Concept and organization: Helmut Draxler and Hannes Loichinger
Contributors: Taslima Ahmed, Judith Barry, Catherine Chevalier, Jay Chung, Anke Dyes, Manuel Gnam, Alex Kitnick, Valérie Knoll, Ken Okiishi, Kristian Vistrup Madsen, Jakob Schillinger, Megan Francis Sullivan, and Tanja Widmann
Moderation: Antonia Birnbaum, Amanda Holmes, and Christian Egger
How do art and criticism actually relate to each other? Whereas the classical understanding of art criticism still envisaged a separate sphere of art that was to be evaluated and criticized, the boundaries between the spheres of art and criticism seem to be largely blurring today.
In particular, art has become just as critical as criticism, and criticism has strayed from its referentiality to art, resulting in a situation where criticism revolves more and more around itself, while aligning itself with art precisely in this respect. One can welcome or lament this situation of structural “indistinguishability,” but one can also make it the starting point of a specific reflection in which their difference is preserved and the ways in which they are related can be addressed. From this perspective, it is not the merging of the realms of art and criticism, but the exchange between them that can be grasped as the actual productive moment of contemporary art.
Presentations and discussions will be held in English.