• Summer School As School 2017
Felix Gmelin:
Felix Gmelin at Summer School as School 2017
Friday, 14 July, 2017, 20:00
Venue: Boxing Club, Mark Isaku Str. 10000 Prishtina, Republic of Kosovo

Stacion - Center for Contemporary Art Prishtina is pleased to introduce the presentation of the Artist Talk by Felix Gmelin, part of the Public Program of Summer School as School 2017.

Felix Gmelin: "We wish you welcome to an active, inspiring and participatory day!”

On the current state of education: We are being evaluated, but who is evaluating who, and on what terms? Today universities are obliged to be transparent and comparable by the “Bologna Process”, which is great for student mobility. But who is evaluating who and on what terms? What are the qualifications of the evaluators? Why do market oriented managerial reforms loose track on educating individuals who can relate to societal questions? This work has the ambition to evaluate the evaluators.

The educational reforms following the “Bologna Accords” have sought legitimation through intensive evaluation methods. This evaluation process has opened up for strong political influence over higher education by various governmental agencies. How do we as educators in the humanities and the arts deal with this? For trying out how managerial methods work within the humanities in practice I hired the coach Mr. Rhaman K.J. Wagner, who works within the German Bad-Homburg-based department of the Kaizen Institute — a world wide enterprise mainly helping industries to improve efficiency — and presented him to six students from the Carl von Ossietzky, University in Oldenburg, Germany. Staging this was a way for me to understand a true story I was told by an artist friend of mine, Markus Degerman, who experienced exactly the same scenario at the Tromsø Art Academy in Norway. The ambiguity in how the students react to this Kaizen lean management education performed by coach Mr. Wagner, and how he approaches them, to me, is the content of this event and video. The result is both funny and off-putting. And on a symbolic level: lean management method Kaizen, developed by the car manufacturer Toyota meets 1935 Nobel Peace Price winner Carl von Ossietzky within his own context. What does this mean?

How would the idealist Carl von Ossietzky have reacted to these lean management strategies?
I am curious how this work can be read from your perspective. Neo-liberal managerial reforms for sure are global, but also look quite different depending on various geographical experiences and Perspectives.

Felix Gmelin: "We wish you welcome to an active, inspiring and participatory day!” is part of the Exhibition Program of Summer School as School 2017 broadcasted at KTV - National TV Broadcater during Summer School as School 2017, starting from July 9, 2017.

Felix Gmelin lives and works in Oslo. He studied at the Royal Institute of Art / Kungl. Konsthögskolan in Stockholm 1983—1988 and currently serves as professor in contemporary art at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts and teaches at the International Academy of Art in Palestine.

Solo shows include PORTIKUS, Frankfurt a.M; Malmö Konstmuseum and Gasworks, London; Galerie Nordenhake, Stockholm; Milliken Gallery, Stockholm; Annet Gelink Gallery, Amsterdam; Vilma Gold, London and maccarone inc., New York, including solo presentations at Premier | Art | Basel and the Frieze Art Fair. Group shows include the 50th Venice Biennale curated by Francesco Bonami and Daniel Birnbaum; the 52nd Venice Biennale curated by Robert Storr; the berlin biennial 4 curated by Maurizio Cattelan, Massimiliano Gioni and Ali Subotnick and the October Salon 2006 in Belgrade curated by Barbara Heinrich and René Block.

In 2010 Gmelin was awarded the Carnegie Art Award ”for a work that is an almost archaeological exploration of the social and political ramifications of the tactility and expressiveness of painting. A key topic in early performance art, Gmelin returns to this field of action in a complex work that reconsiders the painterly “touch” by passing through the media of film, painting and printed stills.”

Full schedule of The Public Program of Summer School as School 2017 can be found at: http://www.stacion.org/en/Public-Lectures-and-Presentations-2017

Stacion – Center for Contemporary Art Prishtina and partner institutions with Summer School as School have created a unique international educational platform, based in Prishtina, as a progressing model; developing an interdisciplinary curriculum and engaging practitioners from the region and beyond in sharing knowledge and expertise with international students and the public.

The project’s larger context responds to the art education systems of Kosovo, Macedonia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Slovenia.

Summer School as School 2017 is organized in cooperation with Allianz Cultural Foundation, supported by ERSTE Foundation, Trust for Mutual Understanding(TMU), Federal Chancellory of Austria, Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung office in Prishtina, Ministry of Diaspora of the Republic ofKosovo, Municipality of Prishtina, Independent Curators International (ICI), The Office for Contemporary Art (OCA), Norway and RIT Kosovo. Complete list of donors and cooperation partners will be announced in due time.