Jay Chung & Q Takeki Maeda: Trends in Neo-Expressionist Yuppie Punk

Vortrag
Jay Chung & Q Takeki Maeda: Trends in Neo-Expressionist Yuppie Punk
Dienstag, 7. Juni 2016, 19 Uhr, Aula

This lecture will address a set of “classic” postmodern dilemmas and positions, and their potential relevance to artistic production and reception today. Texts from the 1980’s by Frederic Jameson, Yves Alain Bois, and Achille Bonito Oliva will be closely examined and compared to a curator’s essay published in a group exhibition catalog last year. The lecture will also cover writings by Kari Rittenbach and Roberto Bolaño.

Jay Chung and Q Takeki Maeda have recently exhibited their work at Roppongi Crossing 2016: My Body, Your Voice, Galerie Francesca Pia, Cabinet Gallery, and 356 Mission.

Der Vortrag findet in englischer Sprache statt.

Philippe Pirotte: The Grand Balcony

Vortrag Curatorial Studies
Philippe Pirotte: The Grand Balcony (Biennale de Montreal 2016)
Mittwoch, 8. Juni 2016, 19 Uhr, Aula

 For the exhibition The Grand Balcony the awareness of an artistic consciousness that creates ‘images’ which are materially compulsory in the present though suffused with historic resonance and in parley with the ‘information economy’s heightened dematerialization’ is paramount. Praxis of such images challenges the reproducibility of the (digital) image, decentralized authorship, and the development of attention as currency. Moreover it reframes questions around the physical exhibition space, imitation, tableau, and séance.

The Grand Balcony draws loosely on Jean Genet's Le Balcon, where the play’s high porch is a space of contestation between revolution and counter-revolution, reality and illusion. A recurring motif in Genet's writing, his balcony is a place of perverse acts where representation itself can be perversely troubled. It is a desiring apparatus and a theatrical space that articulates the complex relationship between inside and outside, up and down. The balcony is also subjected to a particular regime of visibility, a space where a person can dramatically stage herself, with power and vulnerability on display.

As a brothel, Genet's Grand Balcony presents a fiercely ironical microcosm of the power elite besieged by revolutionary forces at the gates. In turn, the exhibition The Grand Balcony enacts Genet’s concern with meta-theatricality and role-playing by unfolding experiences alongside “objects” that often refuse to reveal themselves as truths. Along with Genet, The Grand Balcony enlists the infamous Marquis de Sade, who adds the right to pleasure to the canon of human rights. His advocacy of pleasure uncovers the paradoxes of the bourgeois principle of formal equality as it exposes the fact that fantasy categorically resists universalization. Fantasy is the absolutely individual way in which someone structures her/his “impossible” relation to things.

In the tradition of both Genet and de Sade, Le Grand Balcon aims to be an exhibition - simultaneously playful and fatalistic - where things can go astray.

Philippe Pirotte *1972 is a Belgian art historian, critic, curator of numerous international exhibitions and director of Städelschule and Portikus since 2014. From 2005 – 2011, he was the director of the Kunsthalle Bern. Since 2005, Pirotte has been Senior Advisor of the Rijksakademie for Visual Arts in Amsterdam. In 2012, he became Adjunct Senior Curator at the UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive and in 1999 he co-founded objective exhibitions, a not-for-profit institution in Antwerp, Belgium.

Die Veranstaltung findet in englischer Sprache statt.

kitchen show #2

kitchen show #2
SOFT SHOULDERS / A Sonic Experiment
Mit Lan Cao, Clémentine Coupau, Gailė Griciūtė, Aki Kitajima, Melanie Matthieu, Thùy-Hân Nguyễn-Chí, Gregor Siedl
Samstag, 28. Mai 2016, 20 Uhr, Lichthalle

Cleaning the kitchen, counting the days
We seek out liminal space
to indulge in this dark lobate database
Polycentric ripples, schisms on repeat
like soft shoulders gentle on the feet
Ping-pong has become obsolete
Solo scrabble is the new trick or treat
Discontinuity
sleeps inside continuity
How to think radical uncertainty?
Tedium and tears nourish me, delicately consume me
The proliferation of C
C as in A plus B
A as in too much hyperlinks
B as a messy metabolism
equals lethargic magnetism

kitchen show #2 is part of the series of exhibitions and performances curated by Felix Bröcker, which is conceived in relation with the film kitchen at Städelschule.

Sponsored by Heinz und Gisela Friederichs Stiftung.

Haegue Yang: Quasi

Vortrag
Haegue Yang: Quasi
Dienstag, 31. Mai 2016, 19 Uhr, Aula

Haegue Yang (1971, Seoul) will talk about her recent exhibitions and projects. She is equally interested in how the formal and conceptual, as well as the narrative language in art, form an irresistible paradox in contemplating and reflecting the conflicts of our time and circumstances. Considering the ever-developing communications technology and its overwhelming possibility, amidst our increasing curiosity on civilization and questions on the status of human beings within it, mute abstraction is nothing but a lingering voice, murmuring an “absence of identity.”

Exhibitions as of late include Shooting the Elephant 象 Thinking the Elephant, Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul (2015), Come Shower or Shine, It Is Equally Blissful, Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing (2015), An Opaque Wind, Sharjah Biennial (2015), Quasi-Pagan Minimal, Greene Naftali, New York (2016), and Quasi-Pagan Serial, Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg (2016).

More information is available at www.heikejung.de and on vimeo.

Der Vortrag findet in englischer Sprache statt.

Sylvère Lotringer: Antonin Artaud, “The Man Who Disappeared”

 ***abgesagt (wegen Bahnstreik in Paris) ***

Vortrag
Sylvère Lotringer: Antonin Artaud, “The Man Who Disappeared”
Mittwoch, 1. Juni 2016, 19 Uhr, Aula

Sylvère Lotringer is a literary critic and cultural theorist. He is founder and co-editor of Semiotext(e) and is a professor of Twentieth-Century French literature and philosophy at Columbia University.

He will be discussing his newest project, “The Man Who Disappeared”, a film on one of his lifelong obsessions, the poet Antonin Artaud.

The lecture will be preceded by a special screening of "The Man Who Disappeared" (2015, 45 min), at 18:00 in room I7.

Der Vortrag findet in englischer Sprache statt.

***abgesagt (wegen Bahnstreik in Paris) ***

V. Vale & Marian Wallace: Search & Destroy, Punk publishing and how to DIY

Vortrag
V. Vale & Marian Wallace
Mittwoch, 18. Mai 2016, 19 Uhr, Aula

In 1977 V. Vale founded Search & Destroy, San Francisco’s first punk publication. In 1980 he launched RE/Search Publications, a publishing house that has helped bring artists from the underground to light, such as William S. Burroughs, J.G. Ballard, Genesis P-Orridge, SPK and Monte Cazazza. Along with Marian Wallace, an experimental filmmaker, V. Vale tours the world sharing an impressive history of counter-culture and rich collection of material amassed over the years.

They will give an illustrated talk on Vale’s Punk past and how to start a radical DIY publishing venture.

Der Vortrag findet in englischer Sprache statt.

Kader Attia & Gerhard Kubik

MMK Talks 

Kader Attia & Gerhard Kubik
Dienstag, 10. Mai 2016, 19 Uhr, MMK 1, Domstraße 10, Frankfurt am Main

Der Künstler Kader Attia zählt spätestens seit seiner aufsehenerregenden Präsentation auf der documenta 13 zu den international viel beachteten Künstlern seiner Generation. Er erforscht die Auswirkungen der kulturellen Hegemonie des Westens auf nicht-westliche Kulturen vor dem Hintergrund unserer globalisierten Gegenwart. Zentral ist dabei das Konzept der „Reparatur“, das er seit vielen Jahren erforscht. Der Talk findet im Rahmen seiner umfassenden Einzelausstellung Sacrifice and Harmony im MMK statt.

Im Gespräch mit:
Gerhard Kubik ist ein österreichischer Musikethnologe und Ethnologe. In seiner Forschung widmet er sich insbesondere der Musik, dem Tanz, dem Totemismus, der oralen Tradition und kulturellen Erziehung in Afrika und in afrikanisch beeinflussten Kulturen Venezuelas und Brasiliens. Kubik zählt zu den international renommierten Größen im Bereich intrakultureller afrikanischer Kulturforschung.

MMK Talks 2016: Art & Politics
Bei der sechsten Ausgabe der Veranstaltungsreihe MMK Talks liegt der Schwerpunkt auf der Beziehung zwischen Kunst, Gesellschaft und Politik. Angesichts der tiefgreifenden und existenziellen Veränderungen in Zeiten der globalen Krise sieht sich auch die zeitgenössische Kunst- und Ausstellungspraxis mit neuen Herausforderungen konfrontiert.
Künstler und Ausstellungsmacher sind dazu eingeladen, mit einem Gesprächspartner ihrer Wahl über die Rolle der Kunst in Zeiten gravierender Transformationsprozesse zu sprechen.

Das Gespräch findet in englischer Sprache statt. 

kitchen show #1

Ausstellungseröffnung

kitchen show #1: Viviana Abelson, Amy Ball, Lars Karl Becker, Stefan Cantante, Ella CB, Marcello Spada, Alexander Tillegreen und „WATER COOLER WODKA BAR“ von Franz Hempel

Dienstag, 3. Mai 2016, 20 Uhr, Filmküche

In der Ausstellung kitchen show #1 werden die Werke von sechs Künstler*innen der Städelschule aus den Studios in die Küche gebracht. Viviana Abelson, Amy Ball, Lars Karl Becker, Stefan Cantante, Ella CB und Alexander Tillegreen eignen sich den Alltagsort durch ihre Skulpturen, Fotografien und performativen Interventionen an. Wie beim Kochen spielen neben den visuellen Eindrücken auch Duft und Klang eine Rolle. Die fragile Grenze zwischen Kunst und Alltag wird von den Künstler*innen kommentiert und wie selbstverständlich überschritten. Dem Betrachter offenbart sich die Kunst dabei manchmal erst auf den zweiten Blick.

In der Städelschule in Frankfurt liegen Atelier und Küche nicht nur räumlich nah beieinander. Kochen hat dort eine lange Tradition, seit die Filmküche 1980 für Peter Kubelka im Rahmen seiner Lehrtätigkeit eingerichtet wurde. Initiiert wurde die Ausstellung von Felix Bröcker, Student der Curatorial Studies an der Städelschule und ausgebildeter Koch. Er führte in der Filmküche, bereits in den vergangenen zwei Jahren Veranstaltungen und Kochabende durch. kitchen show #1 ist der Auftakt einer Reihe von Ausstellungen und Performances, die in der Küche statt finden wird.

 

Ausstellungsdauer: 3. Mai – 5. Mai 2016, von 15 – 17 Uhr geöffnet

Gefördert durch die Heinz und Gisela Friederichs Stiftung

Clarie Denis

Vortrag

Clarie Denis

Dienstag, 3. Mai 2016, 19 Uhr, Aula

Claire Denis is a French director, scriptwriter and professor at La Fémis in Paris. Her films address issues of subjectivity and desire, sexual transgression, violence, and post-colonialism from both the perspective of the colonized and the colonizing. Her works have been described as dream-like and enigmatic and she is known for her interest in formal exploration and and experimental style. Films of her include: Chocolat (1988), J’ai pas sommeil (1994), Bon Travail (1990), Trouble Every Day (2001), and White Material (2009). She is currently collaborating on a science-fiction project with writer Zadie Smith. Denis will be discussing her work.

Der Vortrag findet in englischer Sprache statt.

Antek Walczak: ARTISTS’ COLLECTION

Vortrag
Antek Walczak: ARTISTS’ COLLECTION
Mittwoch, 27. April 2016, 19 Uhr, Aula

Compared to a “normal” network based on a few centralized access points, mesh networks connect directly to each other by forming and operating nodes to share and contribute resources without passing through any central authority or centralized organization. As an increasingly popular way to rethink our unilateral dependency on systems governed by top-down regulation and control, meshwork autonomy provides a bottom-up perspective on the social impact of peers (or individuals as users of infrastructure) who self-organize into communities. The barriers to this are numerous, not only in terms of complexity of set up and maintenance, but most immediately in the political and power struggles around confronting an establishment which, whether nefariously or simply because of structural circumstances, seems committed to ideological biases promoting exclusion. Deploying itself on an ad hoc basis, this talk will work through the rationale of art-collecting as a domain exclusive to institutional and financial elites in order to consider community-based network structures that promote democratic access.

Antek Walczak is a New York-based artist. His work spans text-based art, visual poetry, painting, film, information theory and radical politics. He has contributed writing to several art magazines. Walczak was a founding member of Bernadette Corporation.

Der Vortrag findet in englischer Sprache statt.

Shahryar Nashat

Vortrag
Shahryar Nashat
Mittwoch, 20. April 2016, 19 Uhr, Aula

Within his artistic practice, Swiss artist Shahryar Nashat (*1975, lives and works in Berlin) uses means and ways to steer or interrupt the contemplative gaze, thereby directing the focus on the unheeded, the unsolicited. To achieve this, the artist resorts to various media such as video, photography and sculpture. Shahryar Nashat is a guest professor at Städelschule since winter semester 2015.

Der Vortrag findet in englischer Sprache statt.
Am Freitag, 22. April, 20 Uhr, eröffnet im Portikus die Ausstellung Shahryar Nashat: Model Malady.



Ausstellungseröffnung
Shahryar Nashat: Model Malady
Freitag, 22. April 2016, 20 Uhr, Portikus

Ausstellungsdauer: 23. April – 19. Juni 2016

english text

Der Portikus freut sich, die Ausstellung Model Malady des Schweizer Künstlers Shahryar Nashat (*1975, lebt und arbeitet in Berlin) anzukündigen. In seiner Arbeit zielt Nashat darauf ab, den Blick des Betrachters zu lenken oder zu unterbrechen und legt dabei einen Fokus auf das Unbeachtete oder Ungebetene. Dabei bedient sich der Künstler unterschiedlicher Medien wie Video, Fotografie und Skulptur.

Seine Ausstellung Model Malady im Portikus präsentiert zwei neue Werke: Present Sore (2016) und Chômage Technique (2016).

Die Videoarbeit Present Sore kann als fragmentiertes Portrait eines Körpers des 21. Jahrhunderts gelesen werden, welcher durch organische und künstliche Substanzen vermittelt wird. Entstanden für den Portikus und das Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, wird die Arbeit für kurze Zeit auf dem Walker Online Kanal gezeigt, um nun als Installation in Frankfurt präsentiert zu werden. In Present Sore wird der menschliche Körper nicht als Ganzes, sondern nur im Detail dargestellt, zum Beispiel durch eine Nahaufnahme des Knies oder der Hand. Der Fokus liegt auf diesen Fragmenten, die als sich mechanisch bewegende „Teile“ des Körpers gezeigt und so auf ihre Funktion als Werkzeuge reduziert werden.

Chômage Technique ist eine neue Skulpturengruppe, die Nashat für den Portikus und seine kommende Ausstellung im Walker Art Center geschaffen hat. Sie besteht aus Sockeln, die auf speziell für sie gestalteten Metallstrukturen „relaxen“, so der Künstler. Ihrer Funktion enthoben, müssen diese nun obsoleten Objekte keine Kunstwerke oder Körper mehr tragen. Auf diese Weise symbolisieren die Sockel freigestellte Arbeiter, die in der ersten Reihe sitzen und sich entspannen, während sie in Present Sore eine digitale Beschreibung jener Körper sehen, die sie früher hätten tragen müssen.

Die Ausstellung wird unterstützt von Pro Helvetia, Schweizer Kulturstiftung. 

Lucy McKenzie

Ringvorlesung Institut für Kunstkritik:
Do it yourself. Deskilling and Reskilling in the Digital Techno Age

Sommersemester 2016:

Lucy McKenzie (12. April)
Benjamin Buchloh (22. Juni)
Beatrice von Bismarck (23. Juni)
Julia Gelshorn (12. Juli)

This lecture-series (conceptualized by Isabelle Graw) revolves around the question of artistic skills in a digital world. What do they actually consist of? While it always mattered how an artist performs herself since the Modern Age, it seems that the „Auftritt des Künstlers“ (Beatrice von Bismarck), namely, her public staging of herself, has become increasingly important in a Media Society. Has the modeling of her „personality“ turned into a skill that is required from her? Or should one rather argue that artistic practices still represent other competences, attitudes and ways of life that question the ideal of an entrepreneurial self? What have traditional skills been replaced by?
It seems that the deskilling of the arts that is usually associated with the „Duchamp-effect“ and post war practices allowed for a reskilling that is currently quite popular in the artworld. Is it a historical necessity that deskilling entails reskilling? Historically speaking, „deskilling“ was a male privilege in the 1950´s and 1960´s. Many male artists opted for anti-subjective aleatory procedures that rejected skills, whereas women artists practiced another form of deskilling in the 1970´s by reintroducing formerly devaluated, „female skills“ into their work. Could one argue, at least in retrospect, that it is precisely these lower or soft skills associated with the sphere of reproduction that are have risen to the status of a valuable resource in our New Economy?


Vortrag
Lucy McKenzie: Civilised Woman: skill, image and agency in the 1920s and the present.
Dienstag, 12. April 2016, 19 Uhr, Aula

Lucy McKenzie is a Scottish-born, Belgium-based artist, whose work could formally be described as collaborative and interdisciplinary. Crudely formulated, the artist is interested in how to learn, un-learn and extend structures. Recurring undercurrents in McKenzie's practice can thus be recognized as appropriation, self-appropriation and mastery of craft, manifested through trompe 'oeil paintings, mystery writing, interior and fashion design.
McKenzie (*1977, Glasgow) graduated from Duncan of Jordanstone School of Art & Design in Dundee in 1999. From 2007 to 2008 she studied decorative painting at Van Der Kelen Logelain in Brussels. She formed the interior design company Atelier E.B. with Edinburgh-based designer Beca Lipscombe and illustrator Bernie Reid. Solo shows have been held at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2013), the Museum of Modern Art, New York (2008) and the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven (2004). McKenzie was a guest professor at the Düsseldorf Kunstakademie in 2011–13.

Der Vortrag findet in englischer Sprache statt.

DIS: Disillusioned

Vortrag
DIS: Disillusioned
Freitag, 12. Februar 2016, 14 Uhr , Aula

The DNA of the DIS vision is a total dis-orientation of what separates high from low, mainstream from marginal, and most importantly culture from commerce. Accomplices in the deterioration of boundaries and distinct categories of creative production, DIS aims for a truly horizontal exploration of fashion, art, culture, entertainment, lifestyle, and technology. DIS will give an overview of it's sprawling and promiscuous practice as well as insight into what the 9th Berlin Biennale may or may not be.

DIS is a New York-based collective composed of Lauren Boyle, Solomon Chase, Marco Roso and David Toro. Its cultural interventions are manifest across a range of media and platforms, from site-specific museum and gallery exhibitions to ongoing online projects. Most notably these include, DIS Magazine, a virtual platform that examines art, fashion, music and culture, constructing and supporting new creative practices. Since being founded, the magazine has expanded into an international community of writers, photographers, musicians and DJs. Recent ventures include DISimages, 2013, a fully operational stock photography agency that enlists artists to produce images available for private and commercial use, DISown, an ongoing concept store featuring products created by over 30 artists.

The collective was recently a part of the New Museum Triennial “Surround Audience” curated by Lauren Cornell and Ryan Trecartin, and participated in the group exhibition Co-Workers, at the Musée Moderne de la Ville de Paris, and the new photography show at the Museum of Modern Art, New York (2015) and is curating the 9th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art (2016).

Die Veranstaltung findet in englischer Sprache statt.

Eileen Myles: Poems, art writing, dog writing

Vortrag
Eileen Myles: Poems, art writing, dog writing
Mittwoch, 3. Februar 2016, 19 Uhr, Aula

Eileen Myles is increasingly a famous television poet, her upcoming book is Afterglow (a memoir) which is a fantastic hagiography of her late pitbull, Rosie. Also she has most recently written about the work of Shannon Ebner & will perhaps read a speck from that.

Eileen Myles is the author of nineteen books including I Must Be Living Twice: New & Selected Poems, and a reissue of Chelsea Girls, both out in fall 2015, from Ecco/Harper Collins. Myles is having a bang up year in response to their new publications, being profiled in every major American newspaper and outlet, four times alone in the New York Times. They are the recipient of many grants and awards including a Guggenheim Fellowship in non-fiction, an Andy Warhol/Creative Capital art writers' grant, a Creative Capital new forms nonfiction prize, four Lambda Book Awards, the Shelley Prize from The Poetry Society of America; their Inferno was named to the Slate/Whiting novel list and in 2015 they received the Clark Prize for excellence in art writing. They live in Marfa TX and New York.

Der Vortrag findet in englischer Sprache statt.

Lawrence Abu Hamdan: A Politics of Listening

Vortrag
Lawrence Abu Hamdan: A Politics of Listening
Dienstag, 2. Februar 2016, 19 Uhr, Aula

Since 2010 Lawrence Abu Hamdan’s Aural Contract has been dedicated to understanding the role of voice in law and the changing nature of testimony in the face of new regimes of border control, algorithmic technologies, medical sciences, and modes of surveillance. These projects have taken the form of audiovisual installations, performances, graphic works, photography, Islamic sermons, cassette tape compositions, texts, forensic audio analysis, advocacy, expert testimony and, most recently, potato chip packets.  In this talk he will present a body of work that attempts to define a politics of listening, that moves away from classic notions of advocacy and of giving people a voice. A politics of listening that does not simply seek to amplify voices but attempt to redefine what constitutes speech itself.

Lawrence Abu Hamdan is a visual artist and private ear with a background in DIY music. He has had solo exhibtions at Kunsthalle St Gallen, Beirut in Cairo, Casco Utrecht and The Showroom, London. Abu Hamdan was the Armory Show commissioned Artist of 2015 and has exhibited and performed at venues such as The New Museum, Van AbbeMuseum, The Shanghai Biennial (2014), The Whitechapel Gallery, MACBA, Tate Modern, M HKA and The Taipei Biennial (2012).  In 2013 Abu Hamdan’s audio documentary The Freedom of Speech Itself was submitted as evidence at the UK asylum tribunal where the artist himself was called to testify as an expert witness. He continues to make sonic analyses for legal investigations and advocacy - most recently his audio analysis was prominently part the No More Forgotten Lives campaign for Defence for Children International. His writing can be found in Forensis Sternberg press, Manifesta Journal and Cabinet Magazine.

Der Vortrag findet in englischer Sprache statt.

Lily van der Stokker

Vortrag
Lily van der Stokker: Decent, tidy, kissy
Donnerstag, 28. Januar 2016, 19 Uhr, Aula

Lily van der Stokker is a Dutch artist based in Amsterdam and New York. Her bold, colourful works most often take the form of large-scale decorative wall drawings, and have a child-like innocence and an adolescent naivety. They deal, in a disarmingly unashamed and exuberant way, with ideas of beauty, love, relationships, family and the everyday. Despite, or perhaps because of, their apparent simplicity, van der Stokker’s works are often challenging and she has come to be seen as an increasingly important artist in the growing discourse of post-feminist practice.

Her feminism resides in her awareness that, as she put it, “There’s no such thing as gender-neutral art.” And she insists that we recognize these ingrained biases through her bold approach to form and content, producing work that she knows will be judged by some as “girlie” and thus lacking in seriousness, intellect, and rigor. With her adeptness at luring viewers with captivating (and seemingly innocuous) hand-painted illustrations, humorous texts, and sheer scale and then surprising them with content that is remarkably honest—by turns subversively friendly or bitingly critical and addressing such fraught subjects as power dynamics, social marginalization, or even the machinations of the art world—she has smartly aligned herself with the enduring and boundary-pushing strategies of satire, parody, and caricature.

Born in 1954, she received her education in the Netherlands whereafter she moved to New York in 1983. Her work found prominence in the early 1990s as she began exhibiting in exhibitions and institutions across the world including the Pompidou Centre, Paris, Van Abbe Museum, Eindhoven and Walker Art Centre, Minneapolis.

Der Vortrag findet in englischer Sprache statt.

Mirco Becker

Vortrag Architektur Klasse
Mirco Becker: Quantitative Aesthetics
Donnerstag, 14. Januar 2016, 19 Uhr, Aula

The lecture introduces the first steps into a new research endeavor initiated in SAC’s specialisation, Architecture and Performative Design. The research commenced with the project, Digital Bodies, in 2014. It aims to embrace aesthetics as an additional performative criteria in computational architectural design. For too long the architectural digital design community at large have assumed that the inherent algorithmic order yields aesthetic value.

The research is rooted in the work Gustav Theodor Fechner, who laid the foundations for an inductive aesthetic perspective by empiric experimental research, Vorschule der Ästhetik (1876). In 1933 George D. Birkhoff first proposed a quantifiable aesthetic value for simple shapes. Today we start to see the concept of Visual Complexity finding its way into the discourse on aesthetics. It focuses on larger compositions of elements using a computational approach.

The ongoing research seeks to extend Visual Complexity to a spatial architectural settings. The lecture lays out the foundations for a Quantitative Aesthetics and discusses possible applications in the context of Architecture and Performative Design and beyond.

Der Vortrag findet in englischer Sprache statt

Dora García

Vortrag

Dora García: Where do characters go when the story is over? On books and performance: Charles Filch, William Holden and Army of Love.
Dienstag, 12. Januar 2016, 19 Uhr, Aula

Although unable to find the exact quote now, I remember as a young artist being impressed on the following statement by William S. Burroughs: "Contemporary art is so much ahead of literature. We are still stuck on dialogue and character. But if we could follow the path of contemporary art, then novels would happen in real life". I decided to stick to that idea, and since the year 2000 I have made performances that are short stories, Lehrstücke, psychological and science fiction novels. There are characters appearing, disappearing and reappearing through them, thickening of plots, metamorphoses, and new and unexpected characters and plot turns. Sometimes it seems like a HBO TV series.

Dora García (born in Valladolid, Spain, 1965) lives and works in Barcelona and Oslo. She currently teaches at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts, Norway, and HEAD, Geneva. She is Co-Director for Les Laboratoires d’Aubervilliers, Paris. Her work is largely performative and deals with issues related to community and individuality in contemporary society, exploring the political potential of marginal positions and paying homage to eccentric characters and anti-heroes. She has exhibited her work at numerous international events such as the 54th, 55th and 56th Venice Biennale (2011, 2013 and 2015), documenta 12, the 29th São Paulo Biennale (2010), the 16th Sydney Biennale (2008) and Münster Sculpture Projects (2007).

Der Vortrag findet in englischer Sprache statt.

Antony Hegarty: I Want to Help

Vortrag
Antony Hegarty: I Want to Help
Freitag, 4. Dezember 2015, 19 Uhr, Aula

Antony Hegarty is a singer, composer, and visual artist. Antony was born in England in 1971 and 18 years later moved to New York where she started a performance art collective called Blacklips. A few years later she founded the band Antony and the Johnsons, the project she is most known for. Antony also exibits internationally as a visual artist. Most recently she had a solo show in 2014 at Sikkemma Jenkins gallery in NYC. Currently Antony is preparing for a show at the Kunsthall Bielefeld which will open in July 2016.

Where am I? What am i doing? What is my relationship to history? What is my relationship to the world today? To the natural world, to the media, to society, to capitalism and to biodiversity? What are my responsibilities, if i have any, as an artist? Do I want to participate? What do I hope to achieve by participating? What about my well being? What is truly me and what is just a reaction to my brokenness? Is that a useful distinction? Am I being self-loathing, or am I just being Honest? How are my financial goals affecting my dreams and my behavior? What is my relationship to capitalism? What is my relationship to ecocide? What is my relationship to violence against women? What are the parameters of my sphere Of influence? If I choose to be an artist, what do i imagine my job to be?

Der Vortrag findet in englischer Sprache statt.

Keith Connolly und Tom Thayer: LEAVING TOMORROW BEHIND

Vortrag
Keith Connolly und Tom Thayer: LEAVING TOMORROW BEHIND
Donnerstag, 3. Dezember 2015, 19 Uhr, Aula

Keith Connolly und Tom Thayer are New York / New Jersey based artists working in sound and performance.

The talk will be about the assembling of the forthcoming album IT´S HOUSE, via some influences and history, the ideas of apprehension, imprinting, acousmata, the patina of media as memory, etc.

Der Vortrag findet in englischer Sprache statt.