Why Is Everybody Being So Nice? Online Publication

De Appel's Curatorial Programme 2016–2017 has come to an end. You can now explore and read the online publication they published on the occasion of their project Why Is Everybody Being So Nice?*. This online publication gathers the ideas, discussions and outcomes of their project which was dubbed by Metropolis M “a platform to out all our frustrations as cultural producers” and a means to “collectively re-imagine and reflect on resistance and agency”. We cannot imagine a better summer reading, enjoy!

Why Is Everybody Being So Nice? comprised performances, workshops and panel discussions running from April to June 2017 at various locations in Amsterdam, and investigated the ethical and behavioral codes of conduct in the art world – where, in the words of Martha Rosler, ‘“Niceness” speaks to a demand, in neoliberal terms, for the wholesale invention, performance, and perpetual grooming of a transactional self’. The first part of the project took place at De Appel in April, where it unfolded as a four-day-long programme of panel discussions, workshops, screenings, and performances. It ended with a collective sleepover, The Night of Exhaustion and Exuberance, which activated the practice of collective sleeping as a gesture of resistance and appropriation of space and time. Why Is Everybody Being So Nice? continued and concluded with The Power Nap, a collective snooze in the auditorium of the Stedelijk Museum in June, on the occasion of the launch of this online publication. The online publication culminates  Why Is Everybody Being So Nice?  with a selection of contributions by the writers, artists, curators and documentation of  the programme, expanding on the topics investigated during the programme. The editorial project follows the structure of the four days of the programme, presenting four main chapters under which documentation and contributions provide an overall reflection on the programme and its outcomes.

About the programme Why Is Everybody Being So Nice? sought to provoke reflection and a critical investigation into the grey areas between ethics and etiquette that are expected of cultural producers, or anyone working within the sector of knowledge-based, post-industrial economies. Cultural producers are often subject to a 24/7 workday – constantly shifting between underpaid professional labour and social self-promotion at V.I.P. previews, and are required to adhere to an unspoken set of moral rules and behavioural standards. Therefore, in an act of instrumentalisation of “political correctness”, the product of the cultural worker is expected to tick all the boxes that satisfy the politics of representation, comply with appropriate gender and racial quotas of an exhibition, and to readily accept an unpaid job under the premise of being exposed to new realms of opportunity in the ‘reputation economy’ of the art world. Three case studies of recent occurrences in the contemporary art world were selected in order to provide horizons to think through and navigate the broader issues of precarious labour within the knowledge economy. These case studies drew on research trips to Athens, Bucharest, Cluj and Budapest that the De Appel Curatorial Programme embarked on at the end of 2016. These encounters revealed the tension between customary practices and anomalies of behavioural protocols imposed by biennales and recurring international exhibitions of differing kinds and scale. The immersion within these unfamiliar and stimulating conditions for a short and intense period of travel provoked inevitable self-reflection and negotiation of our own ethical positions within the politics of the contemporary art world. These shared experiences catalysed our impulse to take the opportunity of the final project as a means to extend, deepen and open up our discussions to a wider group of art professionals. Eventually, the daily programmes of Why Is Everybody Being So Nice? aimed to consider possible modes of resistance and counter strategies within the precarity of ethical and behavioural codes in the art world. What kind of personal agencies, alliances and temporary agreements could be set forth to reclaim our autonomy amongst the heavyweight powers of the art world? The programme concluded with a collective sleepover, The Night of Exhaustion and Exuberance, which also hosted Open Avond(s): a series of events initiated by E.I.Panza. Within this collaboration, the practice of collective sleeping was investigated as a gesture of resistance and appropriation of space and time. * The title of the programme is inspired by Martha Rosler’s recent essay Why Are People Being So Nice?, published in e-flux journal #77 – November 2016 Why Is Everybody Being So Nice? is curated by the participants of De Appel Curatorial Programme 2016-17: Mira Asriningtyas, Lucrezia Calabrò Visconti, Mateo Chacon-Pino, Kati Ilves, Shona Mei Findlay, Fadwa Naamna. Intern: Hannah Cheney Graphic Design: Fazed Grunion

Part of ( Why Is Everybody Being So Nice? ) ( Why Is Everybody Being So Nice? The Power Nap ) ( De Appel Curatorial Programme )

press ( Metropolis M: The exhaustion of being nice )