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Curatorial Politics
M1/M2
English/French (texts)

Doreen Mende

Turning the inextricable [or, intractable] condition against itself

“Violence is at the beginning of thinking; it is the thing of thought, of reason.” (Denise Ferreira da Silva) Violence is also at the beginning of making; it is the thing of art. This is not a dilemma. But a matrix: Violence marks the rule of law, not as an event but as a condition. The seminar aims to problematize violence as an inextricable condition from which there is neither an escape nor an excuse nor an apology. This condition has always been formative and will inextricably continue to affect art as a concept and a practice of transcendental reason. Put differently, art is implicit as well as complicit with the rule of law (and signification) legitimizing colonial (juridical) and racial (symbolic) violence. There is an end to this only possibly at the end of art as we know it.
This year’s seminar will engage with the very difficult question how to make a research public, from a curatorial perspective, with the aim to rehearse how it could be possible to not reproduce the violence that is inscribed into our means of making as artists, curators, theorists, architects, researcher or designers. How could research become a set of practices to prepare the conditions for practicing a decoloniality to arrive, which will be needed for turning the inextricable [or, intractable] condition of violence against itself? These all are very difficult questions. The practice-based seminar will not claim to answer them. But it will try to create openings, responses, offerings, spaces, time-zones and constellations to think with.
We will read key texts by Denise Ferreira da Silva, MTL Collective, Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang. We will visit ongoing exhibitions nearby with the aim to analyse them with questions from the seminar. The assignment of the seminar consists of small exercises with concrete material from your own research, or otherwise, in relation to the reading of texts. Furthermore, it also is expected from the students to create independently and selfresponsibly a diary of terms, methods and concepts with the possible capacity of turning the inextricable [or, intractable] condition of violence against itself. –– The seminar resonates with the following two research processes: PARSE conference «Violence» including Yasmine Eid- Sabbagh and Denise Ferreira da Silva from 17 through 19 November 2021; the exhibition Saisis par l’art (working title) for the Musée du Luxembourg de Grand Palais in Paris in collaboration with the state collections of art Dresden planned for September 2022.

Cultural Studies
M1 et M2: Anne-Julie Raccoursier (en français et anglais)

Les Cultural Studies 2015/16 ouvrent un champ d’étude transdisciplinaire et critique qui prend pour objet les institutions, les pratiques et les formes culturelles dans leurs relations aux structures politiques dominantes, aux hiérarchies sociales et aux minorités marginalisées. L’enseignement met en relation les théories et les méthodes qui fondent ce champ d’étude avec des pratiques artistiques situées, discursives, interventionnistes. Le séminaire alternera exposés, lectures et travaux pratiques.

Theory Fiction
M1/M2
English

Kodwo Eshun

The Theory Fiction Seminar for 2021-2022 will focus upon a close reading of Octavia E. Butler’s 1980 novel Wild Seed which can be understood as a thought experiment on the intertemporal dynamics of extrapolation, exploitation, evolution and enslavement. The collective reading of Wild Seed by the Seminar will function as a kind of libretto for an engagement with one scene from Wild Seed. This collectively selected scene will be notated, recited, voiced, performed, projected, videoed, recorded and amplified for a recital that situates itself at the ambiguous intersection between the formats of performance-lecture, sound-work, audio-essay, opera and podcast.

Études Politiques
M1/M2
French/English

Pierre Hazan
Début: Octobre 9, 2017, 10.00

Faisons table rase du passé ?
Les révolutionnaires français rêvaient de faire table rase du passé. Mais force est de constater que le passé n’est pas encore passé, il a même un très grand avenir. La constitution de l’identité aussi bien personnelle que collective, le système de valeurs, la projection d’une société dans l’avenir dépend largement de la représentation qu’elle se fait de son passé. Le démantèlement des statues du général Lee à Charlottesville et de Christophe Colomb à New York, la destruction des œuvres d’art par Daech en Irak ou l’érection de monuments à Genève le montrent de manière saisissante. Comment se construit et se modifie le lien au passé et à quel passé ? Quel regard porter aujourd’hui sur le colonialisme et la traite esclavagiste ? Selon quelle lecture historique ? Selon quelle vision de la culture, de la vérité et de la justice ? L’enjeu de ce cours vise à mieux appréhender les ressorts de la représentation du passé dans l’espace public.
Publication : les étudiants seront amenés à travailler sur des œuvres en construction ou faisant l’objet d’une discussion sur leur destruction/démantèlement, ou qu’ils souhaiteraient détruire. Dans leur texte, les étudiants devront analyser les enjeux idéologiques et esthétiques, les dynamiques politiques, le rôle de l’artiste et des pouvoirs publics. L’ensemble de leurs contributions, éventuellement enrichies de contributions extérieures, feront l’objet d’une publication.