Art & Education presents a new School Watch report on “The Big Shift” at Moderna Galerija and the new Classroom program “Our Shifting Ground Is Written in the Cloud,” curated by João Enxuto and Erica Love.
New Dynamics: “The Big Shift” at Moderna Galerija
By Tjaša Pogačar
“In the last week of August, a small international crowd gathered at Moderna Galerija in Ljubljana for the launch of ‘The Big Shift: The 1990s. Avant-Gardes in Eastern Europe and Their Legacy.’ Tote bags distributed for the occasion printed with the slogans ‘After the Cold War Global Warming’ and ‘I Live in a Postmodern, Neoliberal, Former Something Global World’ set the tone for discussions to come. ‘The Big Shift’ was the second edition of Summer School, an initiative begun by Moderna Galerija director and curator Zdenka Badovinac and theorist Boris Groys, who served as the program’s director. Part of the institution’s participation in the four-year L’Internationale initiative ‘Our Many Europes – Europe’s critical ’90s and the Constituent Museum,’ Summer School was designed for postgraduate students and art professionals with an interest in research in Eastern European art and the legacy of its avant-garde. ‘The Big Shift’ emphasized specifically the 1990s and the major sociopolitical and economic transformations that defined the period and continue to influence the present. Thirty-six participants, most from Europe and the United States, embarked on a dense seven-day program of public lectures and closed-door workshops, guided tours, institutional visits, presentations, an exhibition opening, a performance, and a live-action role play exercise. And though the program looked back at the recent past, ‘The Big Shift,’ and the kind of programs it is emblematic of, offers considerable insight into the future of learning with art.” [read more]
School Watch presents distilled perspectives on degree programs in the arts, with interviews, critical texts, and editorial exposés on MFAs, Masters, Doctorates and certificate programs in fine arts, art history, curatorial, cultural and film studies, and other related areas of specialty.
Our Shifting Ground Is Written in the Cloud
Curated by João Enxuto and Erica Love
“Ten years ago, during the last major financial crisis of the economies of the North Atlantic and Europe, the Dow Jones Industrial Average hit a low point of 6,469.95. At the time of this writing the DJIA has swelled to nearly 27,000. Amid the increasing volatility and noise of American political and social life since 2009, financialization has stealthily reemerged.
Countless films, videos, books, podcasts, and art installations produced in the past decade have chronicled the crisis and unpacked the toxic assets and credit default swaps that unleashed the violence of financial capitalism. Today, most of us working in the culture industries are likely increasingly vulnerable to the unpredictability of markets and the treachery of those who instrumentalize the powers of risk. A global recession looms. The fallout of the 2009 financial crisis compelled the late theorist and activist Randy Martin to build on his work documenting the financialization of daily life and to consider the derivative: the unregulated financial product at the root of the temporary collapse of the banking sector. The derivative is a claim on the future performance of an asset. Since the 1970s, the banking industry has preemptively written the terms for actionable futures by simultaneously predicting and hedging against assets and their indexes in an increasingly fragmented, financialized economy.” [read more]
Featuring Randy Martin, Haim Bodek, Grace Jones, Jaya Klara Brekke, Brett Scott, J.S.G. Boggs, and Benjamin Bratton.
Classroom features thematically organized lectures and conversations chosen by artists and thinkers on issues relevant to their practice and contemporary artistic discourse.
