Quality Control: Legacies and Practices of Gatekeeping in the Arts

Artistic quality is a relational and context-dependent term, as most actors in the field would agree. And yet, in a sphere of selection, separation and judgment like the arts, quality control remains central in legitimizing such boundary drawings.

If, in a modernist paradigm a universalist notion of quality functioned as the primary tool of valuation across the ecosystems of the arts, then today, other parameters such as diversity, representation, relevance, sustainability, and urgency are increasingly called upon as important criteria.

Such new specifications are introduced to grapple with critiques of universalism posed by feminist, postcolonial, decolonial, queer, and Black critical studies. Equally, they are motivated by the sea change in art’s production, distribution, and reception, imposed by a postdigital condition and demands for climate action, all of which in turn impact our thinking about access, relevance, co-authorship – and quality. In other words, although no universal concept of quality can be applied, there are legacies and practices of gatekeeping in the arts – a tacit knowledge of what constitutes quality – that determines who and what is shown, published, performed, awarded, included, and selected to participate in the arts.

In this seminar we ask: What are the notions of quality at play in these processes of selection and gatekeeping, what are their implications, and who do they benefit? How is quality performed? And on whose terms? How might we question implicit prejudices and ways of thinking that are related to or called quality? What are the legacies and fault lines of previous practices? How might we articulate and implement more legibility in the practice of ‘quality control’?

Over a full day of talks, presentations, conversations, and audience discussions, we want to explore how the concept of quality is negotiated, maintained, and challenged in artistic, educational, institutional, and self-organised practices as well as in the public sphere today.

Speakers

• Farhiya Khalid
• Makda Embaie
• Nivi Katrine Christensen
• Pernille Albrethsen
• Phyllis Akinyi
• Rasmus Myrup
• Sall Lam Toro
• Shadi Angelina Bazeghi
• Tine Fischer
• UFOlab

See full programme (pdf in Danish).

The conference is organized by the New Carlsberg Foundation research center Art as Forum at the Department of Arts and Cultural Studies in collaboration with SMK - National Gallery of Denmark.