Material for thought

The Serpentine gallery is currently hosting an exhibition about Indian contemporary art, Indian Highway. Here is the theme:

Painting of M. F. Husain outside the Serpentine.

“Some of the artworks in the exhibition have been selected for their connection to the theme of Indian Highway, reflecting the importance of the road in migration and movement and as the link between rural and urban communities. Other works make reference to technology and the ‘information superhighway’, which has been central to India’s economic boom. A common thread throughout is the way in which these artists demonstrate an active political and social engagement, examining complex issues in contemporary India that include environmentalism, religious sectarianism, globalisation, gender, sexuality and class.”

I attended a one week long course entitled ‘Introduction to curating contemporary art‘, held at the Chelsea College of Art and Design.  It was a dense introduction to the history of curating, to what are the dilemmas of curators and to how practically organize an exhibition. Half of the time was spent on theoretical texts, the other half on visits to London galleries and exhibitions followed, by discussions and meetings with curators. The course was given by Pil Kollectiv who was very good at encouraging debate while providing very knowledgeable guidance. A lot also came from the participants of the class, most of them being art professionals. Here are some exhibitions and galleries we visited. They give a glimpse of what’s going on in the curatorial microcosm of London.

Check out my two new videos: ‘At the bus stop‘ and ‘Automaton‘. They form together an installation that I have called ‘Breath’, because it depicts the consciousness’s breath, its pace, its repetition.  The only possible way to classify this work is art, not because I unilaterally declare its superiority, but because it fits in no other categories.

Education was under scrutiny yesterday at the Mary Ward center. The debate, introduced and chaired by Anja Steinbauer from pfa London, was indeed fundamental. What is the value of education, is it formative in the sense that it changes your nature, does it make you a better person or citizen? And how to judge if an education is successful?

European parliament: contemporary symbol of institutionalized debate

This Saturday was held the Joe McCarney Memorial Conference at the London knowledge lab. It was organized by the Marx and philosophy society in honor of one of their lost co-founder. Here is an analysis of the first speech given by Kai Nielsen ‘Emancipatory Social Science: McCarney and Levine’.

I would sadly not be able to comment much on the content of the speech as I lacked the prerequisite knowledge on Marx’s philosophy. Except rare references to real situations, all the discourse was built on positions to other authors’ theories. This led me to think why, and more in general how a philosophical debate is constructed.