Dr. Baruch Gottlieb
Paul Robeson: Artist as Revolutionary
Seminar, English, 2 SWS, 2 ECTS
Tuesdays, 14-18h: 18.04, 25.04, 02.05, 23.05, 30.05., Hardenbergstr. 33, room 151
Fridays, 14-18h: 28.04., 26.05., trips to AdK Archive and Dekoloniale

Registration on Moodle starts on the 17th of April / Anmeldung auf Moodle beginnt am 17.4.2023: https://moodle.udk-berlin.de/moodle/course/view.php?id=1834
Moodle Enrollment Key / Einschreibeschlüssel: eslanda

This seminar will examine what goes into the preparation, execution and communication of an archive-based exhibition on the work of one of the most influential and famous performing artists of his time Paul Robeson.  Course work will involve research into various aspects of Robeson's practice, theater, music, film, as well as his activism and militancy.  We will look at the role of art in society, the political dimensions and limitations of art, and what Walter Benjamin described as aesthetics in the service of a movement. Additionally we will look at the importance and influence of his wife Eslanda Robeson and workout strategies to appropriately integrate her in the exhibition project. Research sessions will also take place at the Paul and & Eslanda Robeson archive at the Akademie der Künste Berlin. This exhibition has been staged in The Hague for the past year and is planned to travel to London at the end of 2023 and to come to Berlin in 2024.
This seminar will consist of discussions, readings and viewings, field trips, workshops, group and individual activities and presentations.

References: Joy James, Charisse Burden Stelley, WEB DuBois, Gerald Horne, Walter Benjamin, bell hooks, Angela Davis, Ishmael Reed, Boris Groys, Saidiya Hartmann, Sylvia Wynter

Requirements for the ungraded Studium Generale credits: regular and active participation in the seminars, 2 small presentations, individual or in groups.

Baruch Gottlieb, trained as a filmmaker at Concordia University Montreal, has a doctorate in digital aesthetics from the University of Arts Berlin. Author of "A Political Economy of the Smallest Things" (ATROPOS 2016),and Digital Materialism (Emerald 2018) he has a broad individual and collective art practice and has worked as curator and director of special projects at West Den Haag a contemporary art space in The Hague, the Netherlands where he has produced several touring exhibition projects and public programs. With Ji Yoon Yang, he founded SFX Seoul sound art festival with 7 editions since 2007, and with Steffi Winkler he is founder and co-chair of Flusser Club e.V. an organization dedicated to the work of Czechoslovakian philosopher of technology and information Vilém Flusser. Gottlieb is currently part of the Prof3Dual program in the Kulturarbeit department of the FH Potsdam where he directs the Research Institute for Technical Aesthetics (RITA).