NADA + Art Cologne: Collaborations 2015

Moderated by: Timotheus Vermeulen, Cultural Theorist (Radboud University Nijmegen)

Panelists:
Noemi Smolik, Art Critic, Smolik (Artforum, Frieze, FAZ)
Nav Haq, Curator (MUHKA)
Diango Hernandez, Artist

In his novel 10:04 Ben Lerner construes scenarios in which suddenly, unexpectedly, “the world rearranges itself around you”. The illness of a close friend, a chance meeting, a picture in a newspaper; from one moment to the next, the world’s elements are reshuffled, closing some ways, whilst opening up different paths. Though we may not always be aware of it, and indeed often forget it, reality is always already infused with the possible. In this talk, the panelists discuss the possibility, or perhaps the necessity, of art to rearrange the world around us. How can art shift our perspective – beyond cultural deconstruction, beyond capitalist realism, beyond the political economy of the present? Where can the alternative be found – at an Art Fair? A museum? The art academy? What are the politics of the possible?