Contemporary Art and the Practice of Theory and Artist Criticism

blended course

Some artists never speak about their work! Contemporary art and artist's practice of theory and critics.
Some artists never speak about their work, others could say very little but would take radical positions on political subjects, and some others are politically and socially engaged and also become real theoreticians, as is the case with the writings of Jeff Wall. But there are some artists that even if they don't say much about the work, organise other ways to theorise their artistic approach. Gerhard Richter's Atlas is a good example for this theoretical approach through images.

Should we presume, that even when we are confronted with the work of a silent artist, we are facing an object or an action that was generated not only through fantasy, talent, extravagance, but also according to a theoretical position? Is this only the case for those approaches in the so-called western modern culture, where shapes, forms and attitudes were grounded on a theory of the work? Do we belong our days to the same family of artists working with his or her senses and producing at the same time a theory, like Barnett Newman did in New York in the fifties and sixties of the last century? Are we still modern artists, or does the actual definition of contemporary artist signify a radical shift?
The question of the theory — a theory that is spoken out, but also a silent theory that is simply at work in the artist workshop — occupies a particular role in modern art. It is not an academic approach of the theory that can be explained to others and is produced in the purpose to be diffused or learned, artist theory is an internal construction necessary to the work itself, even than it is not visible or cannot be described as such. Artistic theory is grounded on an internal split of the artist. The artist behaves on one side as the singular subject that is at the origin of a singular work though intuition and fantasy, but he or she is at the same time an outstanding observer of the same singular work. The artist behaves in his or her workshop as the first viewer, the one who observes the produced work from a distance. This shift from an extreme subjective intuition to an observing outstanding position is grounded on what European modern culture has defined, at the end of the 18th Century after the radical change of the French Revolution, as a critical position. Friedrich Schiller, the German poet, affirms that critics can only exist as a character of a free individual. A man who is sensible, someone who is lost in his or her senses, but ends by producing a distance by splitting off his or her subjectivity in several dialectical positions. In Schiller's view, a critical free man is deeply involved as subject in the experience of the real, but is in the same time able to discuss his or her own subjectivity, not by analysing this very subjectivity, but by discussing the nature, the quality, the reasons of the object he or her is observing. Critics can be at work only in the presence of an object and this is what artists do every day in their workshop, when they stop doing and begin to step backwards to observe the produced thing as an object. It is this object that modern art names a shape: an object that puts the subject in capacity to exercise critics. To be critic means to be in capacity to produce a distance on a given object. Shapes are transformers, forms able to put us in an observing position, so that we can generate a discussion from several points of view, even when we are totally alone and silent.
But is this still the way we look at artworks? Can it be, that actual artworks don't behave as transformers, but as predetermined formats? Something simply given, that does not produce a distance and a critical position of the viewer?
The new approaches of what we call contemporary art could open up several questions. Is theory still necessary to produce art, or has theory abandoned this individual and singular place in the artist mind and in the viewer's eye? Can we still talk in terms of shape? Is art still producing objects if we can no more exercise a critical position upon them?

The five-day course will try to approach this notion of critical object from the point of view of the artist. Beginning with some examples and nourished by a confrontation with the reality of the social, historical and political condition in Pristina, the course aims to produce a collective discussion on a new understanding of this relation to critics, theory and creativity in contemporary art.

Course leader

Bernhard Rüdiger graduated from the Accademia di Belle Arti in Milan with Luciano Fabro and, after stints as a teacher in Tours and Valenciennes, he teaches in Lyon. His works confront visitors with a physical experience involving object, body and space.

Target group

This course is deisgned for BA and MA students, artists, architects and researchers of visual arts, humanities and social sciences, art history and curatorial studies, architecture and design, and anyone with a keen interest in the subject area.

Course aim

The five-day course will try to approach the notion of the critical object from the point of view of the artist. Beginning with some examples and nourished by a confrontation with the reality of the social, historical and political condition in Pristina, the course aims to produce a collective discussion on a new understanding of this relation to critics, theory and creativity in contemporary art.

Credits info

2 EC
At the conclusion of each course, registered participants will be issued a certificate stating their equivalency of The European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS) credits from Stacion - Center for Contemporary Art Prishtina, Kosovo and the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts de Lyon, France. An equivalency certificate is issued to registered participants who have demonstrated competencies to learning outcomes and associated workload certified with the equivalent ECTS credits of the curricula of the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts de Lyon, France. Employers, colleges and other postsecondary schools can choose to accept the equivalency certificate as a substitute of ECTS credits.

Fee info

EUR 300: The fee covers tuition, proceedings and certificates. This fee does not cover the cost of individually necessary materials, personal equipment, further excursions, accommodation or travel expenses. Final acceptance to the course will be confirmed only after we have confirmation of your payment in full. Bank transfer fees are to be covered by the registered participant.
EUR 30: Students who wish to obtain an ECTS certificate must pay an additional supplement to the registration fee, calculated as 10% of the annual fee, corresponding to the administrative treatment of the ECTS certificate established by the Ensba-Lyon. Only participants registered in a higher education institution, and who explicitly request it at the time of registration, will be able to validate ECTS credits in accordance with European regulations.

Scholarships

Scholarships are available for participants from Kosovo. A limited number of scholarships are available for international participants.