WORLD OF ART, School of Contemporary Arts
www.worldofart.org
Year 2008/09
Seminar for writing
Workshop No.3

Branislav Dimitrijević
Interpreting and Situating Contemporary Art: Observation, Participation, Motivation, Research and Empathy

May 15-16, 2009
SCCA Project Room, Metelkova 6, Ljubljana

The workshop by Branko Dimitrijević started with a lecture that introduced a key term - the interpretation of a work of art. The curator and writer Branko Dimitrijević showed the participants that also art, that is taking its shape since the sixties and is provisionally called "contemporary" and which tends to champion (real) experience over interpretation, needs interpretation in order to be better understood by ourselves (namely by those participating in the world of art) and by the wider public.

After the morning lecture a lively debate between the participants, stimulated by watching several videos by different artists, followed. The participants tried to interpret the videos with the help of the mentor and with the newly acquired knowledge.

On Saturday morning the participants Špela Petrič and Dare Pejić presented two art works to their mentor which they later tried to interpret in the form of a newspaper criticism. For the analysis Špela Petrič selected the work Microvenus by Joe Davis. Dare Pejić was thinking about the question of collective authorship using the examples of Atlas group and Irwin. Saturday afternoon was dedicated to close reading of the written assignments and their analysis.

Petja Grafenauer