Welcome to the Exhibitions on Tour International Database (ETID), a website operated by the CARD association of curators and artists. Our association is dedicated to the organization of art projects. We were inspired to create this specialized informational website by our many years of experience in managing exhibition spaces and curating and producing exhibits, as well as our experience on the international exhibition scene.
Why the Exhibitions on Tour International Database
Unless an exhibition was created specifically as a traveling exhibition or involved several institutions that subsequently all show the exhibition in question, most exhibitions have a short life – with the only “extended run” being in the form of a catalogue. At the same time, an interesting possibility for many projects would be the option of offering them to other institutions, both at home and abroad. The idea behind creating and operating this database of quality exhibitions is not only to provide an opportunity for the exchange of ideas, opinions, and visions, but also to offer the possibility of financial benefits in the form of considerable savings in terms of the time and resources required for organizing an exhibition. Showing an exhibition at another institution – and especially in another country – can also provide your institution with new contacts and help to strengthen its reputation.
ETID’s role for your institution
ETID is an informational publications tool for a specialized circle of professionals involved in the production of art exhibitions. ETID offers a platform for finding suitable exhibitions for your exhibition schedule. We also offer exhibition producers the possibility of making information about their projects available to other institutions. ETID is neither a service mediator nor an agency. ETID provides you with a place for finding new exhibition partners. Our aim is to help young progressive exhibition spaces and organizations to grow and develop.
Maintaining a standard, but open to alternatives
One central principle of our website is that it must contain high-quality exhibitions organized by interesting institutions. Important criteria for exhibitions include their intellectual contribution, the vitality of the curator’s visions or his/her critical stance, and the care with which the project has been prepared. In searching out interesting projects, we address primarily progressive institutions with a long-standing exhibition programme. The size of the organising institution or exhibit size are not primary criteria in this process. We do not prescribe strict rules as to what kinds of projects may be submitted to our database, since we do not want a focus on labelling projects by style or genre to keep out projects of an experimental nature. Our research team does not want to (and cannot) be arbiters of taste by evaluating what is and what is not a quality art or exhibition concept. We do, however, verify the qualifications and professionalism of the institutions that register with our database.
Quality, but also continuity
Our aim is to create an environment that will be as open as possible. Browsing our database is free of charge for registered users. A submission fee is required only for submitting a project to the database; this fee allows us to operate the database without having to rely on unpredictable public funding sources. Our objective is to provide you not only with quality, but also with continuity.
Future developments
Our first supplementary service under preparation is an online system to help you receive estimates for the shipping and insurance costs related to sending your exhibitions on tour. This service can save you time during your production research. We are preparing this function in collaboration with international shipping companies meeting the highest standards of quality.
In the future, we plan to expand our service in terms of both quality and scope. You can help us in this area by sending us comments and ideas for improving our quality of services.
Never organized a touring exhibition, but are inspired by our website?
ETID is primarily intended for institutions with extensive experience in both loaning and hosting exhibitions. Nevertheless, we may be contacted by institutions that are just beginning to venture into the field of international cooperation. Be advised that sending an exhibition on tour is by no means as simple as it may seem at first glance. It requires long-term planning, familiarity with the local context and circumstances, a prior contractual guarantee that the works will be available, and a detailed loan agreement. Also bear in mind that the rental fee does not represent your profits – in all likelihood, you will use a large part of this income to cover your costs for sending the exhibition out on tour. If you are using our database for your first venture into offering an exhibition for touring, or if this is the first time you are planning to host a project prepared by another institution, then we recommend contacting us for advice. We will be more than glad to help you.
We wish you much success and hope you will find our database useful.
On behalf of the ETID team,
April 2010,
David Korecky, curator
co-founder and project director of ETID