Art Theory

Head: Univ.-Prof. PhD Marina Vishmidt
Art theory deals with the historical and historical and social conditions under which art can appear in today's societies. These conditions include the economic, the epistemological, the aesthetic and the infrastructural.  The reconstruction of these conditions and the specific forms of relations that result from them, as they characterize today's culture in its concrete manifestations as well as in its institutional structures, is the basic aim of the department.

Contemporary art stands in manifold exchange relationships with media, culture, and politics. Such coordinates relate to the local and the global as well as the current and the historical, the specifically artistic and the generally cultural.  Only in between can the special narrative forms of contemporary art, its designs for subjectivity and collectivity, and its political stakes, become tangible. Art theory as a discipline carries the traces of, and continues to express the relationship with, the histories and philosophies of art as well as aesthetics/aesthetic theory as strongly Eurocentric legacies, which, however, are still generative in their contradiction and ambivalence. As such, art theory should be seen not just as a discipline that mediates concepts developed elsewhere into the field of art or to use those concepts to reflect on art, but rather as a mediator itself, taking advantage of the flexibility of ‘theory’ in the humanities to register and pursue dialogic relations with other disciplines and other forms of praxis.

The department therefore does not intend to offer a canonical history of art theory/aesthetics, but rather approaches to understand art theory as a reflection of the problematic context of art. Instead of remaining focused on art, the acts of demarcation and contradiction themselves are to be thematized, and the different fields of art, the arts and culture should be made visible in their context. Moreover, the infrastructure of art making and mediation (institutions, states, funding, education, social movements . . .) are seen as contradictory conditions of possibility and the department is dedicated to investigating these conditions in all their material specificity, unpredictability and wider implications, as well as addressing the variations attendant on geographical and historical circumstance -contemporary art and art theory can only be seen as homogenous from the perspective of their performance in a (global) market; they do not and could not present a conceptual or pedagogical unity.

The department’s curriculum is envisioned as generally accessible to the students of the Angewandte and the broader academy and university community in Vienna (and beyond, in the case of special events). Strong collaborative relationships at the level of pedagogy and programming with the constituent faculties of I.KKK, such as Philosophy, Art History, Cultural Studies and Art Education, distinguish the Department of Art Theory as purposefully interdisciplinary. This is reinforced by the themes explored in the curriculum, such as psychoanalysis, political philosophy, political economy, black studies, ecology, queer and trans studies, feminist theory and a commitment to critical theory overall while unpacking and re-framing the perspective of ‘critique’ in the present. Finally, art theory is conceptualised and practiced in the department from the standpoint of practice: it is focused on working conditions, forms of organisation, learning and unlearning, and in offering ways of conceiving practice that depart from the transformability of the productive context and its politics. Thus Art Theory is invested in broadening (as well as deepening) the knowledge base of its students, emphasising the theoretical understanding to be gained through forms of practice within and beyond the spaces of art and academia, and the importance of always putting that knowledge under an experimental sign.