Series of public lectures

WORLD OF ART
School for Curators and Critics of Contemporary Art
Season 15
1st Year (October 2014–June 2015)


HOW CRITICAL IS THE CONDITION OF CRITICAL WRITING?
Series of public lectures

Critical reflection of curatorial practices and the complex relationship between theory and practice in the field of contemporary art are the constant problem fields of public lectures in the context of the World of Art, School for Curators and Critics of Contemporary Art.

With the 2015 World of Art educational programme, we are addressing changes that have taken place in artistic and, above all, critical writing. We will turn our focus onto the condition and status of contemporary critical writing in the field of art and culture. Our starting point is the notion that while art criticism is a vital part of the artistic ecosystem, without which art cannot fulfil its social or cultural function in the full sense, the crisis in art criticism today is nevertheless undeniable. Art criticism has all but disappeared from newspaper columns and the role of the art critic seems vague, robbed its (historic) relevance and overshadowed by the figure of the curator. At the same time, the Internet has allowed for the democratisation of cultural production – and so everyone who has access to it can have a voice, everyone can have a blog and everyone can be a critic.

Art criticism’s crisis of identity affects how we have come to think about its role and function. The goal of this series of public lectures and workshops is to examine and evaluate the nature of the crisis in art criticism and to identify what has changed and why, what are the present tasks of art critics and what new approaches could be suggested. To be able to do this, we need to review some of the cultural, economic, social and technological factors that have contributed to the current condition. The possible questions with which we will be dealing are: What are the (historical, etc.) conditions of the crisis in art criticism? What was additionally triggered by the rejection of judgment in art criticism that took place at the turn of 21st century? What is the relation between institutional critique and art criticism? How shall we think art criticism in the digital era and these times of social networking? What are the broader implications of the apparent obsolescence of art criticism in the present? How is this related to the condition and status of critical thought in general? Does the fact that art criticism is decaying mean that our historical moment is “post-critical”? Or is it that art criticism today has simply extended and shifted into the hands of different players – curators, art institutions, theoreticians, artists …?

2015

February Thursday,
February 5, 2015, at 6 pm,
Trubarjeva hiša literature
Boris Buden: Art and Critique in Curating the Past, lecture
Friday,
February 6, 2015, at 6 pm,
Trubarjeva hiša literature
Boris Buden: A conversation with Boris Buden upon the occasion of the Slovene translation of the Zone des Übergangs: Vom Ende des Postkommunismus.
March Thursday,
March 27, 2015,
at 6 pm, Project Room SCCA-Ljubljana
Lina Džuverović: Words Are People.* Text As Art And Art As Text
June Tuesday,
June 16, 2015, at 6 pm, Project Room SCCA-Ljubljana
Jelena Vesić: Critique in/or Crisis
September Friday,
September 4, 2015, at 6 pm, Project Room SCCA-Ljubljana
Jennifer Allen: The Work of Art Criticism in the Digital Era
Wednesday,
September 16, 2015, at 4 pm, Project Room SCCA-Ljubljana
Edit András: The Trajectory of Criticism in the Time of Post-Socialist Nationalism

In the series od lectures, which will be held in 2015, we are additionally announcing lecturer Jennifer Allen.

This programme is being prepared by World of Art / SCCA–Ljubljana and the Igor Zabel Association for Culture and Theory.

Svet umetnosti / World of Art    Igor Zabel Association for Culture and Theory

The programme is supported by the City of Ljubljana – Department for Culture and ERSTE Foundation.
Lecture of Jennifer Allen is supported by Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen e. V. Stuttgart.

City of Ljubljana – Department for Culture ERSTE Foundation


REFLECTIONS AND PREMISES IN CONTEMPORARY ART, ART THEORY AND ART HISTORY
Series of public lectures

The 2014 World of Art educational programme consists of a series of public lectures and workshops within which we were addressing the complex relations between theory and practice in the field of contemporary art. Together with invited guests, we have sharpened critical reflection on contemporary curatorial practices, deepened our knowledge about contemporary art theory and history and all that meets again and again with contemporary art practices.

2014

February Wednesday,
February 5, 2014,
at 6 pm, Project Room SCCA-Ljubljana
Suzana Milevska: The Troubled Relation Between Theory and Curatorial Practice
March Thursday,
March 13, 2014,
at 7 pm, Project Room SCCA-Ljubljana
Elke Krasny: Unplanned History – Writing It Down/Writing It Up as a Critical Curatorial Practice
April Tuesday,
April 15, 2014,
at 7 pm, Project Room SCCA-Ljubljana
Jayme McLellan: Different models of support for emerging art and artists in the U.S./D.C.
May Monday,
May 12, 2014,
at 7 pm, Project Room SCCA-Ljubljana
Paul O’Neill: Did Somebody Say Curating, Again? Recent Turns in Curatorial Practice
September Monday,
September 22, 2014,
at 6 pm, MSUM
Piotr Piotrowski: The Global NETwork. Approaching Comparative Art History
Klara Kemp-Welch: Continuity and Rupture / Networking and Collaboration from the 70s to the 00s

The programme is being prepared by World of Art / SCCA–Ljubljana and the Igor Zabel Association for Culture and Theory.

Svet umetnosti / World of Art    Igor Zabel Association for Culture and Theory

The programme is supported by: the City of Ljubljana – Department for Culture; ERSTE Foundation; the United States Embassy in Ljubljana.

Mestna občina Ljubljana – Oddelek za kulturo Erste sklad Veleposlaništvo Združenih držav Amerike v Ljubljani