cdu::Centre for Drama Art

HIGHWAYS OF KNOWLEDGE

croatian version

Zagreb – Cultural Kapital of Europe 3000

In the current period of “normalization”, which acts in the field of the symbolic and production of meaning, through producing consensus and consent, specific relations between current non-institutional practices and institutional culture in Croatia are at the background of re-configuration of a broader understanding of culture and art. What is the position and role of independent cultural sector in the society which in ideological and political sense equals its foundations with one (particular) culture? How is non-institutional practice relating to what we usually call mainstream and how can we define mainstream in Croatia? What characterizes relations between institutional and non-institutional culture? Is it about the conflict, parallelism, or mutual ignorance? What is the perspective of both of these concepts of culture and art practices and is collaboration between them achievable or they mutually cancel each other?

A series of talks will discuss the social, spatial and productive relations of institutional and non-institutional culture, focusing on possible models of institutions that would challenge the notion of art over-determined by a regime of public visibility, redefining institutions and their role of presenting production and reproducing presentability.

Friday, 06.10.2006, 19.00
Lecture, Axel John Wieder, Pro qm, Berlin, Germany
“Inside and outside at the margin of institutions”

The lecture presents projects and activities which I organized in different personal constellations and which dealt in different perspectives with the social constitution of space. These projects took place both within and outside of institutional art contexts (and sometimes became institutions in itself). A major concern though was to keep their placement within this relationship visible and open to discussion.

Pro qm, a bookshop and space for presentations, was founded in 1999 and conceived as a critical platform for the negotiation of urban development. It is located within a part of the city that is undergoing a major process of gentrification, and is in a certain sense even dependent on this position. Its involvement in problematic dynamics serves simultaneously as an example for theoretical debate and clarifies its contradictory situation between critical distance and fascinated proximity. The exhibition "Now and Ten Years Ago" at Kunst-Werke Berlin approached the urban change from the perspective of art and looked at how its engagement with problematic aspects provoked new strategies of artistic production.

Axel J. Wieder is an art historian and co-director of Pro qm in Berlin. Since 1990 he had solo and group exhibitions with Jesko Fezer, among others at Frankfurter Kunstverein, Museum Fridericianum in Kassel, Kunstverein München and 9th Istanbul, Biennial, since 1999 exhibitions with Pro qm, at Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst Leipzig, Museum für Gestaltung Zürich and Kunsthaus Dresden and others. Publications on architecture and exhibitions for Texte zur Kunst, 032c, Springerin, taz, FAZ, Frieze, Arch+ a.o. He was adviser to the Commission on local cultural politics of the Berlin Senate for culture and science. He co-organized "Urban Conditions" for the 3. Berlin Biennale (2003) and taught at Bauhaus University in Weimar. In 2004 he organized the exhibition project "Now and ten years ago" for KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin and was a research fellow at the Peabody-Essex-Museum, Salem/Massachusetts. Since 2007 Axel Wieder is artistic director of Künstlerhaus Stuttgart.

Saturday, 07.10.2006, 12.00
Public discussion “Highways of Knowledge”

Moderation: Goran Sergej Pristaš, Centre for Dramatic Arts, Zagreb
Guests: Ulrike Melzwig, MODE 05 – towards a new educational model in dance and choreography, Potsdam, Germany; Cristiane Mennicke, Kunsthaus Dresden, Germany; Jan Ritsema, Performing Arts Forum, St. Erme, France; Axel John Wieder, Pro qm, Berlin, Germany

New artistic practices open up new questions about the notion of cultural knowledge, problems of knowledge production and the practices of knowledge transfer, shifting the focus of interest from what we know to how we know. The time has come when, alongside the generic character of artistic production, we have to reconsider the generic model of knowledge production and exchange in the arts, pull away from the idea of a center in opposition of which a periphery is being formed, and open the highways of knowledge between artists, organizations, institutions and new institutions that still need to be defined. Likewise, starting from the recognition of a high degree of overlapping in human and infrastructural resource needs of organizations, artistic groups, initiatives and free-lance artists of the independent scene in Croatia, taking into account international thematization of the need to change production, presentation and distribution frameworks of art, our intention is to initiate a new platform for research, discussion and collaboration on the independent cultural scene. With the aim of gathering active participants of the local scene in creation of a new model of collaboration in the framework of the Center for Independent Culture and Youth, through a series of events we wish to open up questions regarding the institutionalization of independent scene of performing arts, organizational models of production, presentation and distribution, discussing relations with existing institutions and international planning of collaborations. Beside the initial meeting and agreement around joint activities, we will present similar platforms in Europe and models of collaboration and organization of new institutional strategies. This project is a continuation of a debate on new institutions that began in 2005, now with a more precise focus on networking and opening up new dimensions of collaboration and production.

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Saturday, 07.10.2006, 19.00 Lecture, Cristiane Mennicke, Städtische Galerie für Gegenwartskunst, Kunsthaus Dresden, Germany

“What’s Public in Art? - On the Task to Institute Public Potential”

Institutes and institutions have been considered with ambivalence, inevitably infected with the disciplinary routines of nineteenth century hospitals or barracks, for some. For this lecture, I am rather interested in a radically different understanding of the term: To institute in the meaning of breaking new grounds, opening up, starting a process. The question „What’s Public in Art ?“ aims at a selective view on some curatorial projects of the past, as well as how to change functions of an (art-)institution – from installing norms to reinstalling questions of what could be considered public, instituting debates and potential alliances. The necessity of defending the public as a positive, non-disciplinary term, in this lecture, is accompanied by the urgency to stand up for spaces fit to accommodate and institute culture developments besides the sweeping dominance of private economical claims.

Christiane Mennicke has been the Director of Kunsthaus Dresden, Städtische Galerie für Gegenwartskunst since 2003, and Project director of „WILDES KAPITAL / WILD CAPITAL. Reflexions on the post-socialist city“, conference and exhibition investigating manifestations of late capitalism in the urban space, Dresden in 2005 and 2006. Her recent curatorial projects and exhibitions include: “ARBEITSHAUS. einatmen. Ausatmen.”, exhibition and program of events in collaboration with Annette Weisser; “MADONNA. Visionen, Wirklichkeiten und Anfechtungen von Weiblichkeiten heute”; “Sputniza – die Ausstellung: Wir können auch anders”; “International Exhibition of Modern Art and The Museum of American Art” in collaboration with Salon du Fleurus, New York; “Unbekannte Schwester, unbekannter Bruder”, exhibition on contemporary post-socialist visual culture; “nebengeräusche”, exhibition on transforming the institution, “World Watchers. Demokratie. Information. Subjekte”, two-phase exhibition with 14 international artists at Neue Gesellschaft für Bildende Kunst, Berlin and Kunsthaus Dresden; curatorial team with A. Weisser, M. Schweiger, R. Kamlah, A.S. Klein, the “Unlikely Encounters in Urban Space”, 4 day international conference on experimental urbanism and interventionist art practice; co-curator and initiator together with Margit Czenki and Christoph Schäfer in Hamburg St. Pauli.

*****

Organization: Centre for Drama Art, CDU; Goethe Institute Zagreb & What, How and for Whom/WHW
The project <Highways of Knowledge> is a part of the project Zagreb - Cultural Kapital of Europe 3000

Supported by: Kontakt. The Arts and Civil Society Program of Erste Bank Group in Central Europe.
http://www.kontakt.erstebankgroup.net

all events in the Gallery Nova are coorganized by WHW & AGM

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HIGHWAYS OF KNOWLEDGE croatian version Zagreb – Cultural Kapital of Europe 3000 In the current period of “normalization”, which acts in the field of the symbolic and production of meaning, through producing consensus and consent, specific relations between current non-institutional practices and institutional culture in Croatia are at the background of re-configuration of a broader understanding of culture and art. What is the position and role of independent cultural sector in the society which in ideological and political sense equals its foundations with one (particular) culture? How is non-institutional practice relating to what we usually call mainstream and how can we define mainstream in Croatia? What characterizes relations between institutional and non-institutional culture? Is it about the conflict, parallelism, or mutual ignorance? What is the perspective of both of these concepts of culture and art practices and is collaboration between them achievable or they mutually cancel each other? A series of talks will discuss the social, spatial and productive relations of institutional and non-institutional culture, focusing on possible models of institutions that would challenge the notion of art over-determined by a regime of public visibility, redefining institutions and their role of presenting production and reproducing presentability. Friday, 06.10.2006, 19.00 Lecture, Axel John Wieder, Pro qm, Berlin, Germany “Inside and outside at the margin of institutions” The lecture presents projects and activities which I organized in different personal constellations and which dealt in different perspectives with the social constitution of space. These projects took place both within and outside of institutional art contexts (and sometimes became institutions in itself). A major concern though was to keep their placement within this relationship visible and open to discussion. Pro qm, a bookshop and space for presentations, was founded in 1999 and conceived as a critical platform for the negotiation of urban development. It is located within a part of the city that is undergoing a major process of gentrification, and is in a certain sense even dependent on this position. Its involvement in problematic dynamics serves simultaneously as an example for theoretical debate and clarifies its contradictory situation between critical distance and fascinated proximity. The exhibition "Now and Ten Years Ago" at Kunst-Werke Berlin approached the urban change from the perspective of art and looked at how its engagement with problematic aspects provoked new strategies of artistic production. Axel J. Wieder is an art historian and co-director of Pro qm in Berlin. Since 1990 he had solo and group exhibitions with Jesko Fezer, among others at Frankfurter Kunstverein, Museum Fridericianum in Kassel, Kunstverein München and 9th Istanbul, Biennial, since 1999 exhibitions with Pro qm, at Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst Leipzig, Museum für Gestaltung Zürich and Kunsthaus Dresden and others. Publications on architecture and exhibitions for Texte zur Kunst, 032c, Springerin, taz, FAZ, Frieze, Arch+ a.o. He was adviser to the Commission on local cultural politics of the Berlin Senate for culture and science. He co-organized "Urban Conditions" for the 3. Berlin Biennale (2003) and taught at Bauhaus University in Weimar. In 2004 he organized the exhibition project "Now and ten years ago" for KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin and was a research fellow at the Peabody-Essex-Museum, Salem/Massachusetts. Since 2007 Axel Wieder is artistic director of Künstlerhaus Stuttgart. Saturday, 07.10.2006, 12.00 Public discussion “Highways of Knowledge” Moderation: Goran Sergej Pristaš, Centre for Dramatic Arts, Zagreb Guests: Ulrike Melzwig, MODE 05 – towards a new educational model in dance and choreography, Potsdam, Germany; Cristiane Mennicke, Kunsthaus Dresden, Germany; Jan Ritsema, Performing Arts Forum, St. Erme, France; Axel John Wieder, Pro qm, Berlin, Germany New artistic practices open up new questions about the notion of cultural knowledge, problems of knowledge production and the practices of knowledge transfer, shifting the focus of interest from what we know to how we know. The time has come when, alongside the generic character of artistic production, we have to reconsider the generic model of knowledge production and exchange in the arts, pull away from the idea of a center in opposition of which a periphery is being formed, and open the highways of knowledge between artists, organizations, institutions and new institutions that still need to be defined. Likewise, starting from the recognition of a high degree of overlapping in human and infrastructural resource needs of organizations, artistic groups, initiatives and free-lance artists of the independent scene in Croatia, taking into account international thematization of the need to change production, presentation and distribution frameworks of art, our intention is to initiate a new platform for research, discussion and collaboration on the independent cultural scene. With the aim of gathering active participants of the local scene in creation of a new model of collaboration in the framework of the Center for Independent Culture and Youth, through a series of events we wish to open up questions regarding the institutionalization of independent scene of performing arts, organizational models of production, presentation and distribution, discussing relations with existing institutions and international planning of collaborations. Beside the initial meeting and agreement around joint activities, we will present similar platforms in Europe and models of collaboration and organization of new institutional strategies. This project is a continuation of a debate on new institutions that began in 2005, now with a more precise focus on networking and opening up new dimensions of collaboration and production. *** Saturday, 07.10.2006, 19.00 Lecture, Cristiane Mennicke, Städtische Galerie für Gegenwartskunst, Kunsthaus Dresden, Germany “What’s Public in Art? - On the Task to Institute Public Potential” Institutes and institutions have been considered with ambivalence, inevitably infected with the disciplinary routines of nineteenth century hospitals or barracks, for some. For this lecture, I am rather interested in a radically different understanding of the term: To institute in the meaning of breaking new grounds, opening up, starting a process. The question „What’s Public in Art ?“ aims at a selective view on some curatorial projects of the past, as well as how to change functions of an (art-)institution – from installing norms to reinstalling questions of what could be considered public, instituting debates and potential alliances. The necessity of defending the public as a positive, non-disciplinary term, in this lecture, is accompanied by the urgency to stand up for spaces fit to accommodate and institute culture developments besides the sweeping dominance of private economical claims. Christiane Mennicke has been the Director of Kunsthaus Dresden, Städtische Galerie für Gegenwartskunst since 2003, and Project director of „WILDES KAPITAL / WILD CAPITAL. Reflexions on the post-socialist city“, conference and exhibition investigating manifestations of late capitalism in the urban space, Dresden in 2005 and 2006. Her recent curatorial projects and exhibitions include: “ARBEITSHAUS. einatmen. Ausatmen.”, exhibition and program of events in collaboration with Annette Weisser; “MADONNA. Visionen, Wirklichkeiten und Anfechtungen von Weiblichkeiten heute”; “Sputniza – die Ausstellung: Wir können auch anders”; “International Exhibition of Modern Art and The Museum of American Art” in collaboration with Salon du Fleurus, New York; “Unbekannte Schwester, unbekannter Bruder”, exhibition on contemporary post-socialist visual culture; “nebengeräusche”, exhibition on transforming the institution, “World Watchers. Demokratie. Information. Subjekte”, two-phase exhibition with 14 international artists at Neue Gesellschaft für Bildende Kunst, Berlin and Kunsthaus Dresden; curatorial team with A. Weisser, M. Schweiger, R. Kamlah, A.S. Klein, the “Unlikely Encounters in Urban Space”, 4 day international conference on experimental urbanism and interventionist art practice; co-curator and initiator together with Margit Czenki and Christoph Schäfer in Hamburg St. Pauli. * Organization: Centre for Drama Art, CDU; Goethe Institute Zagreb & What, How and for Whom/WHW The project <Highways of Knowledge> is a part of the project Zagreb - Cultural Kapital of Europe 3000** Supported by: Kontakt. The Arts and Civil Society Program of Erste Bank Group in Central Europe. http://www.kontakt.erstebankgroup.net all events in the Gallery Nova are coorganized by WHW & AGM top
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