READING SESSIONS
In cooperation with Texte zur Kunst
19 June 2019

 

Moderated by Aneta Rostkowska
Free admission
In German or English
(The language of the sessions will be decided by the participants during the meeting)
If you would like to receive the text for the session, please send an email to:info@temporarygallery.org.

“The need for discussion and its important function does not come from the desire or craving to push someone’s views on any matter (though it is true that many discussions are held for this reason), but from the limitations and imperfections of the creative and, in particular, cognitive powers of an individual.”
Roman Ingarden, A few words on a fruitful discussion, 1961

Recent studies have shown that due to our increasingly digitized lifestyle we are losing focus after about eight seconds. This is less than the average attention span for the notoriously poorly concentrated goldfish. To combat this condition, Temporary Gallery introduces this season, a new informal, (self-) educational initiative - reading sessions. Their goal is to deepen and intensify discussion of the themes related to contemporary art and art theory as well as the program of Temporary Gallery. The reading sessions happen once a month in the hospitable setting of our newly arranged audience lounge. The partner of reading sessions in 2019 is the art magazine Texte zur Kunst which was founded in Cologne in 1990 by Stefan Germer (†) and Isabelle Graw and has been published, since 2000, in Berlin. In 2020 the magazine will celebrate its 30th anniversary and the reading sessions will provide an opportunity to get re-accquainted with important texts written for it throughout its existence.

The second session will be dedicated to the text "From trash to waste. On art's media geology" by Yvonne Volkart. We will discuss different ways in which artists work with garbage, especially electronic waste. On the basis of examples from the text we will look into the changing meaning of trash in art. A central reference will be a work from our current exhibition "Heart of an old crocodile exploding over a small town" – artifacts from the collection of the "Center for the Living Things" – a research pata-institution founded in 2016, in order to examine, collect and popularize the knowledge concerning new humanotic nature forms. All exhibits gathered in the Institute’s collection are abandoned objects, used and no longer needed commodities – wastes of human overproduction, which have become the natural environment for many living organisms. Specimens were found in illegal waste dumping site, where the transgression of man-derived objects and plant tissues take place.

Texte zur Kunst stands for controversial discussions and contributions by internationally leading writers on contemporary art and culture. Alongside ground-breaking essays, the quarterly magazine offers interviews, roundtable discussions, and comprehensive reviews on art, film, music, the market, fashion, art history, theory, and cultural politics. Since 2006, the journal's entire main section has been published in both German and English. Additionally, each issue features exclusive editions by internationally renowned artists, who generously support the magazine by producing a unique series. Since 2018 Colin Lang is the Editor-in-chief of the magazine.


Images

1 — Photograph of a found object from the series: "Center for the Living Things" by Diana Lelonek, 2016