Præsentation lektor

THE SCHOOL OF GRAPHIC ARTS

The School of Graphic Arts deals with the possibilities that are inherent in reproduction techniques and their contents, in connection with conceptions of what a contemporary artistic practice should be. The point of departure is taken in both the repertoire of the classic graphic techniques and present-day digital and photo-mechanical reproduction techniques and their limits.

The investigation of the reproduction techniques and the aesthetic and expressive strategies, be it classical or contemporary, that apply to them, opens up a complex field of the most diverse questions to concepts such as: original and copy, production and reproduction, presentation and representation. In short, all the questions that subjects, who are making copies, who are producing and reproducing, presenting and representing, must put to themselves. In the sense of Benjamin, the artistic artefact (but it may apply to all others products as well) is implying, as its own “ideal condition”, the question of its status and, at the same time, of the limits of its reproduction suitability, ultimately leading to the question of an original difference.

A further field of interest for the School of Graphic Arts is offered by the relationship between textuality and visuality and all herewith related problematics: The use of images, the question of how they can be read (if at all), the interpretation (if any) of their contents, the question of the archive as a room for memories, and the potential of social constructions. All this constitutes a field of continuous examination – and in this way, knowledge of aspects of the organization of the pictorial space is supplemented with that of how images are organized in the exhibition space and in society at large.

The independent artistic development within the diversity of contemporary avant-garde conceptions of the visual arts and in the context of what is happening in the cultural and political life, is the focus of the education. Thus the current rules and paradigms of the art system and its ideologies as well as the most diverse ideas of what is art, must be met with a critical discourse. Our aim is a synthesis of theory and practice as a relationship whose two parts question and complement each other while each one keeps its current specificity. I want the students, with the open minds they possess, but also with all their special peculiarities, to develop their capacities for perceiving the indefinite something, for talking about it and analyzing it – in order to create an aesthetic language anew.

In the School of Graphic Arts, teaching staff and students meet both face to face and in plenum. Workshops, excursions and study tours, as well as collaboration with students and teachers of other art academies, are recurrent elements of the School’s activities. Artists, critics, curators and men/women of completely different specialities are invited to hold lectures and workshops.

Each year, in addition to individual and collective concerns, we are going to work concomitantly with a special theme: Thus, in 2008-2009, it was the problem of the exhibition and of exhibiting. In November-December 2008, Florian Pumhösl was guest professor at the School.

Thomas Locher, f. 1956, er uddannet billedkunstner på Kunstakademiet i Stuttgart samt på universitetet sammesteds. Han bor og arbejder i Berlin. Locher har en lang karriere bag sig med omfattende udstillingsaktiviteter i Tyskland, USA, Frankrig, Schweiz og andre steder siden midten af 1980’erne. Hans kunstneriske arbejder tager udgangspunkt i en konceptuel og minimalistisk tradition. Med brug af diverse reproduktionsteknikker, navnlig fotografi og serigrafi, og med inddragelse af bogstaver, ord og tekstmateriale, har han lavet installatoriske og kontekst-orienterede værker som diskuterer såvel de fysiske som de historiske, geografiske og ideologiske rum værkerne udfolder sig indenfor. Thomas Lochers værker kan blandt ses på Kunsthaus Zürich, Kunstmuseum Stuttgart, Grafische Sammlung Albertina, Wien og Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie, Karlsruhe. Indtil d. 29.10 kan nye værker ses på Galerie Six Friedrich & Lis Ungar i München.