Art Theory, Lectures and Seminars

Kungl. Konsthögskolan, Stockholm
Spring term 2005
Dr. Steven Dixon

Jan. 28th - Theoretical Backgrounds: Logos, Doubt, and the World: From the Pre-Socratic Philosophers to the advent of the Rational world. From Heraclitus and Plato to the Cartesian world.

Feb 4th - Theoretical Backgrounds: Light of Reason and the Mechanics of Rationality: From the Grammars of the Middle Ages to the Questions of Truth: Locke and Berkeley to Kant and Nietzsche

Feb. 11th - Theoretical Backgrounds: Language, the Subject and the Word: The Shifting Project of the 20th century from Peirce and Wittgenstein to Derrida and Foucault.

Feb. 18th - Theoretical Backgrounds: The Subject and the World: Themes of Art and Practice from Feminism to the Cultural in the last 100 years.

"Object and Immaterial, Artifact and Idea. Seminar on the Distinction and Dissolution of the art piece in Critical thought From the 1950's to the Present."
Seminar on the Ideas of objecthood and Immateriality of the art piece in the last 50 years. The seminar will focus on writings about the local and specificity of the concept of the art piece through a number of writings by artists and critics in the period from the late 1950's to the Present. Participants will read and discuss these ideas from the historical development of the idea of immaterial and object to it's manifestations in contemporary art and it's applicability to thinking and art production today.

Selection of Readings
Yves Klein, - The Evolution of Art towards the Immaterial (1959), Micheal Fried - Art and Objecthood (1967), Jacques Derrida - Of Grammatology (1967) Chapter "The Exorbitant: Question of Method, Lucy R. Lippard & John Chandler - The Dematerialization of Art (1968), Jack Burnham - Systems Esthetics (1968), Roland Barthes- From Work to Text (1971), Roslind Krauss - A View of Modernism (1972), Johanna Drucker - the Visible Word (1994), Nicolas Bourriaud - Relational Aesthetics (2002), Steven Dixon - Just for your Information- Communication and the Art Piece (2004)

Seminar meeting 1 and 2, Feb. 23rd and 24th - Object and Immaterial, Artifact and Idea.
Seminar on the Distinction and Dissolution of the art piece in Critical thought From the 1950's to the Present.

Feb. 25th -NetArt: The Transportation of art on the Web from Arpanet to Hypertext.

March 4th - A Flood of Narrative and the Proliferation of Signs: The work of Eija-Liisa Ahtila. From Me/We; Okay; Grey (1993) to Love is a Treasure (2002)

March 11th - The Reoccurring Fall: Time, Sacrifice and Continuation in the Ideology and Art of the Toltec Empire (Aztec)

Seminar Meeting 3 and 4, March 16th and 17th - Object and Immaterial, Artifact and Idea.
Seminar on the Distinction and Dissolution of the art piece in Critical thought From the 1950's to the Present.

March 18th - Mapping Desire: The Explication of the World and the Location of Humans in the Science and Art of the Renaissance.

April 1st - Whats the Matter with the Message : Convergences and Divergences in the concepts of Constructivism, Minimalism and Arte Povera

Seminar Meeting 5, April 6th- Object and Immaterial, Artifact and Idea. Seminar on the Distinction and Dissolution of the art piece in Critical thought From the 1950's to the Present.

April 8th - I Hear Ya: Conceptual Resonances in Sound Art from Luigi Russolo to Janet Cardiff

April 13th - The Theories of Purity and Pollution: from Mary Douglas to The Matrix

April 15th - Theory of the Text and the Margin- Wittgenstein to Derrida Video Works and Installations of Gary Hill April 22nd - Consumerist Postmodernism and the Music Video: Image Culture, Implosion of Information and the Co-opting of Critical theory :from Major Tom (David Bowe) to Come to Daddy (Aphex Twin)

Seminar. April 29th , May 3rd and May 7th - Presence, Presentation and the Art Project: Writing about Art in English.
Workshop on practical writing about your art project and art piece in English Note: Sammanträdesrum - Kl. 10:00 - 12:00

Readings-
Barbara Hepworth - Sculpture 1937
Barnett Newman - The First Man was a Artist 1947
Frida Kahalo - Moses 1946
Ad Reinhardt - Art as Art 1962
Valrie Export - Women's art 1972
Ana Mendieta - Art and Politics 1982
Barbara Kruger - Taking Pictures 1982
Ilya Kabakov - Installations 1994 and 2000