Nicolaus Schafhausen

The present and disharmony

17–22 August 2020

Media
Curatorial theory and practice

Location
Hohensalzburg Fortress and Online

Teaching language
English (teacher also speaks German)

What to bring
Interest in a critical examination of contemporary art and curatorial practices

Requirements
None

Maximum number of participants
8 on site, 7 online

Co-teacher
Nils Emmerichs

Participation fee
€ 460.– (€ 380.–); online € 350.– (€ 300.–)

It has become a fixed narrative in cultural life, that we have to act politically.

It is interesting that this leaves a wide cross-section of our society unimpressed – which has become not only a socio-political but also an aesthetic problem. Is art even appropriate for political debates? Does art have to be scientifically or academically correct? What allegedly political art asserts is often not political reality, but fiction. We know this. Does art have to be moral today? Does everything have to be possible in art – is this still a valid category?

Do artists have any influence on world politics, and if so, what? When artists engage in political debate, do they not lose their alleged autonomy? In what moral categories must we as curators judge art production, when artists comment on world politics? Is it permissible for art to be in disharmony with reality?

For decades, contemporary art institutions claim art to be a "protected area". In my experience, we still find ourselves in an institutional discourse, arguing on the level of the 1990s. There are no longer any protected areas; it is a question of implementing far-reaching ideas.

Curators should not fall into the error of thinking that publications and exhibitions – which to some extent reflect our mental approaches – are the issues to be considered relevant by an abstract public. So should we observe more attentively society per se, embracing and learning from its historical narrative?

The basis of the social, political and aesthetic questions in the course is: how can we establish a model that ensures the essential achievement "freedom of art" now and in the future? We aim to develop intervention strategies and forms of communication which do not lead to the false belief that better arguments can bring about change, but which show that practice itself must change. For at present, we do not have the institutions (and perhaps not even the skills) that can represent the problems of the present day.

Besides the above-mentioned questions, the course will ask:
- Is it permissible to exhibit politically controversial art?
- Is there an iconography of memory?
- What could restructuring of work in the intellectual/artistic professions look like?
- What will be the function of curating in the coming years?
- Is the contemporary art world constantly producing new forms of forgetting?