Supermarket blog

The application deadline for Supermarket 2018 is fast approaching!

With only 7 days left until deadline 31 October (midnight) make sure to piece together the last pictures and phrases of your application and submit at this very website. 

Supermarket 2018 will be held 12–15 April 2018 at our brand new venue, Slaughterhouse 5, in the meatpacking district of Stockholm. So do it – and let your application come our way!

Photo credit: Josefin Cedervall 

Our Supermarket 2018 Exhibitors Open Call is up and running still with two weeks left until the deadline, keep the applications coming! 

Don't forget you can also apply to be one of the Professional Networking Participants which has a much later deadline (17 January 2018). Apply and find out more here.

Photo credit: Olof Löf

We are delighted to announce that Supermarket 2018 will be held 12–15 April 2018.
This year we have a brand new venue, Slaughterhouse 5, taken over from a meatpacking company.
Location: Fållan 10, Slakthusområdet (the meatpacking district), Stockholm, 10 minutes by metro from the city centre (metro stop Globen) and 20 minutes by bike with no large hills to conquer.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               
Applications: From 9 October until 31 October we welcome artist-run spaces from around the world to make an online application.
The pre-selection results will be announced on 30 November 2017.

If you have proposals to the Talks and Performance programme you can contact us with suggestions via email to franziska@supermarketartfair.com

Application Deadline: 31 October 2017 (midnight)
Supermarket dates: 12–15 April 2018
Press viewing and Professional preview: 11 April 2018
If you have any questions please contact us at info@supermarketartfair.com

LEGACY: Who Will Survive, and What Will Be Left of Them?
For the first time we decided to reveal the fair’s theme together with the open call, to give you double the thrill (and perhaps some inspiration). As every year, we will continue to develop and address the topic in more detail in the Supermarket Magazine. If you would like to contribute to the magazine with an article or have an idea related to the theme, please get in touch at alice@supermarketartfair.com.

We feel that the idea of legacy is a relevant topic for artist-run art spaces, who constantly deal with the ephemerality of their existence and status. Legacy in this context is closely followed by legitimacy, with artworks and artistic practices justified by their pedigree, gaining value through historical definitions and constructs of the market. Institutions face similar problems: museums, archives and contemporary galleries fulfil their purpose by preserving dead and living artists, but how they do it and whom they reach is another issue.

Legacy is not only what is left after us, but also what has been left to us. The former we can influence, somewhat, the latter we have to accept although we were not allowed to choose it; often a bequest from the past we had never wanted. It is a strange two-folded concept: the material we are made of as inherited from our predecessors who are already long gone, and as shaped by the history; and the posterity we will not get to see – or never even have. The everything of us that might be forgotten:
that is why there is the need to objectify our presence and continuously create tokens of memory. We cherish those, as they are simple items of preservation of ourselves, or of the other. The parallel side of legacy is intangible and of equal importance. These are thoughts, knowledge-sharing, simple words and small fleeting exchanges; individual and collective legacies forwarded from person to person, from artist to artist, from an established art space to a new one.

Some lingering questions:
How much can you change the course of present events so that you make a mark on them?
How well and far ahead can you plan to make future just a bit more predictable and solid?
If we as artist create art with the intention to have a larger impact on the world, reassure our existence and preserve ourselves in a more tangible way, what is the actual point of such self-absorbed creation?
Does it make any difference what will happen to our art after we are gone – and what difference does it make when we are here?

We are very much looking forward to receiving your applications!
Best wishes,
The Supermarket project committee
Alice, Andreas, Pontus
 

Supermarket is on the go! We are back in Berlin, where it all started 7 years ago, with AIM Network's brand new publication on connecting artist-run spaces around Europe. Join us tomorrow for the official book launch at Top Schillerpalais for a brief presentation and lots of Berlin beer and some wine! 

The AIM Network

is a publication about the AIM Network, a diverse network of European artists’ initiatives and their exchange of knowledge and experiences over a period of six years. The members got to know each other at Supermarket, an international art fair for artist-run spaces held annually in Stockholm, and continued meeting in different cities in and out of Europe to discuss key issues of self-organised exhibition spaces. They also engaged in an idea of developing an online Artist-Run Map that would gather artist-run initiatives to enhance their visibility and provide space for artistic exchange. There can be found many examples of attempts to create a similar map, but they have all failed, being either incomplete or becoming fast outdated.

AIM have discussed the problematics surrounding this project, identified the main obstacles and developed a number of conceivable solutions, but as of now have not gathered the resources to perfect and launch a functioning Artist-Run Map. Hopefully, the groundwork done by AIM can be used by anyone seeking to realise a similar resource, and contribute to formation of creative encounters where ideas and knowledge are exchanged.

ISBN 978-91-639-3500-8
© 2017 AIM Network/Supermarket – Stockholm Independent Art Fair
Editor: Andreas Ribbung in collaboration with Alice Maselnikova and Anna Tomaszewska
Text editing: Stuart Mayes
Graphic design: Dennis Hanqvist
 

What has our project team been secretly up to?! You might rather not want to know... In search of the next year's venue we somehow ventured into the meat-production business. Pools of blood, juicy flesh, vegetarians weeping, crimson-stained white coats and beard covers; all this endured for our love of art!
Keep your eyes open for Supermaret 2018 updates coming very soon!

Photo credit: Alice Maselnikova