In the past decade, we have witnessed a radical expansion of artistic practices, practice-based research, and artistic knowledge production in the public realm. The origins of this can be traced back to a fundamental shift in modern art that emerged from concepts such as Post Studio and feminist practices. In the early years of the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), artistic production took place in new locations and places and was strongly influenced by its emancipatory and progressive pedagogy.

Today, multiple boundary-dissolving and category-transcending tendencies are at the core of many artistic knowledge practices that take place in public space. This is also true for public programs geared towards collaborative artistic activities and performative events, interweaving sharing of knowledge, aesthetic experiences, and social networking.

Looking back at the early years of CalArts between 1970–77, this symposium asks: What is the specific impact of artistic activities or movements (such as feminism) when undertaken outside of educational or cultural institutions, such as urban space or the digital realm? Could the expansion of tacit knowledge practices and artistic research contribute to community building of diverse social groups, audiences, and interests, thereby making way for a democratization of discourse and knowledge? Finally, how could these art and knowledge-based processes of collaboration, expansion, and intervention have meaningful public impact in the global realm and for the future?

The symposium Tacit Knowledge. The Impact of Post Studio Concepts and Feminist Practices, CalArts 1970-77 is part of the perennial collaboration between the Freie Universität Berlin, the Kestner Gesellschaft, and metaLAB (at) Harvard, Harvard University, in the context of the research project Tacit Knowledge. Post Studio/Feminism – CalArts (1970–77). It concludes the exhibition Where Art Might Happen: The Early Years of CalArts, on show from August 30 until November 10, 2019, at the Kestner Gesellschaft, and from March 13 to June 7, 2020 at Kunsthaus Graz. The book Tacit Knowledge. Post Studio/Feminism – CalArts (1970–77), conceived and edited by Annette Jael Lehmann in collaboration with her master students and Verena Kittel from the Institut für Theaterwissenschaft, Freie Universität Berlin, accompanies the symposium and the exhibition.

Admission is free. Please register by October 1, 2019 (ve.kittel@fu-berlin.de)

 

PROGRAM

SCHLOSS HERRENHAUSEN, HANOVER

Registration / 9.30–10am

Welcome and Introduction / 10–10.30am

ANNETTE JAEL LEHMANN (Professor of Contemporary Art, Visual Culture, and Theater, Freie Universität Berlin)

CHRISTINA VÉGH (Director of Kestner Gesellschaft)

 

Panel 1: The Impact of Post Studio on Artistic Knowledge /

10.30am–1pm

#practice-based research #collaboration and community #democratization #artistic research and knowledge production #transdisciplinary entanglements #curatorial strategies #digitalization and knowledge design

Moderator:
BEATE SÖNTGEN (Professor of Art History, Leuphana University of Lüneburg)

Speakers:
KIM ALBRECHT (Researcher and Knowledge Designer, metaLAB (at) Harvard, Harvard University)
& JEFFREY SCHNAPP (Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures and Comparative Literature and Director of metaLAB (at) Harvard, Harvard University): Cartographies of “the Cultural Center of the New Age”

BENJAMIN MEYER-KRAHMER (Professor of Cultures of the Curatorial, Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig): Critique, the Curatorial, and Post Studio Art

MARKUS MIESSEN (Architect, Author, and Spatial Designer, Studio Miessen, Berlin, and Professor of Design, HDK – Academy of Design and Crafts, University of Gothenburg): Crossbenching as Post Studio (Spatial) Practice

Lunch Break / 1–2pm

Panel 2: The Impact of Feminism on Tacit Knowledge /

2–3.30pm

#reenactments and reception #urban contexts #radical education #politics and art movements #role of participants #knowledge and experience #transformation of public space

Moderator:
BEATE SÖNTGEN (Professor of Art History, Leuphana University of Lüneburg)

Speakers:

AMELIA JONES (Professor of Art and Design, University of Southern California): Between Kaprow and Chicago: Suzanne Lacy and the Conceptual Body

ULRIKE ROSENBACH (Artist and Professor Emerita of New Media in the Arts, Hochschule der Bildenden Künste Saar): Die Entwicklung feministisch beeinflusster Kunst der 1970er Jahre bis heute

Coffee Break / 3.30–4.30pm

Keynote Lecture / 4.30–5.30pm

Introduction:
VERENA KITTEL (PhD Student, Freie Universität Berlin)

WOLFGANG ULLRICH (Author and former Professor of Aesthetics, Art History, and Media Theory, Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design): Raus aus dem Atelier! Das Mobil-Werden von Künstler*innen und die Folgen für die Kunst

KESTNER GESELLSCHAFT, HANOVER

Performance / 6.30pm
Introduction:
CHRISTINA VÉGH (Director of Kestner Gesellschaft)

MATT MULLICAN (Artist and Professor of Art, HFBK University of Fine Arts Hamburg) presents a series of performances he has developed at CalArts: 1. Reading the Birth to Death List, 2. Colors in a Dark Room, 3. Lighting a Wall, 4. Entering a Picture, 5. Drawing my Family with my Finger