In recent years, confrontations with sexism, racism and other forms of misanthropy have led to a discussion and critical examination of the programmes and attitudes of cultural institutions. The parliamentary successes of the AfD in particular have also led to demands being placed on cultural institutions to engage in political debates. In the meantime, however, these demands seem to have fallen into a trap. The term ‘cancel culture’, originally introduced by right-wing actors, is being used more and more frequently. Where events are postponed or cancelled due to political considerations, accusations of censorship lurk. Calls for boycotts and protests arise against collaboration with people or institutions because of their positioning. This causes uncertainty for everyone involved. Where collective organisation and scandalisation are increasingly used to exert pressure on individuals and institutions, the idea of criticism threatens to turn into conformism. Based on a campaign against the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, supporters, opponents and observers of this and similar campaigns discuss the question: does the greatest danger for critical discussions about how to deal with political issues within the cultural sector come from the cultural sector itself?
1 May 2024 1 p.m. Keynote
Bazon Brock, thinker in service and artist without works, is professor emeritus at the Chair of Aesthetics and Cultural Mediation at the University of Wuppertal. He also held professorships at the University of Fine Arts Hamburg (1965–76) and the University of Applied Arts Vienna (1977–80). In 1992, he received an honorary doctorate from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich and in 2012, an honorary doctorate from the Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design. In 2014, he was awarded an honorary professorship for prophecy at the Hochschule der Bildenden Künste Saar, and in 2016 he was awarded the Von der Heydt Prize of the City of Wuppertal. In 2017, he received the Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Art 1st Class. He developed the ‘Action Teaching’ method, in which every sentence becomes a stage. From 1968 to 1992, he ran the documenta visitor schools in Kassel, which he founded. From 2010 to 2013, he led the ‘Professionalised Citizen’ course at the HfG Karlsruhe. He has organised around 3,000 events and educational activities, most recently including ‘Lustmarsch durchs Theoriegelände’ (2006, in eleven museums). Since 2011, he has been running the Denkerei in Berlin as the Institute for Theoretical Art, Universal Poetry and Prognostics, focussing on ‘Working on Unsolvable Problems’.
