World of Art and Igor Zabel Association for Culture and Theory
Series of public lectures How Critical
Is the Condition of Critical Writing?
Ekaterina Degot:
When Everybody is Critical, but Nobody is a Critic

Tuesday, 5 April 2016, 6 pm
Project Room, SCCA–Ljubljana, Metelkova 6, Ljubljana

Wednesday, 6 April 2016, 6 pm
Umetnostna galerija Maribor / UGM Studio, Trg Leona Štuklja 2, Maribor

This year we will continue with How Critical Is the Condition of Critical Writing?, a reflection on the current role and status of criticism in visual arts and culture conceived last year, with a new series of lectures. This year, our point of departure is last year’s conclusion that it makes more sense to talk, not about the crisis of criticism, which manifest in criticism that has drifted significantly from its traditional format, but rather about new forms of critique. Lectures on changes in contemporary critical and theoretical production will be given by: Thijs Lijster, Ekaterina Degot, Maja Breznik, Izidor Barši & Kaja Kraner (ŠUM), and Antonija Letinić.

Together with the Igor Zabel Association for Culture and Theory and Umetnostna galerija Maribor / UGM Studio we cordially invite you to attend the public lecture by Ekaterina Degot (in English).

About the lecture

The recurring discussion about critical writing reminds us of a comparable discourse centered around the notion of painting. When asked, over and again, about the destiny of painting, one is tempted to reply shortly that it is dead. Obviously many artists do paint, provide for themselves by doing so, and even manage to remain historically relevant, but they avoid calling themselves painters. In a similar vein, most of us practice critical writing, sometimes on an everyday basis, but hesitate to present ourselves as professional critics. Where is critical thinking located in this entanglement of de-skilling and performativity?

More on World of Art page.

Ekaterina Degot is an art writer and curator, Artistic Director at the Academy of Arts of the World, Cologne, and professor at the Rodchenko Moscow School of Photography and Multimedia. In 2014 she won the Igor Zabel Award for Culture and Theory. Her resent curatorial projects include: Report to an Academy, a Non-Academic Symposium, Performative or Otherwise, Pluriversale I, Cologne, 2014 (with David Riff); What Did the Artist Mean by That?, Moscow Museum of Modern Art, 2014 (with Yuri Albert), and Monday Begins on Saturday, First Bergen Assembly, Bergen, Norway, 2013 (with David Riff). She co-edited Post-Post-Soviet?: Art, Politics and Society in Russia at the Turn of the Decade (Chicago University press, 2013).

Photo: SCCA-Ljubljana archive

This programme is being part of the World of Art, School for Curators and Critics of Contemporary Art; and prepared by SCCA–Ljubljana & the Igor Zabel Association for Culture and Theory.

Partner: UGM – Maribor Art Gallery.

Supported by: City of Ljubljana – Department for Culture, ERSTE Foundation, and Goethe-Institut Ljubljana.

[Published March 30, 2016]