Staged complexity. On the coexistence of art education and art pedagogy

Society is complex. Every thing, every sentence, every event can be interpreted in terms of multiple perspectives that cannot be reduced to a clear and definitive point of reference. Art can make such social complexity communicable, can stage it in the form of images, installations and performances, for example.

What then is the role of art mediation? Does it have to "break down" complexity in order to make artistic complexity strategies explainable and understandable? Or must it re-enact complexity in the sense of a "continuation of art", for example in the classroom? Both possibilities will be juxtaposed and contrasted in the lecture.

Alexander Henschel

Legitimisation in times of Black Pedagogy 4.0

Today's pedagogical attention is primarily focussed on diagnostic, psychometric and competence-oriented aspects that observe pedagogical processes in terms of measurable and calculable units, which is accompanied by a cybernetic orientation of the educational process. Not only the learners are subjected to controlling measures, but also the teachers: They are exposed to comprehensive procedures of measurement and self-regulation (quality management, evaluations, etc.), and they are expected to pass this on to others. This is the result of the pedagogical mainstream, which has clearly turned away from the indeterminate freedom that is historically associated with the concept of education in favour of definable and small-scale skills and abilities. How can the subject of art still legitimise itself in these contexts of Black Pedagogy 4.0? The current development poses an enormous challenge, as the core of the subject has been the idea of freedom since Schiller's letters on aesthetic education. This central historical achievement is being revalued by a focus on skills and digitalisation.

How can we get out of the maelstrom created by a new black pedagogy? In my opinion, a first step is to ask ourselves what the work of art education and art mediation should actually consist of? Is their professionalism still relevant at all? Are concepts such as imagination, design, experimentation, critical judgement and historical awareness still central to our subject? What is the opposite of an app? And what about the singular, the event, the indeterminate, the purposeless and meaningless?

Pierangelo Maset

If not now, then when - the (new) responsibility of art educators

Art museums are institutions that reflect a society's specific ways of thinking and acting (in terms of educational policy). This applies both to the people who work there and to the way they deal with visitors. In view of a rapidly changing society, this group will become significantly more heterogeneous on the one hand and the demands on the public policy of the institutions will become more differentiated on the other. The central theme of the lecture is therefore to highlight the necessary approaches to reforming the rather exclusive place of learning and contemplation that is the art museum and, in particular, to assess the potential significance of the field of education with regard to the future viability of the institution. So what needs to be done to introduce the overdue changes, who should take the initiative and how, and what resistance needs to be overcome

Wiebke Trunk

Creating spaces (!). Art education in the here and now

A thought experiment: If art always refers to other art, but art education seeks its legitimisation in both art and education, would it not be logical for art education that "starts from art" to start from a concept of art that also thinks about its mediation? The lecture will focus on fears of contact and productive tensions between art and education. And the attempt to utilise the obstacles that arise. In their current form. Paying attention to the spaces that you enter and that arise can only be helpful.

Rahel Puffert

Aesthetic education in the digital media culture

The lecture starts with the metaphorical talk of digital media culture and proceeds from the media studies thesis that media and media structures are constitutive and power-forming structural conditions for all symbolic activities of a society, which in their complexity and their becoming, as it were, elude a conceptual-rational understanding. Against this background, the lecture explores the practices and potentials of art education and pedagogy, and more generally of aesthetic education, to relate to digital media culture in a reflexive and creative way.

Manuel Zahn

Art education from an art historical, feminist and postcolonial perspective

In a roundtable discussion, we want to discuss what it means to 'mediate' art from the perspective of feminist and postcolonial art studies and visual culture and why we think this makes sense. We understand both writing and talking about 'art' in different contexts (at university, in museums/exhibitions, in magazines and books, etc.) as a form of 'art mediation'. Current and traditional social phenomena and tendencies, such as the increasing standardisation of bodies and currently massively expressed racism, are constantly presenting us with new challenges. Together with the audience, we will discuss what - albeit limited - possibilities there are for us to react to this and at least 'throw a spanner in the works'.

Kea Wienand and Anja Hermann in conversation with Rahel Puffert and Alexander Henschel

The education of A_N_D_E_R_E_N with art: art education, coloniality and white femininity

Using the example of Great Britain, the lecture will focus on a historical reconstruction of feminisation and paternalism in art education. This will include some reflections on what a) the fact that this field of work continues to consist predominantly of white ciswomen and b) the hegemonic discourse of a deficient Other, who should be improved/saved by art education, has to do with nation-building, empire and capitalism. Against this background, reflections on art education as a hegemony-critical and empowering practice are presented

Carmen Mörsch

Contextualising, alienating, encouraging. Art education in the migration society

In recent years, there has been a significant increase in interest in dealing with the topic of migration in cultural-aesthetic education in official German-speaking countries. As welcome as the thematisation of the issue of migration is in the field of cultural-aesthetic education, it must be pointed out that this thematisation is at risk of following the main problematic tendencies of the general thematisation of migration over the last two decades, due to practices of project funding, for example, but also due to the danger of culturalisation and aestheticisation of the social, which is rooted in the logic of the field. What characterises alternative approaches methodologically or didactically, so to speak, will be addressed in the lecture under the keywords contextualisation, alienation and encouragement.

Paul Mecheril