Sieht man die Ausstellungen als einen Ort, an dem etwas physisch erfahrbar gemacht wird, dann ermöglicht dieser dem Besucher im Idealfall eine Auseinandersetzung, die über die künstlerische Arbeit und die kuratorische Position hinausweist. Wie lässt sich das Ausstellen im Raum als Übersetzung von künstlerischen Praktiken in kuratorische Praktiken erfassen und welche Möglichkeiten und Hindernisse bietet dabei das Display oder die ausstellungsarchitektonische Intervention, um eine kuratorische Position zu unterstützen, zu dämpfen oder zu konterkarieren? Ausgehend vom Gedanken, dass jede Übersetzung neben einer dienenden, funktionalen Umsetzung auch neue Setzungen und somit unabdingbar Missverständnisse, Verfälschungen, Ungenauigkeiten und Unschärfen entwickelt, produziert die Realisation im Raum häufig eine neue auktoriale Position: Wie kann die räumliche Übersetzung eine kuratorische Konzeption ebenso erweitern wie der Kurator die Arbeit eines Künstlers kontextualisiert?

If one sees the exhibition as a place where something is made 
physically tangible, then this allows the visitor in the ideal case to 
find a confrontation that goes beyond the artistic work and the 
curatorial position. How can the exhibiting in a space be seen as a 
translation of artistic into curatorial practices? Which opportunities 
and obstacles provides the display or the architectural intervention 
of an exhibition to support a curatorial position and to dampen or 
counteract it? Starting from the idea that any translation in addition 
to serving, functional implementations also develops a new setting and thus induces essential misunderstandings, distortions, inaccuracies and 
uncertainties, the realization in space often produces a new authorial 
position: How can the spatial translation extend a curatorial concept comparable to the impact of the curator who contextualizes the work of an artist?

Salon Populaire, 11th-25th April 2012

April 11, Wednesday: 8-10 pm Introduction

April 14, Saturday: 2-4 pm (theory), and 5-7 pm (spatial workshop)

Antonin Artaud, The Theatre and its Double

Based on Artaud’s ‘Theatre of Cruelty’, this two week long project questions how appropriate the concept of ‘cruelty’ is in relation to the museum as an institution. Taking the form of a multidisciplinary experiment, established forms of transferring knowledge and academic teaching will be combined with experiential methods of museum presentation so as to critically question and expose the visible and invisible laws of the museum with regard to its practice of presentation and reception.

In order to do this, two parallel movements, with moments of intersection, will be followed:  In the Salon, we will develop a proposal for a ‘Museum of Cruelty’ based on the collective reading of a lecture by Jacques Derrida (on the occasion of a retrospective of paintings and drawings by Antonin Artaud in the New York Museum of Modern Art (1996)).  This text – titled Artaud Moma – will be the starting, and reference, point of the discussion.  Derrida questions not only the function of the Museum today, but also examines the role of artists and artworks as well as exhibition organisers and the general public. As a result, he develops the beginnings for a new understanding of the social place of the museum.

At the same time, and through collaboration with the participants, various different spatial transformations of the adjoining exhibition spaces will be developed that will consider the questions of the visual, spatial and aesthetic conditions of exhibiting, touched on in the text/seminar, in a practical and visual way.  The exhibits will start by examining the debates surrounding Antonin Artaud’s work, but will soon transcend them to draw on subjects that Derrida, by means of Artaud, transfers to a contemporary context. The exhibits thus bring artistic works, mundane objects and texts into a dialogue with Artaud and Derrida.

The exhibition space will be used as an experimental laboratory, in order to collectively create constellations of objects and works that, throughout the duration of the project, will intensify and mount to an exhibition. In this way the exhibition seminar will show the relationship between exhibition objects (art and non-art objects) and their present time, the correlation between disciplinary boundaries and viewing habits, and between culture and spatial perception – and how they can set thoughts into motion. Here, Artaud’s term of ‘cruelty’ unfolds its meaning as the destroyer of clear differences between, for instance, positive transfers of knowledge and aesthetic-emotional aspects of the reception of art.

The reading part of the project is open to everyone, but pre-registration is necessary.  The developing exhibition will be open and free to the public for the total duration of the project.  A concluding finissage is planned for the 25^th April where the content will summarised and discussed.

(Translated from German by Cleo Walker)

————–

Museum der Grausamkeit. Ein Ausstellungs-Seminar zur Identität des Museums

Von Ellen Blumenstein und Daniel Tyradellis
Salon Populaire, 11.-25. April 2012

Die Termine bauen aufeinander auf, sind aber auch einzeln zu besuchen. Um Anmeldung wird gebeten unter info@salonpopulaire.de. Die Veranstaltungen finden auf Deutsch statt.

Termine:
11. April, 20-22 Uhr (Einführung)
14. April, 14-16 Uhr (Theorie), 17-19 Uhr (Praxis)
16. April, 10-12 Uhr (Theorie), 13-15 Uhr (Praxis)
22. April, 14-16 Uhr (Theorie), 17-19 Uhr (Praxis)
25. April, 20-22 Uhr (Abschlusspräsentation, Ausstellung)

Echte Kultur wirkt durch den Überschwang und durch ihre Kraft, das europäische Kunstideal hingegen zielt darauf ab, den Geist auf eine von der Kraft geschiedene Haltung zu verweisen, die deren Überschwang zuschaut.
Antonin Artaud, Das Theater und sein Double

Angelehnt an Artauds Theater der Grausamkeit fragt das auf zwei Wochen angelegte Projekt nach der Produktivität des Konzepts der ‚Grausamkeit’ für das Museum als Institution. In Form eines multidisziplinären Experiments werden tradierte Formen der Wissensvermittlung und akademischer Lehre mit dem Erproben musealer Präsentationsformen verbunden, um die sichtbaren und unsichtbaren Gesetzen des Museums in Hinblick auf seine Präsentations- und Rezeptionsgewohnheiten zu exponieren und kritisch zu befragen.

Hierfür werden zwei parallele, sich ineinander verschränkende Bewegungen verfolgt: Im Salon entwickeln wir einen Vorschlag zu einem ‚Museum der Grausamkeit‘ ausgehend von der gemeinsamen Lektüre eines Vortrags Jacques Derridas (anlässlich einer Retrospektive der Bilder und Zeichnungen Antonin Artauds im New Yorker Museum of Modern Art (1996)). Dieser Text – mit dem Titel “Artaud Moma” –, in dem Derrida nach der Funktion des Museums heute fragt, die Rolle von Künstler und Kunstwerk wie auch Ausstellungsmacher und Publikum in den Blick nimmt und in der Folge Ansätze für ein neues Verständnis des gesellschaftlichen Ortes des Museums entwickelt, ist Ausgangs- und Referenzpunkt der Diskussion.

Parallel entstehen in Zusammenarbeit mit den Teilnehmern im angrenzenden Ausstellungsraum unterschiedliche räumliche Umsetzungen, die die im Text/Seminar behandelten Fragestellungen zu den visuellen, räumlichen und ästhetischen Bedingungen des Ausstellens erproben und sichtbar machen. Exponate hierfür gehen von der Auseinandersetzung mit den Arbeiten Antonin Artauds aus und weisen darüber hinaus, indem sie die von Derrida behandelten Themen mit mit aktuellen künstlerischen Arbeiten, profanen Objekten und Texten in einen Dialog bringen.

Der Ausstellungsraum wird so als Experimentallabor genutzt, um gemeinsam unterschiedliche Objekt- und Werkkonstellationen zu schaffen, die sich über die Dauer des Projektzeitraums verdichten und zu einer Ausstellung anwachsen. So performiert das Ausstellungs-Seminar das Verhältnis von Ausstellungsobjekten (Kunst wie Nicht-Kunst) zu ihrer Gegenwart, den Zusammenhang von disziplinären Grenzen und Sehgewohnheiten, von Kultur und Raumerfahrung – und wie diese das Denken in Bewegung versetzen können. Artauds Begriff der ‚Grausamkeit’ entfaltet hier seine Bedeutung als Zerstörer allzu gewisser Differenzen wie der zwischen positiver Wissensvermittlung und ästhetisch-emotionalen Aspekten von Kunstrezeption.

Salon Populaire invites you to participate in an evening dedicated to liability. Taking up on the ancient Greek tradition of coming together to eat and drink while at the same time discussing philosophical questions, we are continuing our series of joint dinner-conversations at the Salon. In cooperation with Fotini Lazaridou-Hatzigoga / Program, we chose liability as our fifth topic.

Referring to both the handling of rules and the relation to the public (law) or the private (behavior, ethics, morality), liability is characterized by ambiguity – an unavoidable responsibility related to the duty of care. Being a bourgeois value, it is essential for friendship but can be disastrous in blind trust, as in the cases of fanaticism and fascism.

Starting from both philosophical texts and personal experiences, stories and thoughts, we have invited a number of guests to contribute to the diversity of the evening. Each guest will bring one story, thought or text, which they relate to the miracle/wonder and use that as a starting point for an exchange of ideas and positions around and across the table.

Access to this event is open, but space is limited. Please rsvp to info@salonpopulaire.de.

Regardless of where, how or what is being exhibited, the curator is always also exhibiting him or herself, specifically in the way they decide to convey the idea of what an exhibition could or should be. Aside from the curator’s self-perception in relation to his or her topic, the context in which they work also plays an important role, as does the general museum context they necessarily work in relation to, including different institutions, artists, exhibited objects, donors, and viewers. Who serves whom, and who exploits whom? Or is the main concern of the curator to find an independent “third space”, that can be free from all these constraints? If so -  who or what is being served in this space?

(Sich) Ausstellen. Das Ethos des Kurators
Egal wo, wie oder was man ausstellt, stellt sich der Kurator auch immer selbst aus – allem voran seine Vorstellung davon, was eine Ausstellung sein kann oder soll. Dabei spielt das Selbstverständnis in Hinblick auf seinen Gegenstand ebenso eine Rolle wie die musealen Kontexte, in denen der Kurator sich bewegt: die Institutionen, die Künstler, die Exponate, die Geldgeber, das Publikum. Wer dient hier wem, wer instrumentalisiert wen? Oder definiert sich die Sorge des Kurators genau darin, einen von diesen Zwängen möglichst unabhängigen “dritten Ort” zu schaffen? Und wenn ja – wem oder was dient das nun wieder?

What is power today? 

Organized by Amber Hickey and Lindsey Sharman

A new series by THE OFFICE (Katharina Fichtner) accompanying our celebrated publications

For this lecture performance and the magazine the artist Gert Jan Kocken, who currently holds a residency at the Rijksakademie, will uncover the processes of research that precede his actual artistic work of large scale photography. Based on a collection of thousands of images sourced from the internet, Gert Jan illustrates religion’s problematic relationship with images. Meandering through time, somewhere between iconoclasm and iconophilism, he will present his manifold findings, and demonstrate how images have been deployed to tell the story of the world, from its creation to the present day.

With the magazine THE WORLD ACCORDING TO The Office wants to provide an open space in which an artist can discover different ways of examining the world that surrounds him/her. Using sources other than his/her own work, s/he is invited to develop new content and unexpected formats by collecting images, texts, graphics, and/or by inviting artists, friends, family members to contribute.

Now available:
The World According to Gert Jan Kocken, ed. by THE OFFICE, published by argobooks, 64 pages, 15 Euro

Kindly supported by the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands

The work is the permanent luminous form of itself. But what happens to the world that produced it? Can we talk of the living world (Lebenswelt) of which the pictorial work is an outcome? The experience of the artist as the trace of thought makes the work a sign of his or her action. Whether or not he is aware of this legacy, the artist becomes dispersed in the painting and in its phenomenological cognitive experience, which – as possibly in no other discipline – becomes a fundamental experience.

Based on a collective viewing of a selection of young American artist Guthrie Lonergan’s growing youtube collection of peoples’ introductions to their Myspace pages, Salon Populaire hosts participants in NYLON, Craig Calhoun and Richard Sennett’s research group of social scientists and cultural producers to act as priviledged respondents and to discuss their remarks with the audience.

The internet holds a vast archive of representations of self. From facebook pages to Craigslist solicitations, youtube spots about what “people say”, to Tumblrs, to videos of our cats– the online project that people seem to have been most consistently committed to, and most creative in pursing, is testifying about ourselves.The modes and rhetorics of self presentation change quickly on the internet; how quickly we become nostalgic for the AOL profile or even the mySpace page, through which we once “got to know” our perfect strangers, our friends and ourselves. And how quickly we learn orient ourselves to new ones.
From one perspective these artifacts that people produce are visual expressions, petit artworks. From another they are data. What are we to make of the internet’s vast and deepening archive of self-produced representations? What can we do with them? What are they trying to tell us?

www.youtube.com/vie…

NYLON was created in 2001 by Craig Calhoun and Richard Sennett of New York University and the London School of Economics and currently holds its 10th annual graduate student conference in Berlin. It began as a network of young scholars within the two institutions and collaboration between them. Today, NYLON has expanded beyond its original boundaries; it now includes members from Cambridge and Oxford in the U.K.; from Chicago and Los Angeles in the U.S.; and on the Continent from Paris, Budapest and Frankfurt. NYLON researchers share a broad interest in culture and qualitative research methods; more, with ways that social processes turn into concrete cultural forms through practical activity. They are thus exploring informal, improvised social practices, as well as the bones of institutions; again, they try to integrate cultural analysis with an understanding of politics and political economy.
NYLON is supported by New York University, London School of Economics, Cambridge University, Goldsmiths College-London and the Watermill Center for the Arts and Humanities.

www.nyu.edu/pro…
www.nyu.edu/ipk…