BAK programming combines the artistic, experiential, theoretical, and political so as to imagine and enact transformative ways, with and through art, of being together otherwise. BAK’s current research trajectory Propositions for Non-Fascist Living (2017–2020) is prompted by the dramatic resurfacing and normalization of fascisms, historical and contemporary. BAK organizes exhibitions, lectures, publications, workshops, and composite performative conferences with exhibitionary, discursive, and performative elements.
Summer School
18-21 September 2018
The Bratislava BAK Summer School: Art in a Time of Interregnum is a collaborative and intensive learning week in Bratislava from 18‑21 September 2018, organized in partnership with BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht, Open Studio/ Studio IN – Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava, APART Collective in Bratislava, and initiated by Kristína Országhová.
Exhibition
18 October 2018–27 January 2019
Forensic Justice is an exhibition and a series of public programs with Forensic Architecture, a London-based independent and interdisciplinary research agency comprised of, among others, artists, scientists, lawyers, filmmakers, and architects.
Education Program
23 October–27 November 2018
“Art and Politics” is an inaugural course of a new public school for art and politics organized by BAK, basis voor actuele kunst in Utrecht. In six weekly sessions, the participants learn about how contemporary art relates to the political in an accessible way.
Exhibition
02 March–29 June 2014
The multifaceted series Survival was inaugurated with the work Cardboard Walls (2013) by artist Aernout Mik, which weaves together the key lineages of thought that we have marked for ourselves as critically important for (rethinking) survival—namely, questions surrounding the endurability of the planet, the livelihoods of refugees, and the need to reorient our thinking around (institutional) infrastructure.
Exhibition
24 January–28 March 2010
Exhibition by Lawrence Weiner.
Lecture, Conversation
23 November 2015, 19.00
Lecture by Paulo Tavares, followed by a Q&A with Ursula Biemann.
Congress
19-20 April 2012
The 3rd FORMER WEST Research Congress, Part One: Beyond What Was Contemporary Art is developed by BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht and co-curated by Marion von Osten, FORMER WEST research advisor and Professor at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.
Lecture
18 November 2008
A lecture by Prof. Kunneman with an introduction by Rosi Braidotti as part of the Postsecularism research itinerary.
event
11 January 2015
On 11 January 2015, on the occassion of the start of the Utrecht cultural season, the Culturele Zondag Nieuwjaarsduik, BAK presents a special preview of the upcoming research exhibition Anthropocene Observatory, which officially opens a few weeks later.
Exhibition
18 October 2018–27 January 2019
Forensic Justice is an exhibition and a series of public programs with Forensic Architecture, a London-based independent and interdisciplinary research agency comprised of, among others, artists, scientists, lawyers, filmmakers, and architects.
Learning
05 February–30 April 2015
Educational program with students from MAR/KABK, The Hague and MaHKU, Utrecht. Part of BAK’s research series Future Vocabularies and its semester-long inquiry Human -Inhuman -Posthuman, this spring course attempts to bring into conversations on present-day artistic practice key terms such as the Anthropocene and posthumanity, while familiarizing participants with the theories of new materialism and Object-Oriented Ontology.
Exhibition
31 August–09 October 2013
With this makeshift, impromptu composition of artworks and discourse, we share with our Utrecht publics a series of spontaneously assembled impressions—notes as it were—from a major manifestation of BAK’s flagship project FORMER WEST: Documents, Constellations, Prospects, realized earlier in 2013 in collaboration with Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin.
Screening
5 July 2018, 19.30-21.30
On 5 July 2018 there is a screening of Spectres by artist Sven Augustijnen. The film is screened for the first time in Utrecht, followed by a conversation between the artist and BAK curator Matteo Lucchetti.
Exhibition
30 November 2008–01 March 2009
Exhibition by Sven Lütticken.
Exhibition
12 September–28 November 2010
The exhibition examines the notion of the horizon in art and politics and explores the ways in which art works can be said to set up certain horizons of possibility and impossibility, how art partakes in specific imaginaries, and how it can produce new ones, thus suggesting other ways of imagining the world.
Lecture
30 October 2014
BAK artistic director Maria Hlavajova gives a talk in Bucharest on 30 October 2014 as a part of the Evening classes series of conferences, screenings, presentations, and discussions, organized by the Salonul de Proiecte curatorial programme.
Public Editorial Meeting
16-17 May 2014
Under the title Other Survivalisms, on 16 and 17 May 2014 BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht hosts the second installment of its public editorial meetings geared towards the realization of the forthcoming FORMER WEST publication.
Lecture
13 October 2008
A lecture by Liesbeth van Zoonen with an introduction by Rosi Braidotti as part of the Postsecularism research itinerary.
Lecture
10 December 2014
BAK’s artistic director Maria Hlavajova gives a talk in Barcelona on 10 December 2014, as a part of the second On Mediation training seminar, organized by the Art, Globalization, Interculturality (AGI) research group of the Department of Art History, University of Barcelona, Barcelona.
