory and practise are promising qualifications for well-considered projects.
Within the 3rd Berlin Biennial for Contemporary Art, he developed an interesting radio project, and has proved his educational ability with public guided tours (in German and English), and with a very interesting radio project. His report, with the title “Mediating spaces" reflects upon the context of the different exhibition spaces of the Berlin Biennial and how they where used and interpreted in the realisation of the exhibition.
His papers and written work proved his outstanding intellectual abilities (in different languages). On the basis of his various professional experiences in cultural management and project organisation he seized the initiative for new projects together with colleagues departing from a traditional discipline-oriented focus.
He raised important questions and topics, e.g. the discussion about the images of human beings in advertisements in the public space.
Alfredo is a politically well informed and interested cultural worker with a sharp mind, a reliable organiser of collective processes, who is able to work both independently and as part of a team and supports and encourages others with their ideas.
On his initiative the exchange program between the UdK Institute and the Rotterdam Piet Zwart Institute was started with his stay in Rotterdam and will be developed.
In his Master thesis he discussed, on the basis of three study-cases, the relation between documents and art, and systematically worked out the different artistic approaches of Lukas Einsele, the group Multiplicity and the Atlas Group. He argued on the basis of relevant literature for the re-allocation of such journalistic approach into art institutions, and valuated this as a chance to shape alternative communication strategies.
Embracing the term "witnessing" instead of "reporting", Cramerotti sees an opportunity in the new documentarism practise to develop an artistic journalism that works on another pace as the one given by the real-time media, to establish a critical distance to what happened and thereby to generate an artistic subjectivity.
The profoundly and precisely formulated work reveals that Alfredo Cramerotti has initiated an academic path, whose consequent development lies in the deepening of his academic knowledge. "
Katharina Jedermann, 28 December 2004
2003
Lise Nellemann, Director of Sparwasser HQ Berlin, Artist and Curator
" In 2003 Alfredo Cramerotti came to Berlin and joined the organisational team in Sparwasser HQ, a show room for contemporary art practise in Berlin Mitte. He quickly got involved with the space looking after the exhibitions and learning practical as well as curatorial practise in Sparwasser HQ. As a discussion partner we have had great exchanges and he has contributed to the dynamic of Sparwasser HQ in terms of engagement with the audience, curatorial work, doing PR and presentation of the space as well as structuring of Sparwasser HQ.
As Sparwasser HQ is a platform for discussion and display of contemporary art and a network base both for Berlin-based and international artists, Alfredo has developed a set of new acquaintances and even added some more to our network in Sparwasser HQ. He has co-organised several shows, the first one being "Lost (Found Tracks)", beginning of March 2003, which was a show presenting the conceptually working, Singapore artist Heman Chong. The exhibition presented an interesting dialectic on transformation between recorded sound (from 5 different cities around the globe) and sound from the local cityscape outside Sparwasser HQ - and image-based matter (screened video-based images on the front window).
Together with the artists Heman Chong and Isabelle Cornaro, Alfredo Cramerotti organised the second show "The End of Travelling" in March/April 2003. In order to point out how engaged and involved he is in managing and mediating exhibitions, I can tell that Alfredo is going to the Venice Biennale to work as coordinator assistant for the artist Heman Chong during the setting up of his work in the Singapore Pavilion in Venice this summer.
Alfredo organised the latest show in Sparwasser HQ, "Breaking the Law" independently, which showed a progression in his organisational work as he carried out all procedures of the production, in collaboration with curator Sanne Kofod Olesen (sitting abroad).
Alfredo Cramerotti arrange these days some series of "artist's talk", evening events and meetings build up around the presentation of artists, who show works and lay open issues for mutual reflection with an audience. This is a social platform for artists, curators and visitors to study (collaborative) projects (in urban space) in contemporary Berlin. Last but not the least I have to add that the artist network around Sparwasser HQ is built up around a very international community and that the artists of the talks are bringing experiences from other national backgrounds.
In general Alfredo shows a lot of initiative and an ability to make thing happen. He is open, cheerful, responsible and curious in person and works for the art, the artists, and the audience. "
Lisa Nellemann, 10 May 2003
TESTIMONIALS for Aesthetic Journalism book:
Hito Steyerl, artist, filmmaker and theorist, Berlin, Germany
Hey Alfredo,
I just read your book, brilliant!
Very nice read and groundbreacking! There is no such book around as yet, so it´s really about time you did it!
Peter Sandbichler, artist and consultant, Vienna, Austria
I have read your book "aesthetic journalism" with great interest. [...] I understand that your analysis of the applied methods in both journalism and in contemporary art is extremely precise and based on extensive research which makes it a very rich lecture. To me your book unfolds an enormous panorama which I appreciate a lot to find it in such compact.
David Dunkley Gyimah, Senior Lecturer Digital Journalism, University of Westminster London, UK
I think you've touched on a rich vein which will not only be of huge interest to the arts worlds but more significantly in the evolving debate of journalism and doc - the world I know very well having previously worked for Channel 4 News, ABC News and Newsnight - to name a few.
Geoffrey Garrison, artist and editor, Berlin, Germany (from Amazon page)
Well-organized and thoroughly researched, Aesthetic Journalism is a good book for anyone who has ever wondered about the proliferation in contemporary art exhibitions of works resembling news reports, documentary cinema, or informative publications.
Alfredo Cramerotti takes on this group of seemingly unrelated works, focusing on a number of themes pertinent to contemporary culture and society. This book investigates the bleeding over into one another of the fields of art and journalism, who share superficial similarities but differ radically on such notions as "reality," "fact," and "objectivity" as well as on professional aims and ethical standards. Definitely worth a read for anyone interested in recent contemporary art practices and discourse.
Jose Roberto Shwafaty, artist, Campinas/Sp, Brasil and Berlin, Germany
I just took contact with your book 'Aesthetic Journalism' (bought in Berlin), which I found really interesting and symptomatic of many issues that I also share (regarding the contemporary regimes of visibility/invisibility and the possibilities to act and [re]exist in public spheres related to those regimes...). I [...] express my admiration and recognition to this interesting work you produced.
David Briers, critic, writer and curator based in West Yorkshire, UK
I appreciate very much the clarity with which [Aesthetic Journalism] is writtten, and I think that the journalistic devices that you appropriately employ in the main body of the book are great! Above all, the book provides a relatively concise, empirical commentary about a phenomenon that until now lacked such a referent.
Alissa Firth-Eagland, curator and writer, Grenoble, France and Vancouver, Canada
I am enjoying your [Aesthetic Journalism] writing: fiction as a subversive but effective agent of reality, journalism as a body guarantor of public assets, a reporter as being in one place and witnessing something changing into being in many places at the same time and commenting on what happens elsewhere.
Pablo España / DEMOCRACIA, artist, curator and editor, Madrid, Spain
Dear Alfredo
I was reading your book. Congratulations, very interesting, and very useful for me as teacher of new media... next academic year my students will learn about your concept.
Mark Neville, artist, Glasgow, UK
I have just finished reading Aesthetic Journalism... I thoroughly enjoyed it. Very interesting.
Irene Montero Sabín / BRUMARIA, Madrid, Spain and London, UK
Interesting and refreshing (congratulations for it).
Julia Draganovic, curator and writer, New York, U.S. and Modena, Italy
I find it illuminating! Thank you so much for this!
Best,
Julia
Veronica Valentini, contributing editor Flash Art Italia (from 'Libri', Flash Art Italia, August-September 2010)
Il documentario, l'intervista e il reportage sono gli strumenti d'indagine del reale che accomunano il giornalismo e alcune pratiche artistiche legate a temi sociali, politici e culturali. Eppure, mediante l'uso di una struttura linguistica costruita sulla regole delle 5W, l'autore, artista, critico e curatore di Manifesta 8, Alfredo Cramerotti, ci mostra che e' la fiction a essere la principale chiave di lettura della realtà', smascherando l'indubbio valore di verità' del sistema tradizionale. Contraddistinto da una sorta di metalinguaggio nel quale non mancano riferimenti a importanti teorici e artisti, tra cui Martha Rosler, Renzo Martens, Renee Green e Alfredo Jaar, Aesthetic Journalism propone una rinnovata prospettiva del rapporto tra arte e informazione. E proprio come Foucault, anche Cramerotti auspica che il libro sia a uso e consumo di un utente-fruitore, e non di un lettore-pubblico, cui sono dati in mano i mezzi per la costruzione critica di una nuova verità'.
Matt Packer, curator of exhibitions and projects at the Lewis Glucksman Gallery, Cork and Photography & Culture Journal reviewer, UK (from Book Review, Photography & Culture Volume 3 -- Issue 3 November 2010 pp. 363-366 © Berg 2010)
Aesthetic Journalism: How to Inform Without Informing
Alfredo Cramerotti
Drawing together references and critical models from philosophy, sociology, media theory, as well as art history, Cramerotti's arguments for Aesthetic Journalism are persuasive from a number of disciplinary perspectives. It is not a book that claims academic territory in the strictest sense, and it stays clear of questions of definition that could have easily waylaid its urgency. Rather, Aesthetic Journalism is more about recognizing, developing, and inciting a set of relationships that could radically alter the conduct of information in the public sphere.
Further info under Wiki page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aesthetic_Journalism