Artist-in-Residence History
Artist-in-residence programmes have a history that stretches back much further than you may think. Due to its current popularity it seems that we are dealing with a new, fashionable phenomenon that owes its explosive growth solely the globalization of artists' nomadic behaviour. However, artist-in-residence programmes did not appear out of the blue.
The artist-in-residence phenomenon has been part of the international art world for over a century. However, there have always been artists with the travel urge, to search for other artistic communities and ways of thinking. The artists who stayed at home eagerly devoured the images, stories and ideas with which their wandering colleagues returned. Artists also travelled to broaden their networks and to increase their market by seeking new patrons and commissions.
1900: patronage and artists' colonies
The first wave of artist-in-residence programmes as we know them, arose around 1900. In the United Kingdom and the United States, art-loving benefactors regarded the offering of guest studios to individual artists as a new kind of romantic patronage. In the same period, artists themselves settled in the countryside and collectively tried to realize their artistic ideas. An example of the latter in Europe is the artists' colony at Worpswede, a small village near Bremen founded in 1889 by, amongst others, the artists Heinrich Vogeler and Rainer Maria Rilke. Worpswede soon managed to attract international attention to the extent that the village was even called 'Weltdorf' (world village). In 1971, the colony was given a new boost with the founding of the Künstlerhäuser Worpswede, which has grown into one of the most renowned international residential art centres.
1960: utopia and social interaction
A new wave of artist-in-residence programmes emerged in the 1960s, adding two new models to those already existing. One new model offered artists the opportunity to withdraw temporarily from a society that was considered bourgeois. They preferred to create their own utopia in seclusion. The other new model aimed for social action and attempted to involve the public: guest studios in villages and cities served as bases for social and political change. During the 1970s and 1980s, many new residency initiatives elaborated on this new tendency.
1990: globalization & diversity
In the 1990s, a third wave of new residency initiatives proliferated, no longer confined to the western world but spread all over the globe: from Brazil to Taiwan, from Estonia to Cameroon, from Japan to Vietnam. The diversity increased enormously. A strong grass-roots connection is characteristic of this new wave: the initiators not only wished to offer hospitality to artists but also to create alternative, locally based centres of knowledge and experience in the arts. Residential art centres, especially in non-western countries, function more and more as catalysts in the local contemporary art scene and have become indispensable for connecting the local scene with the global art world.
Now
Nowadays participation in a 'residency programme' has become a much-desired stage in many an artists career. Furthermore, the art world can no longer do without the artist-in-residence sector. Large funding organizations like Unesco-Aschberg, the Ford Foundation and many governments stimulate participation in residency programmes for idealistic reasons. Residential art centres organize themselves nationally and internationally to support each other and to represent their interests. Quality standards are rising and application procedures for artist-in-residence programmes are becoming more and more competitive. The variety in residency models has increased: nomadic projects, collaborative residencies, and inter-disciplinary workshops.
