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BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht
BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Pauwstraat, Utrecht, Netherlands

 Public Studies

19 March, 15.00–21 March, 18.00 2020

BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht  

Public Studies: Practice as Theory [CANCELLED]

A three day workshop with artist Tony Cokes, in the framework of exhibition Tony Cokes: To Live as Equals

Tony Cokes

Tony Cokes, The Will & The Way …Fragment 1, 2019 (still), courtesy of the artist, Greene Naftali, New York, Hannah Hoffman, Los Angeles, and Electronic Arts Intermix, New York

[UPDATE 13 March: We are sad to announce that, in light of the COVID-19 outbreak, this event is now cancelled for 19-21 March 2020. We are looking into postponing it and will update our website and social media as soon as we know more].

As a part of the exhibition Tony Cokes: To Live as Equals, the artist presents a three-day workshop investigating critical themes that circulate through his work, and various intersections with and applications of forms of the theoretical. Topics include frameworks of ideology, violence, representation, critique, and image production, as examined through Cokes’s videos, and many of the writers and thinkers he sources from, including the Situationist International, Louis Althusser, Our Literal Speed, and others. The workshop will examine the uses and limits of theory in critical practice, and the ever-shifting idea of what it means to be critical.

Each day ends with a dinner (18.00-19.00 hrs) at BAK, prepared by the Basic Activist Kitchen, included in the ticket prize.

Thursday 19 March 
On the representation of violence, mass movements, and riots. This day will draw on the works Black Celebration (1988), FADE TO BLACK (1990), and shrinking.criticism (2009), alongside the texts “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses…,” and “The Decline and Fall of Spectacle Commodity Society” by Situationist International, and “The Decline and Fall of Art Criticism” by Julian Stallabrass.

Friday 20 March 
The recurring return of evil. This session will be dedicated to the works in Cokes’s “Evil” series, including Evil (2003), Evil.16 (Torture.Musik) (2011), and Evil.20 (b.o.m.b.edit) (2012), viewing them through the lens of relevant texts by Alain Badiou, Moustafa Bayoumi, and Retort.

Saturday 21 March 
Why produce another image? This session explores the proposition of video as a non-representational media, and alternate conditions that could produce different forms of legibility. Works discussed include Evil.27: Selma (2011), Evil.8 (Unseen) (2004), and Before & After The Studio Pt. 2 (2019), along with two related texts from Our Literal Speed and other sources.

HOW TO APPLY:
Please send a short description of yourself, why you would like to join, and for how many days, to olga@bakonline.org before Friday 13 March 2020 (extended from 9 March). This is just so we get an idea of who is there! You will then receive an e-mail with the ticket link.

Tickets:
Combi ticket: € 45 regular/ € 36 student discount, including daily dinner prepared by the Basic Activist Kitchen
Day ticket: € 15 regular/ € 12 student discount, including dinner prepared by the Basic Activist Kitchen

Solidarity tickets: For each day, BAK provides three free places for those who would otherwise not be able to attend. Please state in your short motivation if and why you would like to receive one of these spots.

Participation:
It is possible to join on individual days, as well as attending the studies in its entirety.
Language: English

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