FEINART Lecture: From Art Institution to Community Portal, by Maria Hlavajova

FEINART (The Future of European Independent Art Spaces in a Period of Socially Engaged Art) is a PhD training network funded by the EU, in partnership with several universities and art spaces, amongst which BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht. As part of the FEINART Lecture Series, BAK’s general and artistic director Maria Hlavajova presents […]

The Postresearch Condition – EARN Conference Opening Program Redux

The annual EARN Conference was held at BAK, basis voor actuele kunst in Utrecht from 26–30 January 2021. Due to the Covid-19 situation, the opening program, a conversation between Peter Osborne and Hito Steyerl, had to be postponed. This event now takes place as a hybrid activity on 21 May 2021 in collaboration with UCL, […]

HKU MA Fine Art Graduation Show: If Not Now

Graduation exhibition of the 2018−2020 MA Fine Art class at HKU University of the Arts Utrecht

From 30 September–11 October 2020, BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht hosts If Not Now, the graduation exhibition of the 2018−2020 MA Fine Art class of HKU University of the Arts Utrecht, curated by Katia Krupennikova.

Bratislava BAK Winter School: Art as Politics

The Bratislava BAK Winter School: Art as Politics is a collaborative and intensive learning week from 16–20 December 2019 in Bratislava, Slovakia, organized in partnership with BAK, basis voor actuele kunst in Utrecht, Open Studio/Studio IN – Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava, APART Collective in Bratislava, and initiated by Kristína Országhová.

Futures Without…

HKU MA Fine Art Graduation Show with daily performances

From 4–18 July 2019, BAK, basis voor actuele kunst hosts the HKU MA Fine Art Graduation Show Futures Without... This transdisciplinary graduation show features video, spatial installations, sound and visual experiences, drawings, objects and photographs. It also hosts a vivid program of daily performances.

Modeling a World Otherwise, and Living It as If It Were Possible

keynote lecture by Maria Hlavajova at the GRACE Conference 2019

Keynote lecture by Maria Hlavajova, General and Artistic Director of BAK, during the GRACE Conference 2019, titled Gender and Cultures of In/Equality in Europe: visions, poetics, strategies.

Bratislava BAK Summer School: Art in a Time of Interregnum

The Bratislava BAK Summer School: Art in a Time of Interregnum is a collaborative and intensive learning week in Bratislava from 18‑21 September 2018, organized in partnership with BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht, Open Studio/ Studio IN – Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava, APART Collective in Bratislava, and initiated by Kristína Országhová.

ABiotic Factors

From 24 June to 9 July 2017, BAK hosts the MaHKU graduation exhibition ABiotic Factors. Departing from nature-culture, this year’s MaHKU graduation project takes the urban environment as a site of mutual interactions between both living and non-living agents.

The Southern Summer School

The Southern Summer School is a collective project that brings together art practitioners and cultural workers based in South Africa, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. It begins from the acknowledgment that the colonial involvement of the Dutch and the British empire in South Africa is not only a historical fact that may be consigned to the past, but that coloniality continues to operate in the present.

Creative Time Summit DC: Occupy the Future

Lecture by Maria Hlavajova during the Creative Time Summit, an international conference on art and social change.

Panel discussion with curator Markus Miessen

Panel discussion with curator Markus Miessen, followed by a performance program.

Caulfield, Cauliflower, and other Vegetables (A Possible Dialectics On The Politics Of Misunderstanding)

MaHKU graduation exhibition of 2016, curated by Markus Miessen.

After Europe

On the opening night of Jonas Staal’s exhibition After Europe, Maria Hlavajova, artistic director of BAK, will join a panel discussion with Quim Arrufat, Angela Dimitrakaki, and Despina Koutsoumpa.

Un(fore)seen Cultures: Mapping the Urban Contemporary in Hong Kong and the Netherlands

Presentations and debate stemming from an exchange between Utrecht University and Hong Kong University,

Global Art Challenges 2016

Keynote lecture by Maria Hlavajova as part of a panel on “Art-as-Intervention-in-Reality: “Ecology of Knowledges” and Institutional Practices”.

Tentoonbazen

Temporary exhibition by pupils of the Oosterlicht College. In two exhibition projects, they focus on questions of identity, migration, and the Dutch relationship to asylum seekers and refugee shelters.

Synapse I: Rethinking Institutions

Contribution by Maria Hlavajova to a panel in the context of OMONOIA, the Athens Biennale 2015-2017.

Thinking Out Loud: Practices of Art in the Era of the Disenchanted

On 24 March 2015, BAK artistic director Maria Hlavajova presents a talk titled Thinking Out Loud: Practices of Art in the Era of the Disenchanted, in which she thinks through the research projects FORMER WEST and Future Vocabularies, to reflect on the question what the prospective itineraries might be through which we can point towards what we once used to call the “future”?

Sexing the Border: Gender, Art and New Media in Central and Eastern Europe

On 23 March 2015, BAK artistic director Maria Hlavajova engages in a conversation with Rael Artel and Katarzyna Kosmala, on the occassion of the publication of the latter’s new edited collection Sexing the Border: Gender, Art and New Media in Central and Eastern Europe.

Art in the Face of Class Recompositions

In the lecture series Curating… Lectures from the exhibition maker’s practice, organized by the Museum for Contemporary Art, Basel and the Academy of Art and Design, Basel, BAK artistic director Maria Hlavajova discusses Art in the Face of Class Recompositions.

Learning & Unlearning

Maria Hlavajova chairs the Learning & Unlearning session of Artist Organisations International.

On the present Zeitgeist and the position of the artist

Maria Hlavajova speaks about the current Zeitgeist and the position of the artist within the framework of the Honger naar radicaliteit. Dood aan de nuance project at De Theaterschool, Amsterdam.

Reflections on the role of the artist in society

Maria Hlavajova lectures at the The bitter sweet legacy of communism in Romania. Reflections (I): Dan Perjovschi public program at the Royal Academy, The Hague.

ON MEDIATION/2: Theory and Curatorial Practices in the Global Art

BAK’s artistic director Maria Hlavajova gives a talk in Barcelona on 10 December 2014, as a part of the second On Mediation training seminar, organized by the Art, Globalization, Interculturality (AGI) research group of the Department of Art History, University of Barcelona, Barcelona.

Constructing Other Worlds

BAK artistic director Maria Hlavajova gives a talk in Bucharest on 30 October 2014 as a part of the Evening classes series of conferences, screenings, presentations, and discussions, organized by the Salonul de Proiecte curatorial programme.

Learning Place: Screening and Discussion

On 4 September 2014 at 19.00 hrs, BAK’s site of education and talent development, Learning Place (LP), marks the beginning of a new semester with a public screening of two works realized by recent LP graduates from MaHKU, Utrecht and MAR/KABK, The Hague.

Critical Theory Beyond Negativity: the Ethics, Politics and Aesthetics of Affirmation

The intensive course Critical Theory Beyond Negativity: the Ethics, Politics and Aesthetics of Affirmation explores critical theory in the tradition of Continental philosophy, with special reference to the works of philosophers Gilles Deleuze, Luce Irigaray, Henri Bergson, and Rosi Braidotti.

Why Biennial?

Keynote by Maria Hlavajova at the International Biennial Association conference, Berlin. Beginning with a diagnosis of the conflict zone that is the world today, Maria Hlavajova’s keynote lecture Why Biennial? addresses the urgent need to reevaluate how we think about the biennial.

BAK at NY Art Book Fair

BAK participates in the NY Art Book Fair, New York, 5–7 November 2010.

The Political and Social Responsibilities of Public Art Institutions

Lectures and guided tour at MUHKA, Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst, Antwerpen.

When is Feminism in Curating?

Lecture and seminar.

What is Critical about Critical Curatorial Practices

Lecture and studio visits at Dutch Art Institute (DAI), Enschede.

Introduction to the project Citizens and Subjects

Lecture and studio visit Aernout Mik.

Introduction to the project Former West

Lecture with Charles Esche and seminar.

1989 on: Examples of Curatorial Practices and Landmark Exhibitions

Lecture and seminar.

Curating (Beyond) Exhibitions: Critical Curatorial Practices and Contemporary Society

Master course organized by Utrecht University and BAK. The course, structured as a series of lectures and seminars, explores the dynamic field of curating vis-ŕ-vis the challenges that artistic and intellectual practices are presented with by contemporary society, and takes the year 1989—which marks the end of the Cold War—as a starting point from which to explore the practice of curating.

What is the subject at hand?

Introduction to Curating (Beyond) Exhibitions.