Syndicate: Geopolitics and Art (1)

[Alenka Pirman <abroeck@v2.nl> (by way of Andreas Broeckmann)]

Alenka Pirman <pirman@soros.si> writes:

"T H E   W O R L D   O F   A R T"   P R E S E N T S :


GEOPOLITICS AND ART
Series of lectures
Each month in Ljubljana (äkuc Gallery) and Celje (Galerija sodobnih
umetnosti), Slovenia.

Starting on Monday, 22nd Februar at 7 p.m. (Celje) and
Tuesday, 23rd February at 8 p.m. (Ljubljana)

with

CHARLES HARRISON - THE MERITS OF INCOMPETENCE

'In the tradition of modern art, cultural power has normally been
located in those centres that could be identified with a mainstream
and with the forms of competence by which that mainstream was defined.
'Modernism' could be said to stand for a specific formulation of the
relationship between cultural power and artistic competence, though
Modernism always required its 'others' - fascinating incompetents
(children, 'primitives', amateurs and provincials) - to provide a
background of contrasts to its own professionalism and to supply an
invigorating novelty and virtue when its flagging energies required
replishment. In the supposedly Postmodern world, however, we hear much
of the globalisation of culture and of the irrelevance or
indefensibility of distinctions between mainstream and margin. Some if
not all of the former 'others' appear themselves to have become
professional. On the other hand, the political events of the past ten
years have served to make even clearer that power and competence are
inextricably connected. The avant-gardes of the early 20th century
explored supposed forms of incompetence in the interests of cultural
subversion. In the late 60s and early 70s, Conceptual Art similarly
exploited a confusion between incompetence and subversion in order to
frustrate the critical protocols of Modernism. It will be argued in
this lecture that the concept of a global culture consumable by all is
a mystification driven by similar political and economic interests to
those which were served by the ideology (if not the practice) of
Modernism, and that resistance to the 'geopolitical' management of art
is still required of those who know how to be incompetent.'


Next Lecture: EDI MUKA - PERMANENT INSTABILITY (11 and 12 March)


The World of Art is an educational project (including 10-months
curatorial workshop, series of lectures, seminars, study excursions)
organized by SCCA-Ljubljana. The program for 1999 was conceived by
Alenka Pirman, Lilijana Stepancic, and Igor Zabel. The series of
public lectures on Geopolitics and Art is organized in collaboration
with äkuc Gallery, Ljubljana, and Zavod za kulturne prireditve Celje.

Welcome!


SCCA-Ljubljana, Vegova 8, 1000 Ljubljana. +386 61 126 21 92.
scca@soros.si http://www.ljudmila.org/scca/