Module conducted by: Sabih Ahmed
-Veeravalli Vikram
It is often found that art as a field is subject to constant criticism and considered to be subjective. This course on art history encouraged the students to look beyond the work of art itself and question the way in which it has been and would be perceived. It constantly dealt with the question of ‘real vs abstract’, ‘fact vs fiction’, ‘culture vs tradition’ and looking at them not just as polar opposites but dealing with its dialectics, establishing a relationship, if any. The course began with an introduction to the idea of the ‘apparatus’ and understanding what it means in the context of image making. Foucault addresses this topic in an interview and says that an apparatus is “a heterogeneous set that includes virtually anything, linguistic and non linguistic, discourses, institutions, buildings, laws, police measures, philosophical propositions, and so on. The apparatus itself is the network that is established between these elements”. It could also be the context and the conditions that shape and create a work of art.
By looking at certain works throughout history, the students tried to understand the change in the apparatus and how different forms of art developed, from the earliest forms of paintings in caves, to the contemporary world of memes and photographs on social media. The discussions also involved reading Giorgio Agamben’s “What is an Apparatus?” and questioning the authenticity of art and further breaking it down to what authenticity actually is and who/what decides it?
The second part of the module focused on ‘Technologies of Perception and the Practice of Seeing’. This is where the question of subjectivity of art comes back. What does the artist wants us, the viewer, to see? How has the apparatus shaped the way it is perceived and how has that process evolved over time? For example, the advent of perspective drawings and paintings indirectly fixed the point of view for the painting. Before that, a work of art gave the freedom of the position of the viewer as it usually included varied scales, large subjects and smaller objects. The perspective drawing set the viewpoint of the work to that which the artist had framed in the first place. The other thoughts that came into discussion were about how these works of art were seen and perceived in different institutions such as a museum or a gallery.
The focus was then shifted to three institutions that play a huge role in the history of art – Museum, Library and Archive. The discussions involved looking at the origin of these institutions and their purposes. The next step was to draw parallels and look at the way these institutions are structured and also look at what kinds of work go into each of these institutions and whether they are interchangeable. The discussion was further extended to asking what would a museum of the 21st century be? And what would be the objects of display in this museum?
The final part of the course was about ‘Thinking Curatorially’. Who is the curator and what is their role? What is curation? These questions were answered through a study of art history and the development of the institutions mentioned above. The contemporary modes of display of art, may it be in a museum or a lobby of a hotel, is a result of curatorial thinking and does not necessarily have a physical figure that assumes the title of a curator. If that is the case, today, what happens to the city? Is it an institution, like the ones mentioned above, or is it a culmination of curatorial thinking or is it neither, but something entirely different?
The course also looked at art through feedback and how art takes the viewer back in time to its context while simultaneously informing the future. In the last day of the module, the students created certain installations that work on this principle of a feedback loop in an exhibition titled ‘Speed Check’.
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