Harold Pinter on Samuel Beckett

Re-thinking landscape

I have posted on him before, but today I discovered this very interesting talk by Edward Burtynsky – why don’t you have a look? ©Edward Burtynsky I think the environmental movement has failed in that it’s used the stick too much; it’s used the apocalyptic tone too much; it hasn’t sold the positive aspects of…

After the revolution, who’s going to pick up the garbage on Monday morning?

Today I have been studying the extraordinary work on ordinary life by the American artist Mierle Laderman Ukeles. I am especially interested in how she presents her own invention Maintenance Art as a feminine antagonism to the male dominated Avant-garde.  Mierle Laderman Ukeles: Washing/Tracks/Maintenance, 1973. She argues that the two, Maintenance Art and Avant-garde follow two…

a note on Gadamer’s aesthetics & hermeneutics

After a nice week off, I have to admit: I rather prefer my ordinary everyday life, my peaceful study, hours of uninterrupted reading and writing. Celebration and parties are ok, as long as they come in small dosages. I will spend my next days preparing a new lecture on Gadamer’s aesthetics & hermeneutics. Gadamer’s approach…

Gadamer’s Aesthetics

Today I’m preparing a lecture on the aesthetics of Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900-2002). Gadamer’s theories on art are most interesting! I am especially intrigued by his idea of ART AS SPIEL (Die Aktualität des Schönen. Kunst als Spiel, Symbol und Fest, 1977). I find the play-metaphor very useful. Gadamer includes the viewer/listener/reader in the artwork, and this…

Autoxylopyrocycloboros

In my investigations on the term of Conceptual Art I have become more and more unsure if this is at all a useful concept. The definition is much too wide! And we all know that a definition which includes all and everything, is a useless definition. We, the art theoreticians, definitely have some intellectual & philosophical…

Every man is an artist…?

In my preparations for next weeks lectures I came across this ground-breaking piece of art: Joseph Beuys: I Like America and America Likes Me (performance, 1974) A master of compelling performance pieces, Beuys flew to New York, picked up by an ambulance, and swathed in felt, was transported to a room in the Rene Block…

On Beauty

As some of you already know, last week I tried to get my art students interested in art history by showing them two works: Jan Davidsz de Heem, Vase of Flowers, (1660) Heikki Marila: Kukat XIX, (2009) Comparing these two paintings worked really well as an opening into the field of art history. The students had…

Preparing

I am preparing for my first lecture, for meeting a group of students being very dedicated and interested in art – but having no knowledge on the historic and theoretical dimensions of the subject, which is what I am going to introduce them to. No textbooks on their curriculum …  all is going to be…