International Summer Academy of Fine Arts – Résumé

Press release

2019 Salzburg International Summer Academy of Fine Arts – résumé

22 July–31 August 2019

2019 course programme

After six weeks, this year’s Summer Academy is nearing its conclusion. Students and teachers alike have been enthusiastic about their stay. It is evident that the Global/Planetary Academy project is increasingly gaining substance, gradually permeating our entire programme. Besides Miniature Painting, which attracted a huge response and was once again taught by Imran Qureshi, we offered for the first time Hunting & collecting, a transdisciplinary course in the post-colonial field, for both artists and curators, directed by Sammy Baloji in collaboration with curator Lotte Arndt. Lotte Arndt also curated, together with Simone Rudolph, the exhibition Extractive Landscapes by Sammy Baloji, which deals with the traces left by history in landscapes and objects, taking the example of mining in his native region, the province of Katanga. It was presented in the Stadtgalerie Museumspavillon – the first solo exhibition by an artist from the Democratic Republic of Congo.

One theme that featured in several courses, including that of Sammy Baloji and Lotte Arndt, was magic, alchemy and ancient, non-rational knowledge systems, which evidently play a major role in contemporary art. They reflect society’s interest in these “non-western enlightened” knowledge systems, in an age when these are obviously failing – as for instance in the climate catastrophe. Paulina Olowska devoted her course to alchemistic painting as a starting-point for painting, and taught the fascinated students how to mix pigments with a variety of binding agents. This class also worked with animals (stuffed and live), human models, opera costumes, etc. Ei Arakawa and Sarah Chow combined conceptual art with magic, prepared moonlight essences and held astrology and tarot sessions, linking these with contemporary conceptual artistic strategies.

Particularly important this year was our first-ever collaboration with the International Summer Academy Mozarteum, in the joint course directed by Yorgos Sapountzis and composer Øyvind Torvund, which ended with a spectacular music performance.

2019 programme of events

The Global/Planetary Academy project continued with four lectures on a discursive level. The presentations dealt with models for future global (art) training (Mohammad Salemy), the art scene in Tiflis, Georgia (Irena Popiashvili), the scene in the Gulf region in a post-oil-production epoch (Rahel Aima) and the transnational history and networking of the Summer Academy (Simone Wille).

During the six weeks of the Summer Academy, seven Artist Talks were held in Galerie 5020 with the teachers, who offered insights into their work.

Three Town Walks, under the title Places of global lifestyle and activities, visited various communities in Salzburg – from the African community in the town, through the Salzburg Global Seminar, to places where the Rroma people congregate.

An important feature was the continued co-operation with the periscope project space, which housed a two-part exhibition with several Summer Academy co-teachers, curated by Simone Rudolph.

The Friday Open Days attracted many visitors, enabling them to gain insights into the work produced in the various courses.

Currently in Hohensalzburg Fortress: Ei Arakawa with Sarah Chow (Installation, Performance), Eli Cortiñas (Video), Svenja Deininger (Painting), Ciara Phillips (Screen-printing), Imran Qureshi (Miniature painting) and Nicolaus Schafhausen (Curating).

Facts and Figures

This year has seen 272 participants in 18 courses lasting between 1½ and 4 weeks, in Hohensalzburg Fortress, the Theater im KunstQuartier and the Kiefer quarry in Fürstenbrunn. Their average age was 37.4 years, and they came from 46 different countries. The average number of participants per course was around 15 (15.1), thus meeting exactly the goal of 15 per class. 6 courses were booked out. During the 6 weeks, a total of 29 public events were held, together with 3 co-operations: with the Salzburger Kunstverein, the periscopeproject space and the Stadtgalerie Museumspavillon, attracting a total of around 2,700 visitors.

Documentation

In daily blog entries, Hili Perlson, Nina Prader and Olamiju Fajemisin, writing for two weeks each, related their experiences and observations at the Summer Academy. They visited the classes, accompanied them on excursions and interviewed teachers and students: https://www.summeracademy.at/en/blog/

On the Summer Academy Facebook account is a photo-documentation of the classes and events, by Mira Turba: https://www.facebook.com/summeracademy.at/

Salzburg artist and film-maker Sina Moser documented the Global/Planetary Academy lectures, some of the Artist Talks and the music performance. Within the coming weeks, the videos will be uploaded for viewing on our YouTube channel under: https://www.youtube.com/user/SummerAcadOfFineArts

Further information and photo material is available from
Simone Rudolph
presse@summeracademy.at, +43 (0) 662 842 113

Press photos may be downloaded here.