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FAD Magazine covers contemporary art – News, Exhibitions and Interviews reported on from London

We catch up with Tina Ziegler ahead of The Art Conference

I’m Ethan and over the next few weeks I will be interviewing a variety of different and interesting art people, to try to understand and explore the art world.

Firstly I caught up with Tina Ziegler ahead of the opening of The Art Conference. TAC is a two day arts festival debuting in London on the 23-24th July exploring the intersection and evolution of technology, art and culture.

The Art Conference

What inspired you to create The Art Conference?
I really started The Art Conference for selfish reasons as I wanted the opportunity to bring people together that I admire in the art industry and listen to their personal stories. I wanted to see what kind of conversations and discussion would form when we brought industry leaders together. Our generation has been thrown a lot of new technology and everybody has become obsessed with it, we are moving into even more crazier things like virtual and augmented reality but nobody has ever stopped us to be like: how do we manage this? what’s going on? where’s the guide book to managing our use of technology in our daily lives? The creative industry has really embraced tech as it has offered an opportunity to expose art on an international level from any location. As a curator, I currently do a lot of my research now in bed at six in the morning on Instagram from my smartphone, I have the ability to research exactly who’s painting where and who to look out for. I am introduced to a whole global moving market, all from my home.

With TAC, I wanted to hear what everyone has to say and regroup to understand what’s going on, how do we deal with it and how do we direct the market. It is a weekend to learnbe inspired by each other.

How did you choose the artists and speakers for the conference?
I’ve been looking at art for a very long time and when I look at somebodies work now I can immediately tell if it’s something I’m interested and have a unique voice within their work. Most of the artists I selected I know or I work with already. But with the speakers I was looking for people who were really making an impact with their work either as artists, art administrator or curators, individuals who had a unique perspective and weren’t only looking at the art market from a financial perspective but at how it can make a social impact. The speakers discuss how their work can really bring people together and create a platform for communities to engage with art in a completely different way and most of them have a background working with social issues, whether environmental or political.

Fire Poem, Robert Montgomery
Fire Poem, Robert Montogomery (who will be speaking at TAC)

There is a focus on street art. What for you is so interesting and appealing about street art?
I personally come from a graffiti background and my whole career in the arts has been watching the urban art movement evolve to what it is today. Our movement is evolving daily, we can see a shift in the appreciation of street art and rather than considering them vandals, we see urban councils paying artists to do street art, which is absolutely the reverse of what I saw ten years ago. So just being a part of this movement from the beginning means it’s just very much part of my bloodstream.

Prices range from £45 to up to £150. What do you get for your money?
So for the conference you get exposed to eighteen different international thought-leaders, most of who are being flown in for this event. Some of the speakers know each other but the conversations created will have never happened previously in the same room. There are only 200 seats available for the conference and with your ticket there is a breakfast in the morning with all the guests, so you can speak directly to them and can ask key questions. You get a tote bag which comes with a number of different things inside and in the afternoon there is tea and coffee with everybody as well. A true opportunity to network and engage with this movement. A number of film screenings are shown during the conference and there are Q&A sessions and panel discussions as well. There is no boundary between the speakers and the attendees, it’s all open plan and everyone can participate and communicate with one another. One big happy Conference family.

During the art conference there are also free exhibitions and events going on, so if you can’t attend the conference, don’t miss the TAC Exhibitions Hall on the ground floor. Private view is on Saturday evening.
During the art conference there are also free exhibitions and events going on. Click here to read more.

theartconference.com 23rd-24th July 47/49 Tanner Street, SE1 3PL, London Bridge, UK

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