We welcome your participation at the Reading Workshop, dedicated to Populism on August 30 at 6PM at the Former Faculty of Biology (or at James Beckett’s installation Palace Ruin in Kronvalda Park)!
Focus of the #6 Reading Workshop:
Populism and Artistic Tactics
Either nationalist right-wing or left-wing populism no longer characterizes some particular political position or ideology. Just the opposite: populism flexes its power at the confluence of different, seemingly opposite political forces and manipulates with a constructed image of the majority of society. The question about the relationship between art and populism is also topical: populist tendencies are also evident in both critical works and those reflecting reality in uncritical ways.
Similar worries relate to the truthfulness of information in today’s media environment when news often becomes its own surrogate and it becomes ever more difficult to distinguish truthful information from manipulated facts. In this regard art, which functions as a reflection of reality different from that of mass media, becomes ever more important in grasping reality. It poses questions about the topicality of individual social political issues and also motivates viewers themselves to ask questions instead of uncritically accepting the presented information, which is often manipulated. Art becomes an extension of the media – not just an aesthetic experience but a way of exploring the world.
At the Reading Workshop we will discuss the following texts:
>Marco Baravalle, “Art Populism and the Alter-Institutional Turn”. E-flux Journal #89, March 2018.
https://www.e-flux.com/journal/89/182464/art-populism-and-the-alter-institutional-turn/
>Alfredo Cramerotti, “WHAT is Aesthetic Journalism?”. Aesthetic Journalism: How to Inform Without Informing, Chicago: Intellect, The University of Chicago Press, 2009, pp. 20–34.
Participants are requested to show their interest by emailing to readingworkshop2018@gmail.com.
Free admission!