‘On ‘Making’: A Two-Day Seminar Workshop in Art Theory and Philosophy

Artists are expected to make things, but the terms and conditions of this expectation are changing. These seminars shed light on some historical conditions and lineages that are often overlooked. Initially, we shall look at how Greek philosophy (Heraclitus, Socrates/Plato and Aristotle) contributed the fundamental concepts of knowledge regarding how something comes about and how it changes while maintaining identity or the kind of knowledge which enables us to produce things. Thereafter, with Romanticism, a different concept of history and making emerges in which notions regarding education (in Greek ‘paideia’) are mixed together with Christian theological overtones. Romanticism engenders the modern utopian thinking of the ‘making’ of history as salvation where the ‘material’ of the artist is the whole of human society (most evident in the Bauhaus and Soviet Art). Following the failure of ’68 the notion of the tinkerer/bricoleur was taken up as a post-modern alternative to the capitalist mode of production, In this regard we shall look at the ideas of Levi-Strauss, Bataille, Deleuze and Guattari, and de Certeau. Of relevance here is the work of the curator Harold Szeemann who formed the Prinzhorn collection in the 1920’s and curated the exhibition “Der Hang zum Gesamtkunstwerk” in 1933.

Wednesday, February 8th and Thursday, February 9th, 10.00 am – 5.00pm

Research hub, Room B301 (3rd floor)
Central Saint Martins College of Arts & Design,
Granary Building,
1 Granary Square,
London N1C 4AA

The workshop is organized by Christopher Kul-Want, Course leader of the Masters in Research in Art Theory and Philosophy at Central Saint Martins, and is led by Klega. A graduate of the University of Berlin and Goldsmiths’ College, Klega is an artist and philosopher; he is a lecturer at the University of Seoul, South Korea.

Those who are interested in attending please RSVP to Christopher Kul-Want c.kul-want@csm.arts.ac.uk