Abstract

Transmission: Host is a series of chapbooks derived from an annual lecture series organised by Fine Art at Sheffield Hallam University. Each week a different artist invites a guest speaker. The host selects, presents, and looks after his or her guest. A critical engagement between host and guest is assumed; what exactly that relationship is will be made evident through discussion. There is an ethics of hospitality, of making the stranger welcome. A host has a standard of conduct, and historically, hospitality has been seen as a code, a duty, a virtue, and a law. There is a bond between host and guest, and in the lecture series and the subsequent chapbooks, this bond is formed by the engagement in and the practice of art.

This chapbook is an edited version of an exchange between Jeanine Griffin and Jan Verwoert using the Transmission theme of ‘Host’ as a means through which to reflect on the idea of hospitality in relation to the development of the Art Sheffield 08 city-wide exhibition. Jeanine Griffin is a curator at Site Gallery and Manager of Sheffield Contemporary Art Forum and of the artistic programme of the Art Sheffield city-wide events. Jan Verwoert is an art critic based in Berlin and a contributing editor for frieze magazine. They worked together closely on the programme for ‘Art Sheffield 08: Yes No & Other Options’ for which Jan Verwoert was the invited commentator/co-curator, and collaborated with SCAF to develop the programme. The city-wide exhibition explored the proposition of exhaustion and over-performance in our contemporary post-industrial service culture.