No rest

KP: So, part II ...

KP2: Part II.

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Again it is that first 'quiet' week.  Students are in their groups, professors are feeling things out and assistants are the ones you see most of the time. So far the first two set of lunch talks organized at the Hohensalzburg Fortress attracted a smaller group of students then before.( KP : Maybe , you should stop thinking about before.)

Up till now, Hanspeter Hofmann and cooperating artists in charge of the class organized in the Kiefer stone quarry, Doris Schälling and Jörg Enderle, introduced themselves to the students and showed us their method of working. Three artists seemed to share this interest in the universal, in the scientific and methodological approach to their art making creating works of art that can speak to the viewer on their own but one can't avoid asking the question what do the art works represent and mean. The interest to the history, references to theory texts and questions of what we can see or what we can't see laid at the core I would say of the works showed to us.

Off course as the artists work in different materials more talk about the approach to the material was discussed at the lunch talk today of Doris Schälling and Jörg Enderle.What and how they see the stone and how do they approach it seemed to start a little debate between the artists and a member of the audience, previous student of the older generation. She was part of the Academy for over 15 years and this year as the new professors are taking over the stone quarry she questioned their approach to the stone. Her views could be taken to represent that more traditional way of thinking about the working in the stone, possibly that romantic view of the sculptor working with his hands and releasing forms from the quiet material. New professors are in fact interested in opening more possibilities to the students of how they can work in this material concentrating more on the conceptual approaches where all is in a sense open and stone could be a starting point for a space intervention, sculpture or even a performance piece. This little debate just made evident the need of the Academy itself to start new things and keep with the on goings of the contemporary art scene.

After the lunch talk I found myself exploring part of the fortress that before I never saw. The top floors and the library have this amazing feeling of space that is quiet and meditative, something that maybe all of us who are here from the beginning seem to crave for. But, as they say, show must go on. Quickly and swiftly we again move from one place to the other. From the national Polish art, introduced to us yesterday evening by Sebastian Cichocki in his evening talk organized at the Kunstlerhous to another gallery opening planned to start soon by Mara Mattuschka. No rest for the wicked, students and artists at the Summer Academy.