Slought Foundation
Slought Foundation (pronounced 'Sl-aw-t') is a Philadelphia-based non-profit organization that broadly encourages new futures for contemporary life through public programs with internationally renowned artists and theorists.
Since opening in 2002, Slought has organized over 200 exhibitions, events, trade publications, and maintains a significant internet presence featuring over 210 hours of online recordings, setting new standards for critical practices that resist the market-driven orientation and drive to permanence of today's institutions.
At Slought Foundation, the point of any cultural practice is not simply to display objects, but to present problems, not simply to make something coherent but to create something that is purposely critical or provocative. Devising alternatives to traditional forms of cultural display necessarily entails de-familiarizing the practice of 'art appreciation' for audiences, and evading practices associated with most cultural organizations. Instead of encouraging the passive absorption of static information, Slought invites audiences to assume a critical orientation towards contemporary life, and to consider criticality itself as a source of dynamism and enjoyment.
The curatorial staff at Slought Foundation (led by Aaron Levy, Jean-Michel Rabaté, Osvaldo Romberg) has organized a series of programs with prominent figures such as Dennis Oppenheim, Hélène Cixous, Hermann Nitsch, William Anastasi, Arakawa + Gins, Lorand Hegyi, and Rashied Ali.
The main activities of the Foundation are as follows:
Special Exhibitions Exhibitions generally examine the legacies and ramifications of the historic avant-gardes for contemporary artistic, critical and curatorial practice and contest the instrumentalization of the aesthetic in contemporary practices.
Research Institute Alongside Slought's commitment to visual culture, dynamic and participatory conversations about contemporary art and life regularly take place at the Foundation's Research Institute with renowned theorists and cultural critics. These events recast the role of the public intellectual and showcase innovations in interdisciplinary scholarship.
Performances New and experimental performance practices with leading musicians, composers, poets and new media artists complement the above programming.
Publications Slought Books, Slought's publishing imprint, publishes a variety of artist monographs and interdisciplinary collections of critical essays on topics such as contemporary art, art theory, and curatorial practice. These books are recognized for high-quality papers and printing and sophisticated design.
Slought's website: www.slought.org , features an extensive audio repository of over 200 hours of past programming and previously unreleased recordings. Whereas the significance and implications of any cultural program unfolds over time, rather than through immediate gratification, live and documented forms of experience are often structurally dependent upon each other.