Education Program

03 December 2018–21 January 2019

Course Art and Politics

A six-week course on the relations between contemporary art and the political

Matthijs de Bruijne: Compromiso Político, exhibition at BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht, 2018, photo: Tom Janssen

“Art and Politics” is an inaugural course of a new public school for art and politics organized by BAK, basis voor actuele kunst in Utrecht. In six weekly sessions, the participants learn about how contemporary art relates to the political in an accessible way. The course zooms in on the historical period starting with the pivotal year 1989 to today. The sessions are based on an in-depth analysis of concrete works of art, supported by readings of texts on contemporary art and its intrinsic links to present-day society and politics.

The course is taught by Maria Hlavajova, BAK’s general and artistic director. The case studies and examples of art works are mainly from BAK’s renowned international projects Former West (2008–2016), Future Vocabularies (2013–2016), and Propositions for Non-Fascist Living (2017–ongoing), and from artists such as Tania Bruguera, Matthijs de Bruijne, Forensic Architecture, Aernout Mik, Rabih Mroué, Christoph Schlingensief, Jonas Staal, Hito Steyerl, and others.

Each sequence of the course provides clear insights into selected artistic practices in order to highlight larger trends and developments in the contemporary art field and the changing understanding of artistic production today, as well as of the notion of the public and art institutions. Simultaneously, the course helps participants to familiarize themselves with main concepts and the most urgent questions at the heart of art and politics.

Participating in the course is open to all concerned with the question as to what can art do in times like ours. Prior knowledge or experience in the subject matter is not required.

To apply, please send a brief motivation letter and biography to Steffie Maas: steffie@bakonline.org before 26 November 2018.

Language: English
Dates: 3, 10 and 18 December 2018 and 7, 14 and 21 January 2019
Time: 19–21 hrs
Venue: BAK, Pauwstraat 13a, Utrecht
Price: € 250 (to be paid before the start of the course)

Suggestions from the archive

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Yallah Sabaya

Community Portal Hosts… Yallah Sabaya Join us on 8 March 2024 at BAK, Yallah Sabaya is happening again! “Come on ladies, let’s have fun together,” would be a good translation of yallah sabaya. All women of different cultural backgrounds are welcome to dance, chat, and connect with others also through movement and celebration. 8 March 2024, […]

Reading Group

Exhibition

07 March–02 June 2024

Usufructuaries of earth
Chapter one: exhibition

The exhibition foregrounds the artist’s collaborative approach to bringing together ecological, feminist, and decolonial knowledges and practices that put forward ideologies of usufruct, unhinging property-relations from the idiom of individuated possession and toward forms of common userships between humans and other-than-humans.

Convention