Charlotte Cullinan / Milena Dragicevic

When a threshold is crossed what do we gain and what do we lose? Do we finish the job or abort? How does the marked man/woman spend their free time? Playing chess at the petrol pump café? Or do they spend time trying; trying as noun, trying as verb?

With reference to core scenes in the movies The Godfather (1972) and The Amateurs (2005), Milena Dragicevic and Charlotte Cullinan will speak about the crossroads where professional, amateur, genius and artist form a point of intersection. The discussion will highlight several questions as follows. Is it possible to make work as unfixed art objects using strategies of refusal and negation? What does the term “de-skilled” mean and how does it fit into making and teaching? Can art be made without the insistence of progression, no future, no past – just the petrol pump café? Is it the responsibility of the artist to say NO to the idea of the “professional”? When is production necessary, what is the purpose of it, and can we ever just get out?