Different approaches to artistic production will be examined and compared in terms of their methods and research characteristics. Fundamental questions about artistic research will be addressed as well as specific questions about the individual works shown. The fundamental questions of artistic research include
(a) Can artistic research be considered a scientific discipline? And if so, does it have to subordinate itself to the scientific model of hypothesis, verification and falsification or can it develop its own research dialectic?
b) Is artistic research a model of theoretical and critical engagement with art or an academic model for the justification of art enforced by a neoliberal university reform policy (as proof of performance)?
c) What effect does artistic research have outside the internal art discourse?
d) To what extent can the understanding of artistic production as research reform the traditional genius and master model in art?
Part of the project is that this catalog of questions is continuously supplemented and revised in the process of the exhibitions.
In June 2011, the magazine “Texte zur Kunst” devoted an issue to the topic of “Artistic Research”. In an interview with the art historian James Elkins, he was asked: “How can a work of art embody or represent knowledge?” Elkins replied: “This is one of the biggest unsolved problems in 20th and 21st century art theory. To name a few of the many possibilities: (a) art embodies knowledge, but accompanying texts must be produced to articulate this knowledge; (b) art embodies a knowledge that cannot be translated into words and must therefore be considered as a separate form alongside linguistically mediated, propositional, logical knowledge.”
The STUDIO FOR ARTISTIC RESEARCH would like to address precisely this unsolved problem and negotiate the possibilities (a) and (b) as well as researching the possibilities (c) and (d).
