Artalk in association with The Pharos Trust and the Department of Design / Intercollege present a series of art seminars with the title, Art on the Move: Situating New Nomadism, Migration and Mobility within Contemporary Art. These seminars aim to inform, stimulate, and generally raise the level of critical debate within our community. The speakers are internationally established and highly regarded practising artists, curators, critics, writers and educators of art.

These seminars are open to the general public and free of charge.

Dr. Michael Haerdter is a writer, lecturer and curator. He studied Dramaturge at Schiller-Theater Berlin (1965 - 1968), and was secretary-general at Academy of the Arts, Berlin (1969 - 1971). He is the Founder of Kunstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin - residential arts centre and workshop for the contemporary arts, where he also served as its director (1971 - 1999). In addition, he is co-founder of Res Artis - International Association of Residential Arts centres, and was president (1994 - 2000). He published several books and numerous essays and articles, and lectures on theatre, dance, the visual arts and related cultural and philosophical matters.

The extract below is taken from a talk by Dr. Haerdter and may give an insight to his understanding of mobility and contemporary art. Michael will also show work from various artists and exhibitions he has worked on as curator whilst serving as Director of Kόnstlerhaus, Bethanien, Berlin.

Post-modern Nomadism: A talk held at the Annual General Meeting of Res Artis, the International Association of Residential Arts Centres, at The Tyrone Guthrie Centre, Annaghmakerrig/Ireland, May 1996

Hermit or social worker? was the question posed by a Hamburg Art Association exhibition some years ago. The parochial district of solitary artists striving for transcendental purity has been deserted: post-modern artists have left their lonely studios and returned to the market places of the world. In this material sphere of the here and now, many have rediscovered the conditioning influence of social and political factors, of human interrelation and interaction on the making of art. Instead of creating eternal values on their way to the museum, post-modern art-making is an art of communicating ideas and emotions, often by provocative concepts or irritating objects and installations. For the time being, the formalist master perfecting his style in a lifetime is an exhausted model. The new one is the artist capable of formally mastering an existential message or situation at any moment of his or her life. That is why art today has mainly an interventionist and temporary character and why, indeed, it can happen anywhere. The studio of the post-modern artist is the world.

Migrating artists belong with the many transcultural messengers of a world whose keywords are nomadism and globalism. Thus it is natural that the codes of mobility and temporariness are responsible for the creation - beyond former central or mainstream institutions - of their own cultural instruments. The post-modern invention and worldwide spreading of residential arts centres is just such a secular instrument. It corresponds to the need of artists and intellectuals to experience the world and its many environments and cultures, to realize in situ research and projects, to be temporarily part of creative communities and to profit from the opportunity they offer for exchanging ideas and know-how. The networking of centres across national and cultural barriers is part of the post-modern game, facilitating, not least, the crossing of borders between art and technology. Yet there is another important function of residential arts centres: artists' nomadism is most naturally a concerted action of moving and settling in order to discover and to create, in order to renew one's awareness and one's formal responses. "The nomad", Gilles Deleuze states, "is not necessarily someone who moves: there are travels in which one does not move, travels in intensity, ... nomads (are) those who start nomadizing in order to stay in the same place and free themselves from codes".

- Michael Haerdter

Continuing Seminar Programme:
Wednesday 11th May - Claire Bishop

For further information, please contact:
Haris Pellapaisiotis / Artalk - 2235 1276
The Pharos Trust - 2266 3871