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Academy is an initiative of Siemens Arts Program in cooperation with the Department of Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths College in London, Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerpen, and Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven.

Curators Bart de Baere and Dieter Roelstrate (Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerpen), Charles Esche and Kerstin Niemann (Van Abbemuseum Eindhoven), Irit Rogoff (Goldsmiths College), and Angelika Nollert (Siemens Arts Program)

Academy. Learning from Art
How do we expand our notions of teaching and learning beyond the frames assigned by formal education? With this question the focus shifts from art academies as institutions per se, to perceiving them as extended aspirational drives. With that it is possible to distinguish between teaching geared to a clear output and teaching that focuses on possibilities for an enabling interaction between subjectivities and social organisms. The aim is to understand the core concepts by which this type of learning occurs: exchange, reflection, speculation, and fallibility.

Summit - The project was organized by a collective—Irit Rogoff (London), Florian Schneider (Munich), Nora Sternfeld (Vienna), Susanne Lang (Berlin), Nicolas Siepen (Berlin), Kodwo Eshun (London)—and in collaboration with the HAU theatres, Unitednationsplaza, BootLab, and the Bundeskulturstiftung, all in Berlin.
 

That initial project within the spaces and parameters set by the museum [Van Abbemuseum] led several of us to think about taking those questions into a less regulated and prescribed space, one in which institutional practices could encounter self-organized, activist initiatives. This led to SUMMIT Non-Aligned Initiatives in Education Culture (www.summit.kein.org), a forum which took place in Berlin in May 2007.

I Like That - Rob Stone and Jean-Paul Martinon

...And there were other questions about the museum’s knowledge vs. our own knowledge, and about open forums for learning at the edges of that which is acknowledged, as in I Like That (Rob Stone and Jean-Paul Martinon).... Irit Rogoff: Turning


Rob Stone and Jean-Paul Martinon, I Like That, 2006 © Van Abbemuseum

Sounding Difference - The Gate Collection by Irit Rogoff and Deepa Naik

...There were questions regarding cultural difference that asked whether a museum really is an institution of representation, meant to represent those outside its systems and privileged audiences. If it is not, then maybe those “outsiders” are not outside at all, but can be recognized as already here and part of us, but only if we listen—really listen to ourselves, as in Sounding Difference (Irit Rogoff, Deepa Naik)... Irit Rogoff: Turning


Irit Rogoff, Deepa Naik, Sounding Difference, 2006 © Van Abbemuseum

Imaginary Property by Florian Schneider and Multitude e.V. Jan Gerber, Susanne Lang, Sebastian Lütgert and Florian Schneider in collaboration with Willem Jan Renders

....There were questions regarding the very nature of ownership of an image or an idea. How does a simple object come to stand in for an entire complex network of knowing, legitimating, conserving, and “anointing with cultural status” (all of which operate under the aegis of ownership)? Imaginary Property (Florian Schneider and Multitude e.V.) asked, “What does it mean to own an image?”...Irit Rogoff: Turning


Florian Schneider and Multitude e.V., Imaginary Property, 2006 © Van Abbemuseum

Inverted Research Tool. Contributors: Liam Gillick & Edgar Schmitz

...There were questions regarding what kind of modes of attention are paid in a context such as a museum or a library. What could these modes of attention be liberated for? Could they be made use of in some other ways? Could they become an instrument of liberation, as in the Inverted Research Tool (Edgar Schmitz and Liam Gillick)?... Irit Rogoff: Turning

Inverted Research Tool. Contributors: Liam Gillick and Edgar Schmitz © Van Abbemunseum

The Conspired World –Think Tank Strategies by John Palmesino, Anselm Franke, Eyal Weizmann, Research Architecture Centre, Goldsmiths College, London Edgar Schmitz and Liam Gillick

...There were questions regarding the relations between expertise and hope and expertise and governance, knowledge that is used to bolster hopeful fantasies and knowledge that is used to impose dominant concerns, such as in the Think Tank project... Irit Rogoff: Turning


The Conspired World — Think Tank Strategies | Photo: Peter Cox

Ambulator Project by Susan Kelly, Janna Graham, Valeria Graziano

...There were questions regarding who produces questioning: What are legitimate questions, and under what conditions are they produced? The seminar class, the think tank, the government department, the statistician’s bureau are sites for the production of questions, but we were suggesting others born of fleeting, arbitrary conversations between strangers, of convivial loitering and of unexpected lines of flight in and out of the museum as in the Ambulator project (Susan Kelly, Janna Graham, Valeria Graziano).... Irit Rogoff: Turning


Academy. Learning from the Museum September 16 November 26, 2006 Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven