Fouad Asfour: Unlearning Art Writing

Fouad Asfour: Unlearning Art Writing

Wednesday, 7 December 2016, 4 pm
+MSUM, Maistrova 3, Ljubljana

Together with Igor Zabel Association for Culture and Theory and MG+MSUM we cordially invite you to the public lecture by Fouad Asfour Unlearning Art Writing. The lecture is part of a series of public lectures How Critical Is the Condition of Critical Writing?, a reflection on the current role and status of criticism in visual arts.

About the lecture
Writing on art moves between different spaces of publication and discursive fields. Art discourse around the world is struggling in complex and shifting tension between the art market, contemporary art, and exhibition practices. It necessitates a critical reflection of discourses on “globalized art” as well as of the relation between art writing and art education.
My lecture interrogates the conditions of art writing by critically reflecting upon the colonial matrix of power in art education. Using examples from contemporary art, I will argue that the disobedient body of the writer to become visible through a change in voice, through linguistic guerrilla (Moroccan writer Mohamed Khair-Eddine) and linguistic terrorism (Chicana feminist and queer theorist Gloria Anzaldua).

Fouad Asfour, art writer, editor, and linguist, works in collaborative frameworks on publications, exhibitions, performances, and art exchange projects. He has worked for various art institutions and research projects, was part of the documenta 12 magazines project, and is a member of the artist collective the Dead Revolutionaries Club. In 2011 he initiated the independent publishing project Pole Pole Press and is the co-founder of the self-organized student support initiative Thekgo Bursary (now in collaboration with Canon Collins Trust). He holds an MA in linguistics from Vienna University and is currently completing an MA in creative writing at Rhodes University in Grahamstown, South Africa. He lives between Johannesburg and Vienna. In 2008 he was a grant recipient of the Igor Zabel Award for Culture and Theory.

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This lecture is part of the programme How Critical Is the Condition of Critical Writing? Organized by: Igor Zabel Association for Culture and Theory, World of Art / SCCA-Ljubljana; in collaboration with MG+MSUM.
Supported by: City of Ljubljana – Department for Culture, ERSTE Foundation and Goethe-Institut Ljubljana.

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More about the lecture on World of Art page.


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Fouad Asfour: Odučiti se pisanja o umetnosti

Sreda, 7. december 2016, ob 16.00
Muzej sodobne umetnosti Metelkova, Maistrova 3, Ljubljana

V sodelovanju z Društvom Igor Zabel za kulturo in teorijo in MG+MSUM vas vabimo na predavanje Odučiti se pisanja o umetnosti Fouada Asfourja, ki je del niza javnih predavanj Kako kritično je stanje kritiškega pisanja?, v katerem smo z vabljenimi teoretiki in kritiki sodobne umetnosti premišljali o aktualni vlogi in statusu kritiškega pisanja na področju vizualne umetnosti in kulture.

O predavanju
Pisanje o umetnosti se giblje med različnimi prostori objavljanja in diskurzivnimi polji. Po vsem svetu pa diskurz o umetnosti deluje v zapleteni in nestalni napetosti med umetnostnim trgom ter sodobnimi umetniškimi in razstavnimi praksami. To zahteva kritično refleksijo o diskurzih “globalizirane umetnosti“, kot tudi refleksijo, osredotočeno na odnos med pisanjem o umetnosti in umetnostnim izobraževanjem.
Moje predavanje prevprašuje pogoje pisanja o umetnosti s kritičnim razmislekom o kolonialni oblastni matrici v umetnostnem izobraževanju. S primeri iz sodobne umetnosti zagovarjam, da mora neubogljivo telo pisca postati vidno prek spremembe tona, jezikoslovne gverile (maroški pisatelj Mohamed Khair-Eddine) in jezikovnega terorizma (čikana feministka in queer teoretičarka Gloria Anzaldua).

Fouad Asfour je pisec, urednik in jezikoslovec, ki prek sodelovalnih okvirov deluje pri publikacijah, razstavah in projektih umetniških izmenjav. Delal je za različne umetniške ustanove in raziskovalne projekte, bil je del projekta revij documenta 12 in je član umetniškega kolektiva Dead Revolutionaries Club. Leta 2011 je osnoval neodvisni založniški projekt Pole Pole Press in soustanovil samoorganiziran štipendijski sklad Thekgo Bursary, ki zdaj sodeluje s Canon Collins Trust. Magistriral je iz jezikoslovja na dunajski univerzi, trenutno pa končuje magisterij iz ustvarjalnega pisanja na Rhodes University (Republika Južna Afrika). Asfour je dobitnik delovne štipendije nagrade Igorja Zabela za kulturo in teorijo 2008.

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Predavanje je del niza javnih predavanj Kako kritično je stanje kritiškega pisanja?, ki ga pripravljata Društvo Igor Zabel za kulturo in teorijo in Svet umetnosti/SCCA–Ljubljana s podporo MG+MSUM.
Program Kako kritično je stanje kritiškega pisanja? podpirajo: Mestna občina Ljubljana – Oddelek za kulturo, Erste sklad in Goethe Institut Ljubljana.

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Več o predavanju na spletni strani SCCA-Ljubljana.