Express Painting course and workshops in the framework of EU4ART
Express Painting course and workshops in the framework of EU4ART
Time: First semester: 15th – 26th of November 2021
Second semester: 11 April 2022 - 22 April 2022
Location: Hungarian University of Fine Art
Our university has organized several projects in the framework of the Eu4art Alliance program. Through analog and traditional techniques such as photography, printmaking, cyanotic, and bronze casting, our teachers aimed to increase the understanding of the creative thinking of image, space, and art.
ECLECTIC / DECADENT / REMIX – Investigating Local Cultural Identities Through Painting
The course aims to provide insight into the complex visual language of the region and to elicit diverse artistic responses. By looking at the background of notions such as ‘decadent’, ‘remix’ and ‘eclecticism’, we will investigate a set of interrelating terms, which are in opposition to the streamlined visuality of contemporary existence and are related to Budapest’s 19th-century past and ‘historicism’. To contextualise these notions within contemporary theory, we will look at short excerpts from literary texts, and a range of theoretical works applying Nicolas Bourriaud’s notion of “sampling” delineated in Postproduction (2001) to a wide array of different sources. Instead of emphasising the points of connection between the various texts, our aim will be highlighting the jarring dislocations, seams and the overall collage-like structure of different positions. The aim of investigating different theoretical positions are connected to providing ground for the exchange of ideas. Participants of the course will be challenged to find their perspectives on these questions both on a practical and a theoretical level. As an initial way of getting to know each other, we will establish our foundational notions through a reading group organised in a series of online discussions before the course.3 Apart from collectively constructing an alternative narrative of art, we will focus on the current artistic positions of the participants: through presentations and practical work in the studios, we will establish a situation similar to the day-to-day life of a student at the Hungarian University of Fine Arts (HUFA). The independent work conducted in the studio will be finalised in the construction of a site-specific installation created collectively based on the impressions and reflections on the discussed issues, in the form of artworks. Thus, we will not only investigate the individual propositions, but also, their intersection points and dialogue. During the two weeks, the participants will be also introduced to the different master classes of the painting department and the various educational facilities that HUFA has to offer. By getting to know the work of invited guest artists and alumni while taking part in artist talks and visiting exhibitions we will extend our observations beyond the university campus and thus the participants will also get a sense of the different local artistic positions, practices, and institutions
Lectures: Patrick Nicholas TAYLER; contact: patrick.tayler@mke.hu
Number of students: 4 students / partner institution
Uncreative Painting – Rethinking originality and creativity
Uncreative Writing – Managing Language in the Digital Age (2011) is a book by Kenneth Goldsmith, which emphasizes copying, rewriting and appropriation as a method instead of the well-established notions of originality and creativity. Although Goldsmith formulates his own “demystification programme” in the field of writing, we are transposing this notion to the field of painting, for a twoweek course. In short, we will look at the question of unoriginality in painting as a tool of creative practice. The aim is to find one's way through the maze of accumulated pictorial references, and to search for new possible perspectives in the already existing network of images. The programme would focus on gestures of hacking, transforming, depersonalizing rather than originality. Some topics that will be investigated are radical monochrome painting, painting after painting, digital afterwork, hypertextuality, etc. The practical tasks and basic assumptions of the book would be explored in the field of painting and as a reading group.
Lecture: Patrick Nicholas TAYLER; contact: patrick.tayler@mke.hu
Number of students: 4 students / partner institution
The works of the visiting students were presented in 2021 in the 2X7 pop-up show and in 2022 in the 'Super S' exhibition at the Manyi Cultural Műhely.
