Whose Universal? There is a fundamental paradox at the heart of modernity. A conference on humanist ideals and colonial reality
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Lecture within the framework of the conference Whose Universal? as part of the 12th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art on July 3, 2022 at Akademie der Künste, Hanseatenweg.
The presentation works through the aftermaths of the artistic happening by Anonymous Artists at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts 2020, in which a plaster cast, copy bust of Frederik V was submerged in Copenhagen harbour. Frederik V. founded the art academy the same year that he bought the Asiatic Company and the West Indian Guinean Company, directly tying the birth of the art institution in Denmark with the enslavement and suppression of people and extraction of resources in the colonies. The peaceful happening unleashed a massive amount of white rage, hate speech and a continuous media blitz. Echoing the work of bell hooks, the presentation asks within such an environment, how to fathom art education as a liberatory practice?
Organized by Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) in collaboration with the 12th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art