les presses du réel

Art, Self & System

 - Art, Self & System
Stemming from the Master Fine Arts at the Zurich University of the Arts, this publication promotes the art school as a place for pedagogical, civic and political implications.
The artist as entrepreneur has become a common topic of discussion. Here, however, we put forward the notions of “self” and “system.” First, every artistic practice is self-reflexive and self-contextualizing. Second, each system an artist builds allows for innovation. Let's construct a space where we inevitably find ourselves together with others, even if we feel lonely, like a witch lost in a library of artists' books. Let's invent our right to do so. Let's enter the world of smell and write about a megalomaniac art school while documenting a generation of art students and their studios with analogue photography. How does anyone even manage—from making objects to performing one's own existence? Device, organon, animal.
This book arises from the 2018 activities of the MA Fine Arts program at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK). It reflects the conviction that an arts school can be a pedagogic nexus dedicated to the transmission of knowledge, experimentation, and research, as much as a locus for civic and critical debate and exhibition, involved in its community, locally and globally.

Art, Self & System is the second volume of a new series aiming to explore the state of the world and cultural theories as seen through the lens of contemporary artistic practices and educational tools. Stemming from the Master Fine Arts at the Zurich University of the Arts, and edited by MFA director Donatella Bernardi, the series' ambition is to replace the traditional “degree show” catalogue with a theoretical publication showing the path followed by the students-turned-artists over the course of the year, and to explore how an educational institution based in Zurich can locate itself within the global (art) world.
See also Art & Crisis.
Edited by Donatella Bernardi.
Contributions by Jeremy Ayer, Velibor Barisic, Donatella Bernardi, Amos Bollag, Katharina Brandl, Clifford E. Bruckmann, Gioia Dal Molin, Philip Frowein, Désirée Myriam Gnaba, Noëlle Guidon, Adrian Hanselmann, Vanessà Heer, Dijan Kahrimanovic, Maya Lama, Matthias Liechti, Romain Mader, Marisa Meier, Javor Milanov, Fidel Morf, Angi Nend, Dominic Neuwirth, Leila Peacock, Elodie Pong, Dorothee Richter, Nils Röller, Evan Ruetsch, Antonio Scarponi, Christoph Schifferli, Claudia Stöckli, Aurélie Strumans, Raphael Stucky, Jan Vorisek.

Graphic design: Nicolas Eigenheer, Noémie Gygax, Jeremy Schorderet.

Published with ZHdK – Zurich University of the Arts.

 
published in January 2020
English edition
16 x 22,8 cm (softcover, dust jacket)
328 pages (200 color & 30 b/w ill.)
 
22.00
 
ISBN : 978-3-95679-488-9
EAN : 9783956794889
 
in stock


 top of page