Syllabus
Young girl-theory (Tiqqun)
Is Modernity our Antiquity (Documenta 12)
Art and speculative realism (Documenta 13)
Decoloniality (Documenta 11, 14, 15)
Gaming and Art
From institutional to Platform critique
Annotation
The course should provide and invite you to a tour of social and theoretical ecologies of contemporary Czech and International Art. That means that rather than using an art-historical, descriptive, artwork/artist-centered or chronological approach, we will try to keep track of their social and knowledge-based contexts.
Harvesting refers to a key concept of Documenta 15 (2022), where the community (viewers-artists-activist…) are invited to share resources not only by their appreciation (watching, listening …) but also by co-creation and active usage. In this way we will try not to worship the tradition, authoritative figures, groundbreaking exhibitions or genius ideas, but in the opposite direction, we will try to take part in the process we call contemporary art.
We will try to cover very tentative genealogy of 20th century art for the sake of grounding and than move to 21st century using feminism, modernism, postmodernism, semiotics, new media, post-media, psychoanalysis, poststructuralism, ecology, post-colonialism, post-capitalism, speculation, cosmotechnics, global south perspective, non-whitness, pop-culture, gaming, neomaterialism as respective.
Course is supposed to be as accessible as possible, nonetheless basic orientation in current art, basic writing experiences and engaged respectful approach will be needed. As a pre-semester preparation, try to form a perspective on this years Documenta 15, Venice and Berlin Biennales, or some Prague based exhibition.
Semester will be concluded by a paper that is intended not to examine your knowledge or skills, but in the opposite direction to motivate you to insert your ideas into larger context and get new experience with writing and exposure to art and thinking. Overall the course should expand your critical abilities and knowledge and help you in preparation for the final state exam.