This paper is intended to serve as a supporting document for the exhibition "No Peace" that was held at the Artery Gallery, 158 King St. W, Kitchener, ON, Canada, March 28 - April 18, 2009. This drawing installation presents the emotional restlessness of an immigrant who lives in a peaceful place but at the same time is tormented by the ongoing war in his homeland. The drawings make use of the vocabulary of abstraction while presenting the physical process of a repetitive line-based action. The work does not illustrate a political narrative but reflect on recent global issues by using the personal language of art. The No Peace installation combines drawing with video, animation, and performance in the hope of gaining a more communicative interaction with the viewer.

This paper is intended to serve as a supporting document for the exhibition "No Peace" that was held at the Artery Gallery, 158 King St. W, Kitchener, ON, Canada, March 28 - April 18, 2009. This drawing installation presents the emotional restlessness of an immigrant who lives in a peaceful place but at the same time is tormented by the ongoing war in his homeland. The drawings make use of the vocabulary of abstraction while presenting the physical process of a repetitive line-based action. The work does not illustrate a political narrative but reflect on recent global issues by using the personal language of art. The No Peace installation combines drawing with video, animation, and performance in the hope of gaining a more communicative interaction with the viewer.

This study aims to highlight the art critic Stig Johansson's position during two historical moments: 1962-63 and 1972. The theoretical and methodological framework is mainly derived from Pierre Bourdieu’s understanding of the art field and the art critic's role and mission within that specific field. Art criticism is an important text source for expanded knowledge of how the discussion of contemporary art has been conducted. In the first chapter of the thesis, I describe some of the investments that preceded Johansson’s role as art critic. These efforts are to be regarded as field-specific as they were preparing Johansson with the kind of social capital that won recognition in the art field. In the second part of the essay, I distinguish between the art critical genre and mission. Instead of limiting the study to art reviews, which is usually associated with the genre of art criticism, the thesis also include material such as debate articles and notices. The study of these different text types contribute to an increased understanding of how art criticism practice actually worked, and what was to be included in such practices during these historical periods. The third chapter is based on an empirical study and focus on three selected themes: the new, the political and the art critic role. The fourth part consists of a text analysis based on Malcolm Gee’s strategies for persuasion in art criticism. A presentation and discussion of the art critical material, and hence the position Johansson takes, contributes to an increased understanding of the negotiations that characterized the art field during the periods in question. The thesis contributes to a nuanced perspective on the production of meaning through problematizing positions and values in the Swedish art field during two important historical moments.

[pt] Esta pesquisa é uma investigação sobre a atuação do cineasta Jean-Luc Godard e a Sonimage (sua produtora com Anne-Marie Miéville) em um projeto em conjunto com o governo de Moçambique no ano de 1978. O cineasta lá realizaria o filme-relatório Nascimento (da Imagem) de uma Nação, que serviria de base para a elaboração das diretrizes na implementação de uma futura rede de televisão no país recém-independente. Frente à política cultural do governo marxista, Godard via uma oportunidade de usar o audiovisual como ferramenta revolucionária em um país ainda não dominado pela indústria audiovisual, mas nada foi realizado. As condições do projeto, tanto da sua motivação quanto do seu insucesso, refletem questões acerca da arte como instrumento de ação política e serão a base para o questionamento da importância dessa experiência, mesmo fracassada, na trajetória do cineasta. / [en] This research is an investigation into the work of filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard and Sonimage (his production company with Anne-Marie Miéville) in a joint project with the government of Mozambique in 1978. The filmmaker would realize there the film-report Birth (of the image) of a Nation, which would be the basis for the elaboration of guidelines for the implementation of a future television network in the newly independent country. Faced with the cultural policy of the Marxist government, Godard saw an opportunity to use images as a revolutionary tool in a country not yet dominated by the audiovisual industry, but nothing ever came of it. The conditions of the project, both its motivation and its failure, reflect questions about art as an instrument of political action and will be the basis for questioning the importance of this experience, even if it failed, in the filmmaker s trajectory.

[pt] A escrita desta dissertação teve como intuito discorrer sobre as ações do projeto Lastro – Intercâmbios Livres em Arte, entendendo-o como rede de contatos e plataforma de ação para projetos colaborativos. Uma proposta que visa conexões no campo da arte e cultura no contexto América Latina, porém com reverberações além-territórios. Como rede opera em diferentes frentes de trabalho e pensamento, tendo a mobilidade contemporânea como foco de estudo. Esta pesquisa propôs uma ramificação do pensamento sobre mobilidade em formato de cadernos de viagens, aprofundando pontos de vista e abordagens diferenciadas acerca do deslocamento e como este é entendido por artistas, transformando-se em poética. Quatro cadernos que se transmutarão em pequenas publicações via coleção de livros Lastro. Tal trânsito tem como objetivo fomentar projetos editoriais experimentais que atuem como dispositivo questionador e aglutinador. Além disso, tal projeto inaugura o selo editorial Lastro, o que faz nascer mais uma atividade da rede. A realização dessa pesquisa vem auxiliar uma maior compreensão conceitual do Lastro e sua potência política enquanto proposta curatorial rizomática. / [en] The core aim in the writing of this abstract was to discourse on the project named Lastro - Intercâmbios Livres em Arte (ballast –free exchange art) seeing it as an action platform and a network for cooperative projects. A project that seeks the connections of artistic and cultural fields within the Latin-America context, though resounding beyond its limits. As a network it acts in various types of work fronts and thoughts, having a contemporary movability as its study focus. That research has proposed a branching of the thoughts on movability in the shape of travel diaries, deepening points of views and the differentiated approaches regarding movement and how it is understood by artists by shaping it into poetic. Four diaries that will take the format of small publications through the Lastro book collection. The goal of such movement is to promote the experimental publishing projects that may act as a questioning as well as unifying device. Besides, such project also inaugurates the Lastro imprint, and by doing so, we’ll be starting one more activity in its network. The execution of such research intends to enhance the conceptual comprehension of Lastro and its political potentiality as a non-hierarchical curatorship project.

Ce travail propose une lecture de la création artistique russe actuelle – 1990-2010 – au regard de l’histoire qu’elle entretient avec la folie grâce à l’analyse de personnages qui émaillent son paysage culturel. Que ces derniers soient jugés fous – fols-en-Christ ou jurodivye, artistes romantiques, dissidents internés en Union soviétique – ou qu’il s’agisse de figures traditionnelles d'idiots – Ivan le simple, le prince Mychkine de Dostoïevski –, un pont sera créé qui reliera ces archétypes et certaines pratiques de l’extrême contemporain, allant jusqu’à la prière-punk des Pussy Riot. Cette étude porte sur le concept d’une idiotie comme posture artistique permettant à l’artiste de se faire le médiateur d’une vérité – politique, religieuse ou sociale. Avançant masqué, il révèle ainsi les glissements sémantiques opérés entre les notions de « folie » et de « norme », en parallèle des rapports qu’entretiennent « art » et « politique ». L’histoire de la folie en Russie sera par ailleurs abordée à travers diverses formes d’envol – compris d’un point de vue métaphysique comme un escapisme de la raison. La littérature servira de socle à une première analyse de la figure romantique de l’artiste maudit à la raison vacillante, celle-ci ensuite mise à mal par les créateurs postmodernes qui déconstruisent aussi bien le mythe du saint idiot que celui du génie artistique, par l’incarnation d’un créateur sot reproduisant des formes sans en saisir le sens. Certains en appellent de surcroît, directement ou non, à la figure ancestrale du jurodivyj afin d’élaborer des postures critiques, parfois scandaleuses, envers les pouvoirs politique et religieux. Considérant les réactions virulentes que peuvent susciter les pratiques actuelles, et grâce à l’étude d’œuvres problématiques représentatives, les causes de leur rejet deviendront explicites. Il sera ainsi permis d’envisager ces créations, paraissant en rupture avec l’ordre établi, dans leur ancrage au sein d’une tradition historique et littéraire de la folie. / This work proposes an interpretation of the current Russian artistic creation – 1990-2010 – with regard to his links with history of madness, through the analysis of characters that punctuate Russian cultural landscape. The latter characters are deemed insane – holly fools, Romantic artists, dissidents interned in the Soviet Union - or whether are traditional idiots figures - Ivan the fool, Dostoevsky’s Prince Myshkin. A bridge will be created linking these archetypes and certain contemporary practices, up to Pussy Riot’s punk prayer. This study focuses on the concept of idiocy as an artistic position which allows the artist to become a mediator of a political, religious or social truth. The creator, moving forward hidden, reveals semantic shifts made by the concepts of "madness" and "norm", in parallel with relations held between "art" and "politics." The history of madness in Russia will also be depicted through various forms of soaring - understood in a metaphysical point of view as an escapism of reason. Literature will be used as a base for a first analysis of the romantic image of the damned artist with flickering reason. This picture will then be undermined by postmodern creators who both deconstruct the myths of the holy fool and the artistic genius, by their incarnation of a stupid creator reproducing forms without understanding their meaning. Moreover, some of them require, directly or not, to the ancestral figure of the holly fool to develop critical postures, sometimes scandalous, against political and religious powers. Considering the violent reaction that can generate the current artistic practices, and through the study of representative problematic works, the causes of their rejection shall become explicit. This will make it possible to consider these creations – apparently breaking with the established order – in their anchor within a historical and literary tradition of madness.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the project Knitting House using art and architectural theories to question the forms of the project as well as the town planning in the area of Husby, a suburb to Stockholm. In order to stress the architectural issues in the area of Husby, the thesis examines the aim and intention of the project Knitting House. The project explores the standardized architectural form that was used and built under the Miljonprogrammet, through the years of 1960-1970 in the neighborhoods of Järvafältet. The thesis will also investigate some of the problems that arise when attempting to discuss knitting as a method used to perform Knitting House.  This paper explores the relationships between public and private spaces, the areas in between them and how they interact. The claim made throughout the thesis is that Knitting House can function as a political catalyst by presenting a combined perspective of art, architecture and politics to address the social and ethnic segregation in suburbs like Husby.

This master\'s research in the search line \"practices and processes in the arts,\" has a proposal to look and reflect on the city (Uberlândia, MG) from art projects, considering their physical appearance as opposed to users perceptions of their urban space, what they observe and what they think and report through their lines. Seeks to address this town contextualized and which blends the dynamics of life, trade, power, conformation and longings. Give yourself through artwork interspersed reflection and theoretical approaches of these exercises plastics. So is contextualized in the exercise of artistic and dialogue between these thinkers and art, the city, the geography and the human condition. Five plastic works were carried out during the research: \"The Imagined City\" triggering situations and contradictory conditions of the real city, from its appearance factual and crisscrossed the spoken it; \"Urban Itineraries\" that causes the viewer from a invitation to meet this city real or imagined. Both were lodged in the public municipal art gallery \"Oficina Cultural\" in Uberlândia. As an outcome of the research were also carried out two urban interventions: \"Artist Lunch (who is the owner of the square?)\" Action that held the square Colonel Virgilio Rodrigues da Cunha, discussing the relationship between what is public and what is private in the city, and \"Turning Point\" conducted in two districts of Uberlandia, a look back to the equipment and appliances urban, in this case the bus stops from their plates. The fifth, and last work - \"Classifieds\" - was presented at the University Museum of Art (Muna - Uberlândia, MG), triggering a city constantly surrounded by negotiations that include alleged rents its public buildings, political decisions being bartered and other events that also move between the real and the imagined, leaving tracks doubtful situations to exhibition visitors. In the course of the research work feeds the plastic reflection on the theme of the survey, while this reflection also brings support for the preparation of work aligned with the proposal presented here. Acting with artwork in the city and taking the city as a territory of investigation is also exerting a constant negotiation in the sphere of public power through authorizations and desautorizações, issue also addressed by research. / Esta pesquisa de mestrado na linha de pesquisa práticas e processos em artes , tem como proposta olhar e refletir sobre a cidade (Uberlândia, MG) a partir de projetos artísticos, considerando sua aparência física em contraposição às percepções dos usuários do seu espaço urbano, naquilo que observam e naquilo que imaginam e relatam através de suas falas. Procura abordar esta cidade contextualizada e que se mistura à própria dinâmica da vida, de trocas, de poder, de conformação e de anseios. Dá-se através de trabalhos artísticos entremeados à reflexão e abordagens teóricas destes exercícios plásticos. Portanto está contextualizada no exercício do fazer artístico e no diálogo entre estes e pensadores da arte, da cidade, da geografia e da própria condição humana. Cinco trabalhos plásticos foram realizados durante a pesquisa: A Cidade Imaginada deflagrador de situações e condições contraditórias da cidade real, a partir da sua aparência factual e entrecruzada ao que se fala dela; Itinerários Urbanos que provoca o espectador a partir de um convite para ir de encontro a esta cidade real ou imaginada. Ambos foram apresentados na galeria pública municipal de arte Oficina Cultural , em Uberlândia. Como desdobramento da pesquisa também foram realizadas duas intervenções urbanas: Almoço de Artista (a praça é de quem?) , ação esta realizada na praça Coronel Virgílio Rodrigues da Cunha, colocando em discussão as relações entre o que é público e o que é privado na cidade, e Ponto Crítico realizado em dois bairros de Uberlândia, com um olhar voltado aos equipamentos e aparelhos urbanos, neste caso os pontos de ônibus, a partir de suas placas de sinalização. O quinto e último trabalho Classificados foi apresentado no Museu Universitário de Arte (MUnA Uberlândia, MG), deflagrando uma cidade constantemente envolta por negociações que incluem supostos aluguéis de seus prédios públicos, decisões políticas sendo barganhadas e outros acontecimentos que também transitam entre o real e o imaginado, deixando pistas de situações duvidosas aos visitantes da exposição. No transcorrer da pesquisa o trabalho plástico alimenta a reflexão em torno do tema central da pesquisa, e ao mesmo tempo esta reflexão também traz subsídios para a elaboração de trabalhos alinhados com a proposta aqui apresentada. Atuar com trabalhos de arte na cidade e tendo a cidade como território de investigação é também exercer uma constante negociação na esfera do poder público através de autorizações e desautorizações, questão também abordada pela pesquisa. / Mestre em Artes

This study examines the ideological shift towards right-wing conservatism within specific segments of the Polish contemporary art scene following the Law and Justice Party (PiS) rise in 2015. The party's cultural policies, aligned with nationalist and right-wing ideologies, brought significant changes to institutions like Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art (CSW), reflecting a broader trend seen in Poland for many years. Through the exhibition Sztuka Polityczna (2021) at Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art, this study investigates the conservative discourse shaping Polish art. The study employs Actor-Network Theory (ANT) and Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) to map the actors, networks, and power dynamics influencing the exhibition's discourse. Utilizing political scientist Andrew Heywood's pillars of conservatism, the study analyzes the interplay between conservatism and contemporary art, focusing on CSW's director Piotr Bernatowicz’s trajectory toward a conservative outlook on contemporary art. The analysis of Sztuka Polityczna reveals the influence of "avant-garde conservatism," a theory formulated by philosopher Paweł Rojek, that merges populism, culture war rhetoric, conservatism, and national identity to redefine conservatism in modern Poland. Bernatowicz's role in promoting issues like cancel culture underscores the exhibition's unconventional discourse. While the study acknowledges the limitations of a single exhibition's scope, the systemic influence of conservative tendencies on Polish contemporary art suggests a broader trend with potential future ramifications for the European art scene. The findings underscore the possible instrumentalization of contemporary art to conform to political ideologies.

This research examines how the practice of curating has been used to further counter-hegemonic agendas in public art institutions since 1989. The central aim is to provide a fuller, contextualised, and medium specific understanding of the how the institutional exhibition might be used to challenge the hegemony of neoliberalism and the post-political consensus politics that sustains its dominance. It provides insights, through both historic case studies and reflective practice, that problematise the idea that the institutional art exhibition is a viable medium for counter-hegemonic critique, or represents the ideal space for the development of an agonistic public discourse. This thesis presents collaborative research undertaken with Tate Liverpool and Liverpool John Moores University. The research presented both extrapolated from, and contributed to, the development of an exhibition, co-curated with Tate Liverpool, entitled Art Turning Left (8 November 2013 – 2 February 2014) and a supplementary publication of the same name. The first section investigates how the idea that curators can counter neoliberal dominance, through institutional exhibition-making, developed. It draws from analyses of previous exhibitions, and the theory of Chantal Mouffe, in order to critically evaluate the curatorial application of counter-hegemonic critique and agonistic practice. It also provides a review of how exhibitions (held in major art institutions since 1989) have articulated politics, in order to determine their relationship to neoliberal dominance, and to identify significant gaps in the dialogue facilitated by these institutions. These analyses provides the theoretical and contextual grounding for the final two chapters, which provide a rationale and critical evaluation of my own attempt to develop an alternative counter-hegemonic curatorial strategy for the exhibition at Tate Liverpool. They document, and analyse, the areas of dissensus, and the ideological and pragmatic limitations that emerged, in trying to realise these theoretical propositions (in practice) in a public art museum. The thesis therefore provides a critical framework for the development of an alternative practice that positions the exhibition as a form of post-political critique and specifically targets the hegemonic role that institutional exhibitions play in reinforcing class distinctions and devaluing nonprofessional creativity.