Course 1: Meeting the Universe Half-Way
Course by Julieta Aranda
July 16 – 20, 2018


Course description
Titled after Karen Barad’s book, this course will examine the idea of “entanglement”, a mixture of entanglement and entrapment, in relationship to contemporary art education. The course will depart from the premise that in the current global political climate indifference is not an option within the artistic field and explore the idea of the “Observer’s effect”, a term borrowed from the field of physics. The first five days of the workshop will be spent reading, reviewing documentation of relevant exhibitions (as well as potentially visiting them) and attempting to position ourselves as observers with agency, both producers and public for contemporary art. The first sessions will focus on reading contextualising theory, discussing large-scale exhibitions and analysing and discussing the curatorial premises for some of the exhibitions. The second half of the workshop will be centred around the topic of production and will (if pertinent) look at the work of the participants. It will additionally engage with the process of preparing an artistic statement, look at materials from practices that rarely make it into the global arts circuit and discuss conditions of production, exhibition and circulation.


Biography
Julieta Aranda is co-director of e-flux and a frequent instructor for the master seminar “Art & Science” at the Art Institute in Basel, Switzerland. She holds a B.F.A. in filmmaking from the School of Visual Arts (New York) and an M.F.A. from Columbia University (New York). Her explorations span installation, video and print media, with a special interest in the creation and manipulation of artistic exchange and the subversion of traditional notions of commerce through making art. Aranda’s installations and temporary projects are intensely site-specific and often examine social interactions and the role that the circulation of objects plays in cycles of production and consumption.

Julieta Aranda‘s work has been exhibited internationally, in venues such as the Der Tank, Basel (2016); 56th Venice Biennale (2015); the Guggenheim Museum, New York (2015, 2009); Kunsthalle Fridericianum, Kassel (2015); the 8th Berlin Biennale (2014); Berardo Museum, Lisbon (2014); Witte de With, Rotterdam (2013, 2010); Museo d’Arte Contemporanea Villa Croce, Genova (2013); MACRO Roma (2012); Documenta13 (2012); N.B.K. (2012); the Gwangju Biennial (2012); the 54th Venice Biennale (2011); the Istanbul Biennial (2011); Portikus, Frankfurt (2011); New Museum, New York (2010); Kunstverein Arnsberg (2010); MOCA Miami (2009), Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2007); the 2nd Moscow Biennial (2007); MUSAC, León (2010 and 2006); and the VII Havana Biennial, amongst many others.