World of Art
School of Contemporary Art

www.worldofart.org

The World of Art is the sole program in Slovenia and the broader region of Central, Eastern and Southern Europe aimed towards practical and theoretical education in the field of contemporary art. It comes out of a premise that future experts need and should be taught the skills and methods, along with gaining knowledge and insight into the critical and theoretical apparatus as all this should eventually help them when tackling the complex matter of the world of art.

In November 2011, we begin the fourtheenth version of the updated course, which is designed on the basis of several years’ research on various curatorial programs, analysis of curatorial practice, consultations with relevant national and international experts, and an evaluation of the past program and consideration of effective models of education in the field of contemporary art.
The course has two semesters; the first (November 2011-June 2012) is dedicated to the acquisition of art-historical, theoretical and methodological knowledge and skills; the second (September 2012-April 2013) is dedicated to critical and curatorial studies and practice.

The program includes lectures, seminars, workshops, research work, modules on the practical work of the curator, study excursions and practice in galleries. The process comprises the organisation of events, studio visits, meetings with curators, artists, theorists, and writers, and teamwork in conceptualisation and preparing an exhibition of contemporary art under the tutor’s leadership.

History

The World of Art as an educational program was introduced in 1997. It was developed out of a need for theoretical and practical education in the field of contemporary visual art and which no university program in Slovenia offers. Formal education in art history has included neither contemporary production nor the art theory of the 20th and 21st Century and the young experts have mainly turned towards past periods due to their lack of knowledge and apparatuses for decoding contemporary tendencies in art. In the nineties, art production in Slovenia formed an important agent in cultural and social processes and was also integrated into international scene, while the theoretical and curatorial apparatuses lagged behind. In response, the World of Art program brought a series of public lectures, which shed some light upon the artistic practices and art theories significant for the understanding of contemporary arts. As a unique program in this field, it also offered a course for curators of contemporary art, enabling participants to gain knowledge necessary to perform the work of a contemporary art curator.

In the first year, the World of Art program was organised by the Škuc Gallery. In 1998 it became the program of the Soros Center for Contemporary Arts – Ljubljana and gained a specific international character thanks to the Center’s extensive international links, especially within the Region (Central and Eastern Europe, the Balkans and the newly formed countries of the former Soviet Union). This was also the year in which the course, i.e. the eight-month-long process of conceptualising and setting up the contemporary art exhibition, was prolonged to ten months and upgraded with study excursions abroad, offering participants the opportunity to look beyond the borders of the local situation and familiarize themselves with the variety of various methods, approaches and techniques of operation in the art system and art milieus of neighbouring countries.

In its seventh year of operation (2003/2004) the educational program World of Art grew into School of Contemporary Art. It was composed by the course for curators with final exhibition, seminar in writing, series of lectures and a yearly anthology.

The program of the school was conceived in yearly cycles establishing in such a way a professional reflection, i.e. curatorial and critical practices – the part of the art system that is indispensable for any relevant and active artistic production and is in the Slovene milieu with no doubt underdeveloped. We thought that only such a systematic and complex program could bring about necessary structural changes, which has already been proven with evidence in practice after twelve years of operation.

The seminar in writing (from 2003/2004) stimulated texts on contemporary art and initiated new discourses and methods of recording and historicizing contemporary artistic practices. In 2005, we have established a co-operation with Likovne besede (Artwords) magazine to launch a permanent “World of Arts” rubric in which the texts produced in frame of the seminar are published. Similarly, some of the “seminar” texts are also broadcast on Radio Student (Ljubljana).

Within the frame of the thematic series of lectures (organised also in Croatia, Slovakia and other cities in Slovenia in cooperation with our partners) 56 Slovene and foreign lecturers presented their view on the individual topic relevant for understanding of the complex world of contemporary arts, and their curatorial, theoretical and artistic practice, which introduced unique models of reflective and responsible operation. Five bilingual anthologies have offered the achievements of each year of the school in a written form thus preserving them also for our descendents.

That the World of Art is a success is proven by the very number of successful students. So far, 72 have completed the course in twelve years and many have found relevant jobs – some almost immediately after the course, while others have remained active as independent curators, including internationally. This is a clear sign that the pioneering course for the curators of contemporary art, the only one in Slovenia and the wider region to offer both theoretical knowledge and practical experience in training for the increasingly popular and demanding profession, provides opportunities to experts and enables them to begin serious work in the area of contemporary art. The effects of the seminar are also evident, as the level of critical writing has improved in the recent years, with most of the writers having attended the World of Art.

As the years went by, the World of Art was becoming increasingly complex and was also logically placed within the conceptually rounded up operation of the SCCA-Ljubljana. Namely, the Center with its programs is systematically establishing an expert platform for contemporary arts, which is of vital importance for the balance between the artistic production and practice, the critical and curatorial reflections, the expert reception and the respond by the general public.

WORLD OF ART. School of Contemporary Art

Head of World of Art: Saša Nabergoj
Assistant: Simona Žvanut
Adviser: Barbara Borčić

Metelkova 6, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia
Tel.: 00 386 1 431 83 85, fax: 00 386 1 430 06 29
E-mail: svetumetnosti@scca-ljubljana.si