World of Art and Igor Zabel Association for Culture and Theory
Series of public lectures How Critical
Is the Condition of Critical Writing?
Maja Breznik:
Presenting the Analysis “Where Has Art Criticism Gone?”

Tuesday, 27 September 2016, 6 pm
Project Room, SCCA–Ljubljana, Metelkova 6, Ljubljana

This autumn we will continue with How Critical Is the Condition of Critical Writing?, a reflection on the current role and status of criticism in visual arts and culture conceived last year, with a new series of lectures.

Together with the Igor Zabel Association for Culture and Theory we cordially invite you to attend the public lecture by Maja Breznik. Lecturer will present the Analysis "Where Has Art Criticism Gone?"

About the lecture
"In the analysis, I compare today’s visual-art criticism with newspaper criticism of the mid-1980s (I analyse newspapers Delo, Dnevnik, Večer, Primorske novice, Naši razgledi/Pogledi). I compare the public visibility of contemporary visual arts, content-related changes in art criticism and the socio-economic position of art critics. The analysis of contemporary visual-art criticism is complemented with an epistemological reading of contemporary expert articles and academic writings. Deriving from a “loud” symptomatic reading (Althusser 1965, Ginzburg 1986), I discern theoretical conceptions, the construction of the object of visual arts and the horizon and external borders of contemporary critical-theoretical production. I try to explain how art criticism fits into the art system and the process of institutionalising art, if it does at all."

More on World of Art page.

Maja Breznik is sociologist and a researcher at the Peace Institute. She studied at the Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales in Paris (1989) and at the University of Ljubljana, where she also finished her PhD (2001). She received a fellowship at The Institute of International Education/Arts International (New York, 1992), and from 2002 to 2004 she was a researcher at Università degli studi di Padova, Department of Sociology. So far she has coordinated or participated in 15 research projects, including from the field of cultural policy. She has published several books: Obrt in učenost (Artisanry and Erudition, 2003), Kulturni revizionizem/Cultural Revisionism (2004), Kultura danajskih darov (The Culture of Danaan Gifts, 2009), Posebni skepticizem v umetnosti (Specific Scepticism in the Arts, 2011), Za napisom Nezaposlenim vstop prepovedan (Behind the Notice “No Admittance Except on Business”, 2014), and many chapters and articles. Lately she has been focusing on the issues of labor rights and private labor markets.

Photo: SCCA-Ljubljana archive

This programme is being part of the World of Art, School for Curators and Critics of Contemporary Art; and prepared by SCCA–Ljubljana & the Igor Zabel Association for Culture and Theory.


Supported by: City of Ljubljana – Department for Culture, ERSTE Foundation, and Goethe-Institut Ljubljana.

[Published September 23, 2016]