|
Lecture: The Artist as a Researcher and Doctoral Studies in the Arts
Prof. Dr. Dieter Lesage and Ina Wudtke
November 3, 6:30 PM at CAVS
Speaking about the artist as researcher, philosopher Dieter Lesage and artist Ina Wudtke will address their combined curatorial work and research reflecting the possibilities of doctoral studies in the arts. Lesage and Wudtke curated the exhibitions A Portrait of the Artist as a Researcher at Freiraum/quartier21 in Vienna in 2007, and A Portrait of the Artist as a Researcher 2.0 at Beursschouwburg in Brussels in 2008. Dieter Lesage is a Professor at the Department for Audiovisual and Performing Arts (Rits), Erasmushogeschool Brussel. Ina Wudtke lives and works in Berlin and is an artist, curator, DJ, and editor of the NEID Magazina.
At art academies in many of the forty-six European countries participating today in the Bologna Process, the doctorate in the arts has become the subject of heated discussions. First of all, there is the existential question many people ask: Why should there be a doctorate in the arts, rather than nothing? Weren't we happy without it? It is no secret that many people see neither the socio-economic necessity nor the artistic relevance of a doctorate in the arts. There is fierce opposition to it from people within higher arts education, universities, and the arts field—at least in so far as it still makes sense to draw a clear-cut distinction between higher arts education, universities, and the arts. Indeed, among many other things, the Bologna Process could be described as a deconstruction of the old demarcations between precisely these three sectors. In any event, from various positions within these sectors in the process of deconstruction that is called Bologna, voices are heard opposing the doctorate in the arts. Against these voices—whether coming from the grumpy old folks who prefer to continue to live in a world that no longer exists and cling to the character of institutions as they once knew them, or from the jumpy young ones who already live in a world yet to come and fly at the character of institutions which they believe they know are no longer useful—Ina Wudtke and Dieter Lesage fiercely defend the doctorate in the arts.
A defense of the doctorate in the arts is an institutional condition of possibility for the defense of a doctorate in the arts. A doctorate in the arts will always be defended according to a certain concept of the doctorate in the arts, laid out in rules that have previously been defended within the responsible university or faculty board or council. As a matter of fact, the latter kind of defense might turn out to be as exhausting as the defense of a doctorate as such. It will continue to demand a good deal of struggle in order to establish that the doctorate in the arts meets artistic—rather than merely academic—requirements and expectations. In this respect, strange as it may seem, many of today's strongest opponents of the doctorate in the arts are more trustworthy allies in the struggle for an artistically meaningful doctorate in the arts than some of those who count themselves among its most outspoken and enthusiastic proponents. The way in which some people today defend the concept of a doctorate in the arts is utterly unconvincing and probably part of the reason for the strong opposition to it.
The exhibitions A Portrait of the Artist as a Researcher, shown in Vienna (2007) and Brussels (2008) presented themselves as a plea for the recognition of the specificity of artistic research, and for the art academy as a place of free artistic research, beyond the limits of the market, beyond all academic norms – even after 'Bologna'. Both exhibitions curated by Ina Wudtke and Dieter Lesage were just some of their various interventions in the debate on the reform of higher art education by the so-called Bologna Process that is restructuring higher education throughout Europe. The works in these exhibitions presented the artist at work as a researcher, investigating the history of an art institution (Sven Augustijnen), or of cultural practices (Sonia Boyce), collecting and selecting thoughts (Herman Asselberghs), or cultural products (Jacques André), experimenting with sound (Art Jones), or image (Ina Wudtke), representing the artist as a social scientist (Jill Magid) or as a social geographer (Annette Wehrmann), or the philosopher as an artist (Dieter Lesage) and the architect as a philosopher (Office Kersten Geers David Van Severen). In this way, these works commented, circled around or criticised the discourse on ‘research’ that is characteristic of the Bologna Process and interrogated the limits of its applicability for the arts. In their lecture, Dieter Lesage and Ina Wudtke will explain their view on the problematic presuppositions of the Bologna Process with regard to the concept of artistic research and the reasons why this Process might nevertheless be fruitful for the art academy in Europe, afterall.
About Ina Wudtke
Ina Wudtke (1968) is an artist, curator, editor of the NEID Magazina and DJ. She studied visual arts at the Academy of Fine Arts in Hamburg, with Bernhard Johannes Blume, Dörte Eißfeldt, H.J. Lenger, Clegg & Guttman a.o. She lives and works in Berlin since 1998. She received several grants (a.o. DAAD Stipendium New York 1995, Hoppe-Ritter Kunstförderung 1997, Auslandsstipendien Istanbul 2002 and London 2006 of the Senatsverwaltung für Wissenschaft, Forschung und Kultur, Berlin). She had solo exhibitions at AiR base/quartier21, MuseumsQuartier Wien 2007, Studio Voltaire, London 2007, Gallery Meerrettich in the Glaspavillon at the Volksbuehne, Berlin 2005, Gallery Liquidacion Total, Madrid 2004, ATA Center for Contemporary Art, Sofia 2002. Ina Wudtke participated in group exhibitions such as In Istanbul between Arrival and Departure, BM - SUMA Contemporary Art Center, Istanbul 2009, After the Light: Moving Image displayed at Night, Radialsystem V, Berlin 2008, Academy. Learning from Art, Museum of Contemporary Art (MuHKA), Antwerp 2006, Urbane Realitäten: Fokus Istanbul, Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin 2005, Vom Verschwinden. Weltverluste und Weltfluchten, Hartware MedienKunstverein, PHOENIX Halle, Dortmund 2005, 3. berlin biennial for contemporary art, Printed Matter Department, Berlin 2004. She curated several international group exhibitions, among which (with Christine Lang) Femmes 'R' Us, Radialsystem V, Berlin 2008, (with Dieter Lesage) A Portrait of the Artist as a Researcher 2.0, Beursschouwburg Brussels 2008 and A Portrait of the Artist as a Researcher, freiraum/quartier21 MuseumsQuartier Wien 2007, and , Gallery im Parkhaus Berlin 2002. Ina Wudtke is also known as DJ T-INA Darling and is a founding member of the all female broken beats DJ MC collective Femmes With Fatal Breaks. For more information on her artistic and curatorial work, see: www.inawudtke.com.
About Dieter Lesage
Dieter Lesage (1966) is a Belgian philosopher, writer and critic. He studied philosophy at the University of Louvain (Leuven, B) (1984-1988) and the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris (F) (1988-1990), where he attended the seminars of Jacques Derrida as an ‘étudiant libre’. In 1993 he obtained his Ph.D. at the Institute of Philosophy in Louvain on a dissertation Names like Faces. A consolidation theory of proper names [Namen als gezichten. Een consolidatietheorie van de eigennaam]. Dieter Lesage was a research-assistant at the National Fund for Scientific Research (B) (1989-1993), a post-doctoral researcher at the Institute of Philosophy of the University of Louvain (1993-1995), a scientific attaché at the Center for European Culture of the Royal Academy of Sciences, Letters and the Arts of Belgium (1994), a cultural policy advisor to the Secretary of the Flemish Parliament (1996), a visiting professor at the Piet Zwart Institute of the Willem De Kooning Academie (Hogeschool Rotterdam, NL) (2003-2005) and full-time visiting professor at the Institut für Kulturtheorie of the Leuphana Universität Lüneburg (D) during the summer semester 2007, with a Eurolecture grant from the Alfred Toepfer Stiftung F.V.S. (Hamburg). Dieter Lesage is a Professor and Research Coordinator at the Department of Audiovisual and Performing Arts Rits (Erasmushogeschool Brussels, B), Member of the Bureau for Research of the Brussels University Association (2007-2011), Member of the Editorial Board of Afterall. A Journal of Art, Context and Enquiry (London-Los Angeles) and Member of the International Advisory Board of Art & Research. A Journal of Ideas, Contexts and Methods (Glasgow). He is the author of Het lijk van de componist. Over John Zorn, (De dans verschriftelijkt), Leuven, Klapstuk, 1993 [The Composer’s Corpse. On John Zorn], Namen als gezichten. Essay over de faam, Leuven, Peeters, 1996 [Names like Faces. Essay on Fame]; Onzuivere gedachten. Over het Vlaanderen van de Minister-President, Antwerpen, Dedalus, 1996 [Impure Thoughts. On the Minister-President’s Flanders]; Zwarte gedachten. Over België, Antwerpen, Dedalus, 1998 [Black Thoughts. On Belgium]; Peut-on encore jouer Hamlet?, (traduit du néerlandais par Monique Nagielkopf), Paris, Les Impressions Nouvelles, 2002 [Can one still play Hamlet?]; Vertoog over verzet. Politiek in tijden van globalisering, Amsterdam/Antwerpen, Meulenhoff/Manteau, 2004 [Discourse on Resistance. Politics in the times of globalisation]; A Portrait of the Artist as a DJ. Notes on Ina Wudtke, Brussels, VdH Books, 2007. He is a co-editor, with Anne Morelli and Ludo Dierickx, of Racisme: élément du conflit Flamands/francophones?, Antwerpen/Bruxelles, 1997 [Racism: an element in the conflict between Flemish and French-speaking Belgians?], with Herman Asselberghs, of Het museum van de natie. Van kolonialisme tot globalisering, Brussel, Yves Gevaert, 1999 [The nation’s museum. From colonialism to globalisation]; with Jan Blommaert, Eric Corijn and Marc Holthof of Populisme, Berchem, EPO, 2004 [Populism]; and with Kathrin Busch of A Portrait of the Artist as a Researcher: The Academy and the Bologna Process, Antwerp, MuHKA, 2007. Dieter Lesage lives in Berlin. He realised artistic projects in collaboration with artists Johan Grimonprez, Herman Asselberghs and Ina Wudtke.
|
|
