[artinfo] Július Koller, U.F.O.-naut?, conference, 23-26 April 2009, Bratislava

[dora hegyi]

Július Koller, U.F.O.-naut?

The Július Koller Society and the Slovak National Gallery are proud to
present the first international conference on the oeuvre of Július
Koller (1939-2007).

Date: 23-26 April 2009

Slovak National Gallery
Riecna 1
Bratislava
T: 421 254 43 20 81
www.sng.sk

Conference information: sjk at sjk.sk
In Bratislava: Silvia Morávková, uz at sng.sk, T: 421 254 43 0746


In its stringency, obsession and peculiarity, the oeuvre of Július
Koller is one of the most erratic and consistent in European art since
the 1960s. Yet Koller is not only a seminal figure in the history of the
neo- and post-avant-garde; his work has long been a critical inspiration
for artists and intellectuals. In the most recent past, Koller's
concepts of the Anti-Happening, the Anti-Picture, the Universal-cultural
Futurological Operation (U.F.O.), his actions, objects, texts and the
enormous referential archive he built up, have attracted growing
interest on the part of a broader art public, and his works have found
their way into major collections and museums all over Europe and beyond.

This first international conference on the oeuvre of Július Koller aims
to discover new methodological and theoretical prospects for
interpreting and presenting the artist's practice, the vast extent,
comprehensive approach and conceptual rigour of which is becoming
increasingly evident. This and the topicality of Koller's artistic
method - his strategy of using real objects, the real world, everyday
life as a given program for an aesthetic operation, an endless aesthetic
displacement intended to put an end to aesthetics - are subjects of
analysis and debate between local and international scholars. The
conference provides new opportunities to meet and hear from Koller's
most important and influential contemporaries as well as younger artists
from both Eastern and Western Europe, thus enabling a reappraisal of the
influence of Koller's work on post-conceptual tendencies in contemporary
art. During the conference, the Slovak National Gallery and the Július
Koller Society present a research exhibition of Koller's works from
their collections.

The conference lays the groundwork for a catalogue raisonné and a large
monographic exhibition at the Slovak National Gallery, scheduled for
spring 2010, and followed by an international tour through major museums
and art institutions.


Conference Programme

Thursday, 23 April 2009

17:00
Screening of films on Július Koller


Friday, 24 April 2009

10:00 Welcome address, Katarína Bajcurová (Director of the Slovak
National
Gallery)

Introductory note, Georg Schöllhammer (The Július Koller Society,
Bratislava)

First Session 11:00-13:30
Moderated by Mária Hlavajová (BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht)

11:00 Insight Július Koller
Petra Hanáková (Slovak National Gallery, Bratislava)
"Diagnosis of Koller's inheritance"

11:30
Aurel Hrabušický (Slovak National Gallery, Bratislava)
"About the intelligible Július Koller and the non-intelligible Stano
Filko"

12:15 Panel
László Beke (Research Institute for Art History of the Hungarian Academy
of Sciences, Budapest), Branka Stipancic (freelance curator, Zagreb) and
Aurel Hrabušický

13:00-13:30 Discussion

13:30-15:00 Lunch Break

Second session: 15:00-17:30
Moderated by Mária Hlavajová

15:00 Insight Július Koller
Daniel Grún (Academy of Fine Arts, Bratislava)
"Július Koller as a collector of cultural situations"

15:30
Jan Verwoert (frieze, Berlin/London)

16:15 Panel
Silvia Eiblmayr (co-comissioner for the Austrian Pavilion, 53rd Biennale
di Venezia), Vít Havránek (tranzit.cz, Prague), Tom Holert (Academy of
Fine Arts, Vienna) and Jan Verwoert

17:00-17:30 Discussion

17:30 Coffee Break

18:00 Insight Július Koller
Dušan Brozman (Bratislava)
"Yes-no: ambiguities in Slovak conceptual art during normalisation era"

18:30 Artist's Panel
Moderated by Kathrin Rhomberg (6th Berlin Biennale, Berlin)
Josef Dabernig (Vienna), Jirí Kovanda (Prague), Boris Ondreicka
(Bratislava), Florian Pumhösl (Vienna), Katerina Šedá (Prague), Mladen
Stilinovic (Zagreb)

20:00 Dinner

Saturday, 25 April 2009

Third Session 10:30-13:00
Moderated by Charles Esche (Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven)

10:30 Insight Július Koller
Lucia Gregorová (Bratislava)
"The artist and his Central-European Destiny (Reading Koller in the
Socio-Political Context)"

11:00
Lukasz Ronduda (Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw)

11:45 Panel
Zuzana Bartošová (Institute of Art History, Slovak Academy of Science,
Bratislava), Nataša Ilic (WHW, Zagreb and 11th Istanbul Biennale),
Jirí Ševcík (Academy of Fine Arts, Prague) and Lukasz Ronduda

12:30-13:00 Discussion

13:00-14:30 Lunch Break

Fourth Session 14:30-17:00
Moderated by Charles Esche

14:30 Insight Július Koller
Katarína Müllerová (Slovak National Gallery, Bratislava)
"Reflections on Koller's work in foreign expert texts, taking into
account the terminological difficulties in translations"

15:00
Andrea Giunta (University of Texas, Austin)
"Conspiracy & Conceptualism in Latin American Art. Imageries of
Institutional Destabilization"

15:45 Panel
Lynne Cooke (DIA Art Foundation, New York/Centro Reina Sofia, Madrid),
Joanna Mytkowska (Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw), Georg Schöllhammer and
Andrea Giunta

16:30-17:00 Discussion

17:00 Coffee Break

17:30 Insight Július Koller
Vladimíra Büngerová (Bratislava)
"Koller in a team (Koller's cooperation with other authors, especially
in association with Nová vážnost; [New Seriousness])"

18:00 Artist's Panel
Moderated by Vít Havránek
Peter Bartoš (Bratislava), Peter Cepec (Bratislava), Lubomír Durcek
(Bratislava), Peter Rónai (Bratislava)

19:30 Dinner

Sunday, 26 April 09

10:30 Hans Ulrich Obrist: Július Koller Interview Marathon
Milan Adamciak, László Beke, Stano Filko, Klaus Groh, Jirí Kovanda,
Alex Mlynárcik, Jirí Ševcík, Mladen Stilinovic, Tomáš
Strauss, Timm Ulrichs, Jirí Valoch and others

14:00
Lunch/ Conference concludes

The programme is subject to change.


Shuttle Service from Vienna:
Between Friday 24 and Sunday 26 April 2009 a free daily bus service
Vienna - Bratislava - Vienna is available.
Information: www.sjk.sk; reservation: sjk at sjk.sk.


"Július Koller U.F.O.-naut?" is a co-production of The Július Koller
Society and The Slovak National Gallery

The Július Koller Society
Honorary President: Kvetoslava Fulierová
Founding Members: Georg Schöllhammer (chair), Mária Hlavajová, Aurel
Hrabušický, Nada Lovišková, Roman Ondák, Boris Ondreicka, Kathrin
Rhomberg
Researcher: Daniel Grún
Organization: Ina Mertens

Slovak National Gallery
Director General: Katarína Bajcurová
Researchers: Vladimíra Büngerová, Petra Hanáková, Aurel Hrabušický,
Katarína Müllerová
Organization: Communication centre SNG, Secretariat of Art Collections
SNG - Luba Maceková, Silvia Morávková

Made possible by: tranzit.at
With the support of Erste Bank Group, Vienna; tranzit.sk, Bratislava.