Ruth Sonderegger at the DFG Research Training Group
Lecture of Ruth Sonderegger in the nGbK
Ruth Sonderegger: On the Commonplace Saying that Art is Emancipatory Sunday, December 10, 2017, 6:00 pm
Neue Gesellschaft für bildende Kunst (nGbK) Event space, 1st floor
Contemporary theoreticians of aesthetic emancipation, in particular Gayatri Chakraworty Spivak and Jacques Rancière, make central references to the projects of aesthetic education developed in the European Enlightenment. I attempt to understand these moments of recourse by collecting together several building blocks for a genealogy of the thought of aesthetic liberation—a history in which violence often proves victorious.
Welcome and moderation: Prof. Dr. Kathrin Busch
Language of the event: German
Workshop at the DFG Research Training Group “Knowledge in the Arts”
Workshop with Ruth Sonderegger: Aesthetics and Politics
Monday, December 11, 2017, 10:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.
The workshop builds on the theme of Ruth Sonderegger’s lecture from 10 December
(For members of the Research Training Group “Knowledge in the Arts” and invited guests)
Language of the event: German
Lecture series “DECOLONIZING ARTS. Aesthetic Practices of Learning and Unlearning.”
Lecture Series DECOLONIZING ARTS Aesthetic Practices of Learning and Unlearning
Ruth Sonderegger: Aesthetics and Art Theory as Colonial Projects
December 11, 2017, 6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
Berlin University of the Arts, Hardenbergstr. 33, 10623 Berlin, Room 158
My thoughts are motivated by the conviction that many of today's dominant art-theoretical presuppositions originate from the founding years of aesthetics as a discipline in the eighteenth century. This means that they are rooted in projects of a colonial capitalism that was undergoing a process of self-industrialization from its basis in England. Given this history, my thesis is that we promote a one-sided image of contemporary aesthetic practices when we disregard the historical origins of aesthetics. A closer engagement with the aesthetic discourses of the eighteenth century, by contrast, not only makes clear how colonialism has inscribed itself into aesthetic discourse but also reveals the aesthetic alternatives and points of resistance against which the discipline of aesthetics developed.
Moderation: Georg Dickmann
Language of the event: German
Biography
Ruth Sonderegger is professor of philosophy and aesthetic theory at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. Her research focuses on the history of aesthetics, critical theory, and theories of resistance. Her most recent book publications: Art and Ideology Critique after 1989, ed. with E. Birkenstock, M. Hinderer, and J. Kastner (Bregenz/Cologne: Kunsthaus Bregenz/Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, 2013); Pierre Bourdieu und Jacques Rancière: Emanzipatorische Praxis denken (Pierre Bourdieu and Jacques Rancière: thinking emancipatory practice) (Vienna: Turia + Kant, 2014); Spaces for Criticism: Shifts in Contemporary Art Discourses, ed. with P. Gielen, Th. Lijster, S. Milevska (Amsterdam: Valiz/Antennae Series, 2015); Foucaults Gegenwart. Sexualität – Sorge – Revolution (Foucault’s present: sexuality, care, revolution) (Vienna: transversal texts, 2016).