SYSTEMA is a gathering of affinities, offering a social space that provides a venue and visibility for independent spaces, artist- or curator-run initiatives, and non-profit collaborative projects. Contributors are invited to propose works for exhibition and public programs, which, after a careful selection process, are allocated throughout the various spaces of Palais Carli. As a flat, non-hierarchical structure, the entire process embodies the principles of collaboration and cooperation—from the proposal of works and ideas to their arrangement and cohabitation within the spaces.
Diverging from traditional fair models, SYSTEMA proposes to celebrate the identities of each invited project while exploring the potential for new, unexpected synergies between artworks, artists, projects, architecture, and visitors. As the current political and institutional landscape highlights a gap in addressing the needs of artists and audiences, the necessity for activities in non-commercial, non-institutional settings has become increasingly evident.
Every year, we reconfigure the exhibition spaces within Palais Carli by opening new doors and closing others. By continuously reshaping the environment and updating the visual identity of each edition, SYSTEMA reimagines the boundaries of conventional exhibition spaces and shifts the circumstances of our daily scenarios.
AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS
bologna.cc is a project space in Amsterdam initiated by Ivan Cheng since 2017; a semi-public continuation of activities from what was variously known as H.E.Olsson, Olsson’s, (ivan’s), 2 TEXACO, ICW. Announcing itself to subscribers primarily through the blind copy of an email, it has presented around 80 events or exhibitions thus far. Now based in Amsterdam Noord, it operates under the name ‘bologna towers’.
bologna.cc will be presenting works and performances by Lisa Plaut and Nour Ben Saïd.
BERLIN, GERMANY
Artist Daragh Reeves established Buzzer-Reeves in 2022 in his apartment in Kreutzberg, Berlin with an eclectic group show titled ‘Sailors of the Land’. His program aims to exhibit work in direct collaboration with aritsts and curators from his personal network, bringing together people who would not normally meet or show in the same space and promoting international exchange. The program theoretically has no fixed address and exhibtions can happen in any venue where the entrance buzzer reads ‘reeves’. There have been four exhibtions so far, three in Berlin, one in Brussels and a screening in Rio de Janeiro.
Buzzer Reeves will be presenting performances and works by Elena Hizaar, Thomas Lanigan-Schmidt and Michael Van den Abeele.
ATHENS, GREECE
CLOSING SOON is a curatorial project dedicated to minimum production. It hosts exhibitions that align with the principles of the economy of means, focusing on alteration and displacement of pre-existing objects, images, and texts. CLOSING SOON is open to works that are characterized by the use of minimal resources, environmentally conscious materials, and socially responsible production methods. Through a variety of media, including collages, installations, interventions, sculptures, and videos, it aims to explore the feasibility of creating with the fewest resources possible, taking a critical stance toward the means employed in the production and presentation of an artwork. This working method minimises the production costs and storage needs, and it can be seen as a pragmatic as well as a conceptual response to the overproduction of objects and images.
CLOSING SOON was founded by Orestis Mavroudis in 2019.
CLOSING SOON will be presenting works by Eva Anerrapsi, Elena Demetria Chantzis, Stavros Kassis, and Orestis Mavroudis.
ITINERANT
digestivo is a collaborative initiative run by artists Lucía Bayón and Lukas Meßner dedicated to the idea of hosting– friends, ideas, exhibitions–, as an act that attends to the entanglements and blurry boundaries of life and practice and fosters a space for communal encounter and correspondence. digestivo opens up a porous scope of doings through the common thread of trials —in and around the kitchen—that develop around processes of foraging, fermentation and preservation: promoting leftovers and immersing them in a prospect of sharing. digestivo was founded in 2019 as a project space between two apartments in Rotterdam, and has been operating itinerantly since 2020, collaborating with artists and spaces such as Antonia Brown at Belmonte (Madrid, 2023) Raphael Pohl and Aaron Amar Bahmra at Galerie Le Carceri (Caldaro, 2023); Tom Engels at Grazer Kunstverein (Graz, 2023), Pedro Herrero Ferrán at Haus Wien (Vienna, 2020); Hrefna Hörn Leifsdóttir and María Nolla Mateos among others.
digestivo will be presenting works by weecolors
TBILISSI, GEORGIA
E A Shared Space is a curatorial project. It provides a space for making exhibitions, screenings, readings, collective translation session, meetings online and irl, meeting and departing.
At the moment it has a curated zine kiosk, which is oriented on showcasing contemporary zines made by artists and cultural workers of critical thought. The project aims at creating a temporary curated library, accessible online and irl in multiple languages.
The project aims at producing work, which is deeply invested within its local context and engages with the local community through inviting local and international artists, curators, writers, activists and other cultural workers in order to facilitate an exchange of knowledge between the international and local audiences.
E.A. Shared Space derives it’s name from the tradition of Komunalkas (communal apartment) during ussr, which the space where the project is located, originally was. But it also is inspired by the living projects created by students in western eauropean countries, where the living spaces turn into a space that is shared among people unrelated to one another, in fact, often strangers.
For sustainability and a lack of foundations who would potentially sponsor an initiative like this, E.A. Shared Space is self-sponsored and works as a gallery.
E.A. Shared space will be presenting works by Andro Eradze and Tornike Chapodze.
VIENNA, AUSTRIA
The projects we realize under Laurenz are often concerned with expanding the classical understanding of exhibition making and look for inspiration in different disciplines. Hosting and working with the existing conditions, often thematizing them and allowing them to take the main role rather than just being a context, is an important part of our collective practice and the way we communicate with artists and cultural practitioners. By focusing on a more discourse-based collective work, we seek to create new and nurture existing relationships within the cultural field.
Laurenz, founded in 2020 by Aaron Amar Bhamra & Monika Georgieva
Laurenz will be presenting works by Jack Burton, Katrīna Čemme, Bardhi Haliti, Lisa Jäger, Richard Klippfeld, Zuzana Kostelanská, Sophia Mairer, Julian Siffert, Marina Sula, Robin Waart and Lawrence Weiner.
MARSEILLE, FRANCE
‘What can we say in speechless times?’
Working closely with artists, writers, filmmakers, philosophers, architects, poets and activists, OCT0 realises ideas between and beyond the formats of exhibitions, plays, film, performance, music and publishing, expanding the possibilities of how we might think, work and organise. The name OCT0 is short for something – most obviously it is a nod to the octopus, the curious, somewhat humble marine animal with eight arms whose whole body is also its brain. OCT0 is constantly changing, contracting, expanding, adapting, listening, learning, responding, moving, it is here and everywhere: an evolving organism that thinks, acts and shares through its entire body.
OCT0’ was founded by Stefan Kalmár and Raoul Klooker in 2023
OCT0 also hosts Semiotext(e) Marseille, the US publishers first bookstore.
PARIS, FRANCE
Program – 23 is a comfortable home for the possessive individual. Solidarity among artists—members of a naturally corrupt family—seems downright inappropriate. Their claim for a special status makes it impossible to distinguish moments of solidarity from moments of corruption. We can only hope that the walls of this family home will collapse. A home where authentically grown values and organically evolved community norms replace deliberate acts of will and social justice. Problem – 23 tries to refer to a time when autonomous thought would have caused surprise and intuition was not imagined, let alone individual expression.
Program – 23 will be presenting works by di volta in volta & Program – 23
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND
PROVENCE was founded in 2009 in Nice, France, and has since shape-shifted through a variety of constellations. Today, PROVENCE operates as a collectively run publishing house and agency for contemporary art.
The ambition of PROVENCE was always to question and challenge its own format by conceiving exhibitions, artworks and merchandise in parallel with its publishing and agency activities. This has included exhibitions at Halle für Kunst, Lüneburg; Artists Space, New York; an off-site Hannah Villiger exhibition in Basel, as well as participations in numerous group exhibitions. Also worth mentioning: a hair salon (never realized), too many art fair booths, a collection of driftwood, a temporary casino hosted by Etablissement d’en face in Brussels, 215 very real press passes, media partnerships, a travel guide for Nice rated no. 1 in Vogue US, stickers, handbags, and plenty of dinners.
At Systema PROVENCE will present 26 works tied to its recent anniversary publication, « My Alphabet. » The PROVENCE Alphabet is inspired by Amanda Lear’s 1977 song « Alphabet, » which begins with the lines: “Because time goes on / and things are changing in my world / here is a new alphabet for the children of my generation” Each letter of the PROVENCE Alphabet (A for AMPHETAMINE, B for BANKRUPT, …) is printed on an individual archival box, referencing our publication that explores the PROVENCE archive. Most of these boxes will be displayed closed, leaving the question of what exactly is being archived here unanswered.
VIENNA, AUSTRIA
The Salon für Kunstbuch is a laboratory for artistic practices and publishing that was initiated in Vienna in 2007 and is based there. S.F.K.B. is open for producing – for editing – for exhibiting. Our archival practice is unlimited.
Salon Für Kunstbuch will be presenting works by Bernhard Cella and Seth Weiner
ROTTERDAM, NETHERLANDS
Located in the Port of Rotterdam, noted for its beautiful sunsets, caused by industrial pollution, Shimmer is a curatorial studio set within the contradiction of oil-riggers and wind-turbine installing ships. The contradiction of a changing industrial environment contributes to our adaptive and transformative outlook.
Our curatorial style coalesces, collaborates and redefines the methods of making, showing, and disseminating contemporary art.
From exhibitions to events, and playlists to publications, we create an intimate space that operates with a ‘studio-like mentality’ where knowledge surfaces from participation and experimentation. We see art as inherently shared, public, and social, and so too are structures like Shimmer, allowing for research and conversations to spark the beginnings (and endings) of artworks and exhibitions.
The studio is influenced by anthropologist and feminist theorist Deborah Bird Rose’s talk ‘Shimmer, when all you love is being trashed'(2014). We are also influenced by artist-curators such as Jo-ey Tang and Paul O’Neill.
Shimmer has worked with Charlotte Posenenske, Ellen Gallagher, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Hana Miletic, Harm van den Dorpel, Heman Chong, Ian Kaier, Lawrence Weiner, Lee Kit, Liz Magor, Lotus L. Kang, Maaike Schoorel, Magali Reus, Marcel Duchamp, Melvin Moti, Pauline Boudry / Renate Lorenz, Stanley Brouwn, Tenant of Culture, Theo van Doesburg to name a few.
Established in 2018, Shimmer is run by Eloise Sweetman and Jason Hendrik Hansma.
Shimmer will be prevention works by Lee Kit
PARIS, FRANCE
Shmorévaz is a Paris-based independent art space, located in a former shoe store. It supports practices that deal with affects, archives, the erotic and political imaginaries — with a focus on editorial and artistic projects coming from feminist, queer and DIY cultures. In parallel with the exhibition programming, the space is also an unofficial bookshop specializing in independent publications.
Shmorévaz will be presenting works by Cammie Toloui and Mira Mann
LONDON, UK
Torbay is an artist-run studio and exhibition space located on the edge of Hackney Downs Park in East London. Torbay hopes to foster an environment in which artists feel open to experiment, often making work in situ, site specific or using our space as a opportunity to open up new areas of their craft.
Torbay will be presenting works by Joshua Taylor
Invited by Shmorévaz. Documentation by Raphaël Massart – Courtesy of the artists and SYSTEMA
Invited by Shmorévaz. Documentation by Raphaël Massart – Courtesy of the artists and SYSTEMA
friday 30th aug.
2 – 9PM • PUBLIC OPENING
6PM • LAUNCH : MAY REVUE NO.22
with Catherine Chevalier, invited by OCT0
8PM • THE DEAD AND THE LIVING
performance by Elena Hizaar, invited by Buzzer Reeves
9PM – 2AM • OPENING AFTERPARTY
Artists: NEW YORK, Oli XL, Low Income $quad (Strahinja Arbutina), Suzy Clue
saturday 31st aug.
2 – 11PM • PUBLIC OPENING
7:30PM • WE DON’T LIVE HERE ANYMORE
Performance by Tarren Johnson
8:45PM • GLITCH CHOIR (SHORT VERSION)
Performance by Deva Schubert with Chihiro Araki
sunday 1st sep.
2 – 7PM • PUBLIC OPENING
5PM • NOUR BEN SAÏD
Reading, invited by Bologna.cc
6PM • MICHAËL VAN DEN ABEELE
Reading, invited by Buzzer Reeves
team
In 2024, SYSTEMA’s artistic comittee is composed by Won Jin Choi, Lucas Jacques-Witz, Myriam Mokdes and Ryder Morey-Weale.
SYSTEMA was founded in 2021 by Gufo (Sarah Chabrier and Anne-Xu Llanes), Giselle’s Books (Lucas Jacques-Witz and Ryder Morey-Weale) and Voiture 14 (Myriam Mokdes).
current
SYSTEMA is proud to introduce the Athens-based non-hierarchical and online art agenda CURRENT to Marseille’s public and users.
CURRENT is an online platform for the promotion of contemporary art. Its main objective is to inform users about local art scenes through a horizontal and inclusive approach. CURRENT has operated in Athens independently since 2017 and offers a freely accessible online database with information on spaces, artists, and curators that have exhibited.
acknowledgements
SYSTEMA would like to express gratitude to the team of IFAMM, particularly Beatrice Simonet and Garance Pichet. Our sincere thanks go to Pierre Oudart and everyone who contributed to the development of the project from its inception. We also extend our appreciation to the team of the Conservatoire Pierre Barbizet for their generous support during the planning of SYSTEMA. Additionally, we thank all the volunteers and interns who generously devote their time and love to the project, as well as the participating artists and projects.
volunteers
Alba Martinez, Ari Venzal, Charlotte Van de Walle,
Clément Le, Esther Holzer, Laurine Gandin,
Lea Sophia Mair.
credits
IMAGES Raphaël Massart
GRAPHIC EFFECTS Maria Savykine
partners
THE 2024 EDITION OF SYSTEMA WAS MADE POSSIBLE THANKS TO THE GENEROUS SUPPORT OF
Ministère de La Culture – Direction Régionale des Affaires Culturelles Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, Région Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, Département des Bouches-du-Rhône, Ville de Marseille, Conservatoire à Rayonnement Régional Pierre Barbizet, Institut de Formation Artistique Marseille Méditerranée, l’Institut National Supérieur d’Enseignement Artistique Marseille-Méditerranée, Fluxus Arts Projects
effe label
SYSTEMA received the European Festival Association Label EFFE 2024-2025
contact
GENERAL INQUIRIES INFO@SYSTEMA.PLUS
PRESS INQUIRIES RSVP@SYSTEMA.PLUS