THE CAAM PRESENTS 'CONCERNING THE ARTISTIC MEDIUM', A COURSE ON THE EVOLUTION OF ART IN THE LAST CENTURY

Every Thursday in October, starting at 19.00 hours, the CAAM will be organising conferences, followed by a discussion, by some of the most interesting international art critics of our time.

In October, the CAAM will be offering 'Concerning the artistic medium', a course aimed at helping to understand how art has evolved in the last century, facilitating relationships for those interested with contemporary art objects. Designed to favour public participation, there will be a discussion after each conference. The course is designed both for beginners and those who have a professional interest in art.

Every Thursday in October, on the 2nd, 9th, 16th, 23rd and 30th, starting at 19:00 hours, the CAAM's multi-purpose hall will be the place where Yaiza Hernández, CAAM conservator and course organiser, Thierry de Duve, professor at the University of Lille 3 and the Hogeschool Saint Lucas, as well as a renowned art critic, Jon Bird, professor of Art and Critical Theory at the University of Middlesex, writer and curator, Peter Osborne, professor of Modern European Philosophy at the University of Middlesex and editor of 'Radical Philosophy' magazine, and José Luis Brea, professor of Aesthetics and Contemporary Art Theory at the University of Castilla-La Mancha, director of the 'Aleph' web site and 'Acción Paralela' magazine, will describe some of the most interesting reviews that have appeared in recent years on art after 1945. 'Concerning the artistic medium' is a unique opportunity to hear some of the most interesting critics of today take part in a debate which has formed the artistic discourse of the last few years. Except for José Luis Brea and Yaiza Hernández, this is the first time that they will be speaking in Spain.

By closely following the different roles that the concept of artistic medium or support has placed in the last few decades, and an analysis of the consequences that these changes have had on the definition of an epistemological field for art, students will acquire the tools required to perceive continuity and fractures in contemporary art's relationship with modernity. Issues such as the permanence of abstraction as a representative strategy now that its objectives appear to have been abandoned, the triumph of theatricality with the interruption of the installation as a predominant medium, the role of the support in conceptual art and the recovery of concern for the specificity of the artistic medium in the discourse concerning net-art, will be contemplated over the course's five sessions.

This activity is worth 1.5 complementary credits at the ULPGC and the price is 40 € for the general public and 30 € for Friends of the CAAM who have been registered for over a month, students and COAC members (Architects Association of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria).

Date Speaker	Subject
October 2, 2003 Yaiza Hernández	In her conference, Yaiza Hernández will identify the principal debates related to the artistic medium in the last fifty years in general terms, primarily centred on Anglo-Saxon criticism, and question whether they are still pertinent today.
October 9, 2003 Thierry de Duve	According to Thierry de Duve, "there is some truth and considerable misunderstanding in the much extended notion that we are living in a 'post-medium' era. It is now technically possible and institutionally legitimate to make art out of practically anything. Misunderstandings arise from the belief that the specificity of the medium, old or new, has become obsolete and irrelevant. It would be better if we were to ask the following question: at what point did the old Fine Arts system become the art world that we are familiar with today, what we could call the Art system in general?"
October 16, 2003 Jon Bird	Jon Bird will contemplate several questions on installations: "Can the installation be classified as a predominant medium or would it be more accurate to classify it as a dissolution of the medium? To what point is it possible to refer to problems 'specific' to the installation?"
October 23, 2003 Peter Osborne	Is conceptual art an art based on its medium, comparable, for instance, with painting or writing? Is it an art manufactured from concepts and, therefore, language, or does it belong to a different field of knowledge? What classification criterion is used to define a type of art as 'conceptual'?" These are some of the questions that Osborne will attempt to answer in his conference.
October 30, 2003 José Luis Brea	Net-art uses means of creation, exhibition and diffusion which are notably different from most of the more 'traditional' artistic supports. Based on this premise, José Luis Brea considers whether this implies that we should retrieve an idea of the specificity of the medium, or whether, on the contrary, it implies a complete dissolution of the borders between 'artistic' and adjacent practices.

SPEAKERS

Yaiza Hernández graduated in Fine Arts from the University of Northumbria at Newcastle (England) and she has a Master's degree in Visual Culture from the University of Middlesex (London), where she is a doctoral candidate. She has taught Critical and Historic Studies in the Fines Arts Faculty of the University of Middlesex and is currently a CAAM conservator.

Thierry de Duve is probably the European critic who has generated more debate in the last few years. He is a professor at the University of Lille 3 and the Hogeschool Sint Lucas Beeldende Kunst, in Ghent. He curated the Belgium pavilion at the 2003 Venice Biennale, together with Sylvie Eyberg and Valérie Mannaerts. Editor of The Definitively Unfinished Marcel Duchamp (MIT Press, 1991), de Duve has written several books, including Kant After Duchamp (MIT Press, 1996, the last chapter of which is translated into Spanish in issue number 0 of ACTO magazine), Clement Greenberg Between the Lines (Dis voir, 1996), and Pictorial Nominalism: On Marcel Duchamp's Passage from Painting to the Readymade (University of Minnesota Press, 1991). His latest book is Look - 100 Years of Contemporary Art (Ludion, 2001), the catalogue of Voici - 100 ans d'art contemporain, the exhibition that he curated in the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels in the year 2000. He is now working on a completely new approach to his aesthetic theory.

Jon Bird is professor of Art and Critical Theory at the University of Middlesex, writer and curator. His published work includes Nancy Spero (Phaidon, 1996) and Leon Golub: Shadows of the Real (Reaktion, 2000), and he edited (together with Michael Newman) Rewriting Conceptual Art (Reaktion, 1999. His exhibitions include Nancy Spero Retrospective (ICA, London 1987), Massimo Vitali (Photographers Gallery, London 1998, Gallery Hotel Art, Florence, 2000), Leon Golub Retrospective (Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, 2000; South London Gallery, 2000; Albright-Knox Museum, Buffalo, 2001; Brooklyn Museum, New York, 2001). He is now preparing an exhibition and a book on Nancy Spero and Kiki Smith (Baltic Center for Contemporary Art, December 2003 and Reaktion). He was the president of Artangel from 1986-2001. He is a member of the Oxford Art Journal editorial committee and recently edited a special issue on the installation.

Peter Osborne is professor of Modern European Philosophy at the University of Middlesex, (London, England) and editor of Radical Philosophy magazine. One of the best and best-known writers on the Frankfurt School, he has edited several books, including Walter Benjamin's Philosophy: Destruction and Experience (with Andrew Benjamin, 2000) and From an Aesthetic Point of View (Serpent's Tail 2001). His books include The Politics of Time, Modernity and the Avant-Garde (Verso, 1995), Philosophy in Cultural Theory (Routledge, 2000) and Conceptual Art (Phaidon, 2002). He frequently collaborates with publications such as October, Artforum and Critical Enquiry. He has recently published essays on British artists Tracey Emin and Victor Burgin and the ontology of photographic images.

José Luis Brea is professor of Aesthetics and Contemporary Art Theory at the University of Castilla-La Mancha and director of the Aleph art web site and Acción Paralela magazine. One of the most active and pertinent critics in Spain, he collaborates with different Spanish and international magazines. He is currently the Artforum correspondent in Spain, a member of the Advisory Committee for the Open University of Catalonia's Artnodes project and regional editor of Rhizome. His publications include La Era Postmedia (Editorial Centro de Arte de Salamanca, 2002), Un ruido secreto (Mestizo, 1996), Nuevas Estrategias Alegóricas, (Tecnos, 1991) and Las Auras Frias, (Anagrama, 1991). The latest exhibitions that he has curated include net.artmadrid.net, an on-line exhibition organised by Madrid City Council, ARCO 2001, , an on-line exhibition organised for the 2000 Navarre Festival, Last (no) exit: net, an on-line exhibition organised for Vid@rte (Mexico) and Ciber@rt, Valencia, 1999, Andy Warhol - Heath Bunting, an on-line exhibition which was part of the Shock of the view series organised for the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.