Thematic hook
by Hassan Khan

Sommerakademie
August 12 - 22, 2015

Teaser

Over the span of ten days this meeting of minds, forum for questions, space of engagements and focus, this respite, this arena of distraction aimed to offer a gentle hook. Was it a smooth dissolve or a harsh cut? A melodic harmony or an atonal storm? Formal virtuosity or a wild ramble?

Sometimes we need to begin with questions and answers. What has been labelled early twentieth century modernism has never been digested or understood. So what kind of artist do you think you are? It is, sometimes for some people, important to trick ourselves. Who is it that speaks when you decide that something has value? Engagement and loss are real and possible. What is a context? Sometimes everything you know can be put into brackets. What is value? Focusing on what one does can be incredibly rewarding.  What kind of relationship do we hold to what surrounds us, to what we do and what we want? Capitalism does not exist. How can we know what is important and what merely greases the wheels of function? What do we do with the ever-evolving questions of form, function and content, the shadow of meaning that haunts us? How to determine a measure of good faith? How not to lose self-respect? What are the lessons of what we call art history, what are its limits and how is it being redefined by some of those who have engaged the beast?

Teaser was ten days spent within the relative comfort and pleasures of institutional support. Ten days of possible explorations, ego massages, and put downs. We aimed to produce different contexts and situations, to stare into the black holes of assumptions and to, sometimes, have a good time.