BUT... IS THIS ART? 2014
«The conference one should give, is the conference one doesn't know, and one should make every attempt not to know it by the end either. The less we know, the higher we will be able to hold our heads when we sit before the audience.» Isidoro Valcárcel Medina
After five years of intense debate between the public and the conference givers, we are still unable to answer the question that forms the title of this course. We also continue to question how to put a creation as multi-faceted as that created by current-day artists into words. An art that is immaterial, fragile and mutable that can happen in any place and at any time. Perhaps the problem lies in adhering solely to the word, to academic theory and in attempting to translate what cannot be translated based on previous knowledge.
This is why, in this sixth edition, we have invited artists, theoreticians and educators to take the course participants, and indeed themselves, towards the unexpected. The speakers, whether through an intervention in the space or due to the alteration of the academic logic of their discourse, will reflect on various matters that affect contemporary creation. Thus, we will combine the points of view of the different players involved in the art world to generate a dialogue between their ideas and a construction of meaning that does not solely depend on what is said, but also on what happens.
These sessions will be complemented with contemporary art texts and a visit to the exhibition
Per/Form. How to do things with[out] words for the course participants.
CA2M develops a line of art education and contemporary thinking activities framed within the tradition of the popular universities. In these courses, some of the fundamental approaches to understanding and interpreting current art are dealt with. These activities are structured into two parts: the first consists of a guest speaker presenting a subject, while in the second a debate is opened on the subject for the participants to express their opinion.
PROGRAM
WEDNESDAY 19 FEB. 18:30
INSTRUCTIONS FOR USE
Cris Blanco, Multi-disciplinary artist and Victoria Gil-Delgado, CA2M educator and curator
It would be so easy to have a set of unquestionable rules to help us finally understand contemporary art when we enter a museum feeling lost. Yet on the contrary, modern-day art invites us to question the immovable ideas and our role as passive spectators in front of the works. During this first session, we will lay the foundations for the course and invite participants to break their own rules of play.
WEDNESDAY 26 FEB. 18:30
MURDER BETWEEN THE LINES
Sandra Santana, poet and professor of philosophy at the University of Zaragoza
The author has died and the body has disappeared from the crime scene, but their blood still runs fresh on the paper and lines of ink. We will seek the clues left by the murderer in the Parisian studio of Roland Barthes, we will closely examine the moustache of Stéphane Mallarmé, and we will empty the pockets of Isidore Isou, Vito Acconci or Ewa Partum. Readers and spectators, now transformed into detectives, we will have to reconstruct the scene of the crime, find the body, discover the motive, and uncover the weapon that ended the victim's life.
WEDNESDAY 5 MAR. 18:30
FROM FLOOR TO CEILING
Yayo Aznar, professor of the History of Art Department of the UNED
Understanding, as a point of departure, that art is «sacralized» by going, literally, from the floor to the ceiling, this talk will attempt to think through the political positions of the art proposals of Teresa Margolles (and other artists) to reinforce the possibility of an observation so self-interested that it is no longer capable of surviving without the public and even the private when it becomes a public problem.
WEDNESDAY 12 MAR. 18:30
A SMALL CHANGE IN THE STATE OF THINGS
Beatriz Alonso, curator and researcher, and Carlos Granados, CA2M educator and artist
Contemporary art is replete with references to the everyday and more and more artists are poetically emphasizing ordinary situations, offering us new views and possibilities in relation to what surrounds us. In this session, we will not only talk about some of these proposals, we will also participate in a small change in the everydayness of the course, displacing its participants to a strange and unexpected place.
FRIDAY 14 MAR. 20:00
LECTURE ON NOTHING BY JOHN CAGE
The experimental musician, John Cage, gave this conference (Lecture on Nothing) in 1949. At present, the work of John Cage is among the most influential in the current creation scene. This lecture reflects on indetermination, chance and the absurd as fundamental elements of art creation.
WEDNESDAY 19 MAR. 18:30
PLACEMENT 2/B/ARTIST/.
Eva Garrido and Yera Moreno, artists and educators. Together they make up the art group, Colektivof
Female art practice is positioned on the verges of placement/ displacement. Marked by this movement, this (non) place enables a precarious, provisional and necessary position to generate thought and action. It is precisely this constant «state of movement» that becomes a critical positioning from which to reflect on the power strategies that mark contemporary art in relation to gender/ sex.
This session is an invitation to cross the threshold and penetrate a space for debate in which we will discuss the relationship between art and feminism, the body as an ambiguous place of action, the (in)visible contributions of feminist thinking and the construction of subjectivity, among other subjects.
WEDNESDAY 26 MAR. 18:30
111-119 GENERALÍSIMO/CASTELLANA
Patricia Esquivias, artist and Pablo Martínez, CA2M Education and Public Activities Manager and associate professor of the History of Art at the Fine Arts Faculty, Universidad Complutense de Madrid
The construction of collective stories, images and ways of life goes hand in hand with the constructions of the city, its stories, the rumors and the gossip that flow through it. In this session, we suggest using a performative dialogue (naturally), to think about the public and the private, the city and its spaces, the bodies and the images. The city of Madrid, its past and its present will be the element that works as the vessel for this class.
WEDNESDAY 2 APR. 18:30
TRUTH OR DARE
Lilli Hartmann, artist and David Armengol, independent curator and educator
Using the Truth or Dare game as a starting point, this session proposes an approach to art practices without having to talk about art. The structure of the game invites an exercise of expectation based on which fundamental concepts in the artist's work will be analyzed: the dialogue between what is true and what is false, the power of action, the real-time experience and the emotional and passionate capacity implied by living and working off art.
WEDNESDAY 9 APR. 18:30
CULTURE
Los Torreznos, artists and Ferran Barenblit, director of CA2M and curator of the Los Torreznos exhibition, Cuatrocientos setenta y tres millones trescientos cincuenta y tres mil ochocientos noventa segundos.
Los Torreznos will offer a lecture to discuss culture, that territory we move in. But, how to talk about something that surrounds us on all sides?