Halfdan Kjerulfs Gate 4
5015 Bergen
Norway
Hours: Monday–Friday 11am–5pm
post@bergenassembly.no
Start: December 1, 2019
Duration: Six-year term with option to extend
Deadline for applications: August 23, 2019
Bergen Assembly seeks a director to lead the organisation into the future as one of Norway’s most vital international platforms for contemporary art. Having originated in a critical approach to biennials, Bergen Assembly is an art institution that is research-oriented and open to conceptual and organisational experimentation with ways of making, presenting, collaborating and engaging the public. Bergen Assembly convenes triennially. The forthcoming third edition, titled Actually, the Dead Are Not Dead, takes place from September 5 to November 10, 2019 with multiple exhibitionary, performative and discursive public platforms across the city of Bergen.
The Director of Bergen Assembly has extensive knowledge, expertise and networks in the expanded field of contemporary art, nationally and internationally. They demonstrate passion for working in the arts as well as a proven track record of outstanding leadership, collaborative work and inspirational institutional development. Prior involvement with the public sector and publicly financed projects is an advantage. Experience in project organisation and the ability to handle busy periods are paramount.
The Director of Bergen Assembly is expected to develop and implement unconventional institutional vision, to lead change, think strategically, exercise good judgement and demonstrate their talent and inspirational approaches.
Read the full call here.
Applications can be handed in digitally at application [at] bergenassembly.no.
About Bergen Assembly
Bergen Assembly is a perennial platform for artistic research and production structured around public formats taking place in the city of Bergen every three years.
Bergen Assembly’s flexible model is reinvented for each edition, responding in particular to a need for alternative temporalities of art production and experience within an oversaturated information culture, where attention itself is increasingly commodified and subject to pressure.
Bergen Assembly originated from the Bergen Biennial Conference in 2009, which was a response to a proposition by the municipality of Bergen to establish an international biennial for contemporary art in the city. The conference discussed the question “To biennial or not to biennial?” with international curators, artists, and academics, and was followed by The Biennial Reader (Hatje Cantz/Bergen Kunsthall, 2010), to date the most comprehensive publication on the history and practice of biennials and other recurrent contemporary art projects in a global perspective.
The first edition of Bergen Assembly, titled Monday Begins on Saturday and convened by Ekaterina Degot and David Riff, manifested as a multi-venue exhibition and a publication in 2013. The latest edition of the triennial was led by the artistic directors Tarek Atoui, the collective freethought, and the collaboration PRAXES in 2016. For the third edition of Bergen Assembly in 2019, Hans D. Christ and Iris Dressler have been appointed as “conveners.”
Bergen Assembly receives financial support from Bergen municipality, Arts Council Norway, and Hordaland County. The organisation also seeks financial support from variety of national and international project grants.
Bergen Assembly is a private company owned by Bergen municipality and has an appointed board. Additionally, Bergen Assembly has an international Advisory Board.
Contact for further information: application [at] bergenassembly.no.
