Monday, October 1, 2012
Pia Lanzinger works as an artist in Berlin. She has been participating in International exhibition activities and project scholarships, as well as in residencies in South Korea, Worpswede, Paris and Edinburgh; works as a lecturer in academies and universities, as a jury member and as a curator of exhibitions in art institutions and in the public space. Her works deal with less observed structures of contemporary living spaces, and apply aspects of architectural pre-settings to social and historical frames of reference. In doing so, they also look for the roots of conflicts; that is, available alternatives. Thematically, they deal with relations concerning (post)modern life, work and gender. Her point of view is directed preferentially towards narrative and performative procedures of the positioning in sceneries of obfuscating contexts. The projects are often based on cooperations with the people the artist see as co-partners in media experiments. If one succeeds in discerning fractures or zones of indetermination within the dominant rules, and stimulate a desire for an active play with the rules of everyday existence on such basis, Pia Lanzinger has come closer to her aim.
Michael Hauffen lives in Berlin. He studied sociology and painting and started a series of interactions between theoretical discussions and aesthetic practices, which is not finished yet. With the project "Movement of Slowness" (1993) he received a grant from the City of Munich for confronting people with provocative questions concerning the social limits of art. In his work "Talk about / as Art" he reflected his experience of talking about art in an installation containing computer-generated sentences appearing on a monitor.
Since 1994 he is practicing the art of criticizing works of art in "Kunstforum International", "springerin" (Vienna) and „Kunstbulletin“ (Zurich).
With the age of Enlightenment art comes paired with art criticism. Art criticism is both opponent and supporter. Demarcation trends are affecting the autonomy of art, but also function increasingly within the art itself as art critique. The concept of avant-garde art marks the inherent claim to exceed established norms of taste and corresponding bourgeois consumerist attitudes. Art forms that are especially critical assume therefore a central position.
From this perspective it is obvious, that art criticism cannot be an autonomous entity. It is not a science (even if it is based on scientific resources), and it is no mere translation, not just a trade, because it takes its own forms of aesthetic production and ideas into the game. Within the art system it plays a vital role by acting as a dialogue partner and a guarantor of reflexive levels, regardless of the vote, which it provides.
Examples of this relationship is to be presented on the basis of manifestos by artists and art critics. Manifests are a short form of art criticism: they demarcate existing positions and trends and highlight their own frontline.
The seminar conducted by Michael Hauffen attempted to create such a productive tension in the form of short manifestos, which refered to different levels of the art system and / of the participants own situation. The manifestos were discussed and edited in the workshop.
Pia Lanzinger's artist talk on TBCARTAREA TV 2.0
