Over two days art historians, critics, writers, artists and teachers will gather to discuss autodidacticism through multiple perspectives.

SPEAKERS:

Maja Hoffmann, president and founder of the Luma Foundation and president of the Fondation Vincent van Gogh Arles
Medhi Belhaj Kacem, freelance writer
Mathis Collins, artist, Paris
Bice Curiger, artistic director of the Fondation Vincent van Gogh Arles
Philippe Dagen, professor of contemporary art history at the University of Paris I Pantheon-Sorbonne and art critic at Le Monde
Diedrich Diederichsen, writer, curator, critic and professor at the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna
Susanne von Falkenhausen, Professor Emeritus of Modern and Contemporary Art History at the Humbolt University of Berlin
Giorgi Khoshtaria, art historian, university professor, and former Foreign Minister of Georgia, Tbilisi
Nino Khundadze, chief curator of New Contemporary Collections at the National Museum of Georgia, Tbilisi
Ekaterine Kiknadze, art historian and director of the Shalva Amiranashvili Museum of Fine Arts and the Dimitri Shevardnadze National Gallery, Tbilisi
Charlotte Laubard, art historian, curator, and director of the Department of Visual Arts, HEAD, Geneva
Wato Tsereteli, artist, curator, and director of the CCA-Tbilisi
Natsuko Uchino, artist, Paris and Saint-Quentin-la-Poterie
Dinara Vachnadze, director of Collections at the National Museum of Georgia, Tbilisi
Raphaela Vogel, artist, Berlin
Gilda Williams, publisher, art critic, lecturer in MFA Curating, Goldsmiths, University of London and author of “How to Write about Contemporary Art”

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The term “autodidact” is generally used to describe someone who has acquired knowledge or skills through their own reading, observations and practice – an approach that is radically different from academic study in the arts, for example, that is validated by institutions.
Yet what can we possibly learn, if we sacrifice brilliant cultural values on the altar of all-round relativism, where everything is equally valid? Faced with this relativism, what does one make of the canonical in a globalized and fragmented world? What to make of an unlearning that cripples the authority of the keepers of knowledge? These different “cultures of knowledge” presuppose diverse geopolitical realities that are worth interrogating.

In the history of modern art, the turn of the 20th century saw heightened interest in the contributions of artists lacking formal training, whose art was then described as “primitivist”, “naïve”, “childish” or “brut”. The passion of many avant-gardists for artistic expression emerging outside of academic strictures drew on the ideal of a “primitive state” and a thirst for authenticity that continues to be expressed in popular culture even today.

The exhibitions on show at the Fondation until 20 October 2019, “Niko Pirosmani – Wanderer Between Worlds” and “Vincent van Gogh: Speed & Aplomb” offer us a framework for reflection on two different examples of autodidacts, and to understand their respective relationships to learning and to how their work was received.

Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) himself, who was already twenty-seven years of age before deciding to become a painter, is considered an astonishing example of the autodidact. He did have access to culture from an early age; he was an avid visitor to museums, and his first steps in the professional world at the age of sixteen led him to work at Goupil & Co, one of the largest art dealers and publishers of the time. But over the first three years of his life as an artist he trained without external help, developing his painting and drawing, copying the artists that inspired him. He was thus an unusual autodidact in that he drew on the refined culture that he had absorbed. He was also a cosmopolitan who, after falling in with the most avant-garde of Parisian artists, then opted for a simple life in the country to find the bright light and colours of Provence so as to further modernize his new way of painting.

Niko Pirosmani (1862–1918) led a life comparable to that of Van Gogh: after having also failed in several trades, he resolved to devote himself entirely to painting and to live by selling his paintings without any prior training. In the Tbilisi of the time, a melting pot of different cultures, he led a vagabond existence, finding his audience in taverns and inns, far from the great art centres and their experts. This didn’t prevent him being discovered in 1913 by three young avant-gardists who ensured that four of his paintings were shown in Moscow, in the famous exhibition “The Target”, alongside works by Kazimir Malevich, Mikhail Larionov and Natalia Goncharova.

Whereas Van Gogh was convinced that his art and that of his artist friends would only attract delayed recognition, Pirosmani created the enchanting world of his paintings in a direct relationship with his audience. With their wild, free and fiercely human spirit, his paintings continue to fascinate to this day.

While museums, too, have today become part of mass culture, the symposium “Van Gogh – Pre Pop”, animated by the powerful sociocultural charge of the term “Pop”, aims to discuss current issues that, to date, have been omitted from an art history focused on the history of style and form.

This symposium is the second of a trilogy, of which the first, held in January 2015, was titled “Van Gogh – Duchamp: Oil and Water?”

Among those taking part are curators, historians, experts and contemporary artists. The symposium will be a forum not only for expert studies and philological research, but also for spontaneous associative thinking and intellectual speculation.
The symposium “Van Gogh – Pre Pop” (with simultaneous French / English translation) combines short presentations with podium discussions, in which aspects of cultural history as well as specific artistic approaches and practices will be the subject of lively debate.

Download the symposium’s programme here

Speakers:
Mark Alizart: Author and philosopher, he has lately published Informatique céleste (Puf, 2017), Paris.
Jean-Pierre Criqui: Curator at the Musée National d’Art Moderne (Centre Pompidou), Paris
Bice Curiger: Artistic director of the Fondation Vincent van Gogh Arles
Adrian Ghenie: Painter, Berlin and Cluj-Napoca
Catherine Grenier: Heritage officer, director of the Fondation Giacometti, Paris
Jörg Heiser: Editor at large of Frieze magazine, director of the Institute for Art in Context at the Universität der Künste Berlin
Sjraar van Heugten: Independent art historian, Van Gogh expert, Utrecht
Philippe Kaenel: Professor of art history at the University of Lausanne and curator of the Gustave Doré retrospective (Paris, Ottawa, 2014), Lausanne
Ingrid Luquet-Gad: Journalist and art critic, editor at the magazine Inrockuptibles, Paris
Pierre-Lin Renié: Artist and professor of art history, former curator at the Musée Goupil, Bordeaux
Pipilotti Rist: Video artist, Zurich
Alexander Roob: Artist, writer, founder of the Melton Prior Institute and professor at the State Academy of Fine Arts, Stuttgart
Pascal Rousseau: Professor of contemporary art at the Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and exhibition curator, Paris
Pacôme Thiellement: Author and writer notably on pop music, comics, poésie maudite and TV series, Paris.
Fabien Vallos: Philosopher, publisher, curator and author. Professor at the École Nationale Supérieure de la Photographie in Arles.

Perceived as an antidote to expressivity, Conceptual art for a long time relegated excessive subjectivity to the inferior status of artistic sub-genre. It is only recently that emotion and immediacy have gained fresh currency within the practice of contemporary artists.

Are the names of Van Gogh and Duchamp synonyms for “hot” and “cold”? One standing for existential agitation, the other for intellectual sovereignty? One for popular (accessible), the other for sophisticated (elitist)? One for “painting”, the other for “anti-painting”? One for pictorial spaces saturated with energy, the other for fetishized objects manipulated with ironic detachment?

The symposium, which being held in French with simultaneous English translation, proposed a programme of short presentations and lively discussions in which a distinguished panel of cultural historians, sociologists and contemporary artists exchange their views on “Van Gogh – Duchamp: oil and water?”.

Speakers:

Mark Alizart, Nicolas Bourriaud, Guillaume Bruère, Benjamin H.D. Buchloh, Andrea Büttner, Isabelle Cornaro, Cécile Debray, Nathalie Heinich, Bethan Huws, Jean de Loisy, Bernard Marcadé, Piper Marshall, François Piron, Ralph Rugoff and Francesco Stocchi

Download the programme here