April 23, 2019, 3 – 6 PM
Many thanks to the critic, curator & artist Andreas Schlaegel for his lecture about Where are we? How did we get here? introducing our participants to the topic Art & Criticism of the international BAI Spring Academy and providing a comprehensive insight into the evolution and creation of his interdisciplinary practice and projects. The event was part of the Studio Program at BAI | Berlin Artist Residency, Art School & Arts Incubator.
“Contemporary art really began as a movement to provoke and challenge,” he [Dan Gilroy] explained, “and it now has been completely co-opted by big money and business. And it’s a world that’s off its axis. It’s a world that’s in conflict with itself which, for me, is the perfect setting for a film—a world that has… inherent dramatic potential.” (artnet news)
“If a current superstar actor like Jake Gyllenhal is to play an art critic in what is scheduled a Hollywood blockbuster, the it is high time to re-examine the role of the art critic, in current practice in the contemporary landscape of the arts, as much as in its effects on the popular imagination. What is the role of the critic when this “world” is off its axis, how can we even operate in a cultural field when it is at conflict with itself? Let us attempt to map this world, its history, the dangers it faces and its potential, from Clement Geenberg, via the “Coffeetableization of everything” (Matias Faldbakken) to instagram-likes and meme culture. How can we get out of here? Or, better – how can we get in and effect change?” (Text by courtesy of Andreas Schlaegel)
Andreas Schlaegel (*1966 in Kinshasa, DRC) is a critic, curator and artist living in Berlin. Since the late nineties he has contributed hundreds of essays and critical writing to international art magazines such as Flash Art International (Milano), Frieze (Berlin/London), Billedkunst (Oslo), /100 (Berlin), Kunstkritikk (Kopenhagen), Spike (Berlin) and many others. He contributed essays to publications of prevalent art institutions, such as the UCLA Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; MUSAC, Leon; Aspen Museum, Colorado; Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt/Main; Thyssen Bornemisza Contemporary, Vienna; Kunsthalle Düsseldorf; Julia Stoschek Collection, Düsseldorf/Berlin, to name only a few.
His artistic practice overlaps with his writing, in focusing on developing collaborative formats, that oscillate between sculptural and performative interventions. It includes collaborations with other artists, as in »Come early, avoid disappointment« with Gelitin at TBA21 in Vienna and the Venice Biennial, 2011, »The Art of Conversation« with Paolo Chiasera and Matthew Antezzo, PSM Gallerie, Berlin, 2013, the »rhizome« network at HfbK Hamburg (since 2015), or »t=600« with Nine Budde, Bretz/Holliger and Melou Vanggaard at a celebration hall of the cemetery Lilienthalstraße, Berlin, 2018. This also includes music projects, as the Art Critics Orchestra (w. Raimar Stange, Oystein Aasan, Agnes Wegner, u.a.), or the duo Die!Landschaft with Manfred Peckl. Currently he teaches history and theory of photography and sculpture at HfG Offenbach and KHB Weissensee, where he is also founder and director of the Hochschulorchester.
