Talks

Inclinations #18: What in Feminist Public Art Today?

March 24, 2015
7:30PM

Or Gallery Berlin is pleased to present Ewa Majewska in What in Feminist Public Art Today?, for our speaker series Inclinations, hosted by Patricia Reed.

 

Chantal Mouffe suggested, that the public art is not only art work exhibited in public space, but it is one, that questions the dominant rules of the public sphere. This is precisely what several feminist artists do today. In my presentation I would like to look at the current practice of public art reshapes the definitions of public and counterpublics, but also how the notion of avant-garde evolves to express the common, the ordinary, the weak in its resistances, dissents and oppositional practices. I will look at the work of Ewa Partum, Zorka Wollny, Melissa Steckbauer, Antje Majewski and others.

 


Inclinations:
A monthly speaker series at Or Gallery Berlin, hosting philosophers, artists, curators, and…

 

The presentation of work revolves around the posing of a question that is the thrust of a guest’s activities. It goes without saying that questions may not be answered, but are grappled with in their unresolvability. An inclination is the force of attraction to a question (without a straightforward response), yet also to each other, as a community who partakes in a common quest(ion).
Hosted by Patricia Reed.

 

# Arriving at a question is already a departure.
# Questions are a declaration of departure.
# Arriving at a question in thought or activity is also the creation of a trajectory, of inclining oneself towards an unknown goal, yet not without direction.
# A question inclines a departure in a particular way, but a question itself is generic – it propels all modes of seeking some thing. Questions possess the force of bending and swerving ideas/action.
# A question is the confrontation and departure from a lack. To arrive at a question is to arrive at a gap in knowledge, action and speech – a gap that cannot be immediately filled in without the inclination towards something other.
# A question is indisciplinary; the inclining magnetism of a question knows no disciplinary bounds.

 

In Kooperation mit der Botschaft von Kanada/In collaboration with the Embassy of Canada

Participant Bios

Ewa Majewska is a feminist philosopher. Since 2003 she has lectured at the Gender Studies in Warsaw, she has worked as adjunct professor at universities of Szczecin and Krakow, Poland. She held post-docs at universities of Berkeley and Orebro. Currently is a visiting fellow at the ICI Berlin, working on a project Chasing Europe. She published two books: Feminizm jako filozofia społeczna and Sztuka jako pozór? and articles in: e-flux, Signs, Nowa Krytyka, Le Monde Diplomatique (PL) and other journals and volumes. She now teaches a seminar on Art and public spheres, at the Graduate School of PAN Warsaw.