Held on June 23 and 24, 2023, at the Medienhaus of the UdK in Berlin, the international conference “art thinking doing art: Artistic Practices in Educational Contexts from 1900 to Today” initiated a historical and contemporary investigation into the interrelationships between art education, art production, and institutional contexts.
Featuring contributions from scholars across eleven countries, the project adopted a uniquely broad perspective. It situated the epistemological process of “art knowledgization” (Holert) within critical discussions of the (inter-)materiality, (counter-)institutionality, and (trans-)disciplinarity of artistic practices, while simultaneously grounding these theoretical inquiries in empirical case studies that examined their historical dimensions across diverse geopolitical contexts from 1900 to the present.
To counteract a monoperspectival orientation from the outset, the event integrated artistic perspectives throughout its discussions, ensuring a continuous dialogue between theory and practice.
Contributors:
Key Lectures:
Benjamin Buchloh, Harvard University, Cambridge, USA
Tom Holert, Harun Farocki Institute, Berlin, Germany
Other lectures: Nicola Foster, Noa Sadka, Jeffrey Saletnik, Emily Ruth Capper, Rebecca Sprowl and Bernard Akoi-Jackson
Short presentations: Dennis Brzek, Isabel Seliger, Delphine Paul, Barbara Vujanović, Jake Watts, Marie-Christine Schoel, Izabelle Louise, Isabel Nogueira, Sarah Poppel, Patrick Düblin, Burak Üzümkesici and Chloë Julius
Intervening Lecture: Raqs Media Collective, New Delhi, India
Welcome: Brigitte Weingart, Professor for Media Theory at the Institute for Theory and Practice of Communication at the Berlin University of the Arts
Support: Anna Brus, Professor at Freie University Berlin, Institute of Art History, Section of African Art
The conference was conceived, planned and organized by Sandra Neugärtner and funded by the Collaborative Research Centre 1512 “Intervening Arts” (DFG), the Leuphana University Lüneburg and the Berlin University of the Arts.
Further information on this topic can be found at e-flux Education and in the first issue of e-flux Index published in May 2024.
Findings from the conference and related research have been published in the edited volume Toward a New Aesthetics: Institutional Criticism in Art Education from 1900 to Today (Brill, Doing Arts Thinking: Arts Practice, Research and Education, 2026).
Dr. habil. Sandra Neugärtner 