April 14–27, 2014
Kungl. Konsthögskolan | Royal Institute of Art
Flaggmansvägen 1
Stockholm
T +46 08 614 40 00
F +46 08 679 86 26
www.kkh.se
kkh.se/index.php/normalcy-2014
Normalcy is a two-week public programme of talks, workshops, lectures, screenings, performances and art events organized by Kungl. Konsthögskolan/Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm.
“The early 19th-century term ‘norm’ implies an ethical model to be followed. It also refers to a versatile tool used to fix space. Yet on the other side of normalcy (literally the “state of being normal”), there is something alternative and defiant, which disrupts and perhaps even beckons. Normalcy is designed at every scale and surface: key, chair, software, urban planning, institution and an art school such as the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm.
Contemporary art: What is the norm?
The market might be an answer. In some places on the planet, like Stockholm, artistic research appears as a clear alternative fount of resources for artists to develop their work and eventually to make a living out of it. If the traditional market implies trading objects, how and where do you trade research in art? Higher education institutions are the perfect playgrounds to invest in. The university is in crisis—what about the creative class? One must understand the academy, not as a place of knowledge transfer but as a place of knowledge production. Spaghetti Bolognese: BA, MA and PhD. You educate your students and peers to such an extent that their potentials are undermined and remain in a closed circuit. If this is a matter of fact, where do you build your Trojan horses aka your DDD—difference, debate and dispute?
Normalcy will be addressed on the first day of our programme thanks to Michel Foucault’s oeuvre Abnormal and the presentation of what might be Swedish, svenskhet. Starting with these blocks—Queerness, Tsunami Aesthetics, Outside, Educational Complex, Dysfunctional Comedy, Explosion, Whitewashing Piracyand a CryptoParty—we will constitute different fields to run through for the sake of DDD. The normalcy promoted by the Royal Institute of Art is situated on the territory of everything goes, appropriation, subversion and aesthetic pleasure more powerful and convincing than any suffocating political correctness.”
–Donatella Bernardi, artist and professor, project leader of Normalcy
Among the artists, thinkers and curators invited to Normalcy: Matteo Pasquinelli, writer and researcher, introduces Michel Foucault’s radical notion of dispositif; Anne Pontégnie, curator and art critic, talks about Mike Kelley’s Educational Complex Onwards 1995–2008; and Denise Scott Brown, architect, co-author of Learning from Las Vegas is on Skype with artist and senior lecturer at the Royal Institute of Art, Jochen Becker, and elaborates on an “African perspective.”
Normalcy also has contributions from Samira Ariadad, Marwa Arsanios, James Arvanitakis, Christophe Bram, Kristina Buch, Camilla Carlsen, Leif Dahlberg, Maya Deren, Juan Downey, Christoph Draeger, Antke Engel, Carl Johan Erikson, Klas Eriksson, Magnus Eriksson, Jens Evaldsson, Annette Felleson, Aron Flam, Rasmus Fleischer, Martin Fredriksson, Gabriella Forzelius, Luke Fowler, Dora García, Lisa Gideonsson, Juanma González, Camille Henrot, Stefanie Hessler, Heidrun Holzfeind, Carsten Höller, Cecilie Hundevad Meng and Fredrik Fermelin, Hanna Husberg, Geraldine Juárez, Assa Kauppi, Kapwani Kiwanga, Marja Knape, Anna Koch, Joachim Koester, Cristóbal Lehyt, Marysia Lewandowska, Nicolas Lillo, Isabel Löfgren and Per Hüttner, Gustaf Londré, Karl Lydén, Boris Magrini, Laura McLean, Johanna Nordin, Sally O’Reilly, Lívia Páldi, Mikael Pauli, Liz K. Peñuela, Magnus af Petersens, Khaled Ramadan, RATTELSCHNECK/Benjamin Schiffner, Roee Rosen, Joanna Rytel, Egill Sæbjörnsson, Sonja Schillings, Roman Signer, Kuba Szreder, Palle Torsson, O. Emiddio Vasquez Hadjilyra, Olav Westphalen, Johan Wik, Filippa Wikner and Sara Wolfert.
Normalcy is organized by Donatella Bernardi at the Royal Institute of Art in collaboration with Baltic Art Center, CryptoParty, Goethe Institut, Index, Institut Français, Konstfack, Royal Institute of Technology, Linköping University, Mare Liberum, Moderna Museet, Polska Institutet Stockholm, Institute for Queer Theory, Stockholm’s Academy of Dramatic Arts, Tensta Konsthall, University of Western Sydney, Vision Forum, Weld, and Örlogshotellet. Normalcy coordination, internship: Leo Nordwall.
For more information
Anne Joki Jakobsson, Kungl. Konsthögskolan/Royal Institute of Art, Communications Manager: [email protected]
