On Monday, 2013 Salzburg International Summer Academy of Fine Arts starts with the courses directed by Leya Mira Brander, Felix Gmelin, Bassam El Baroni and Hubert Scheibl in Hohensalzburg Fortress and those directed by Shaina Anand/Ashok Sukumaran, Charlotte Cullinan, Milena Dragicevic, Thomas Kilpper, Robert Kuśmirowski, Lucy Sarneel and Paolo Woods in the Alte Saline Hallein. A warm welcome to all students and teachers and also to Ksenija Pantelic, who will fill this blog with a very personal take on the every day life of the 2013 Summer Academy from now on.

Next monday, when 2013 Salzburg International Summer Academy begins, Thomas Kilpper will start his course Floorcuts - interventions in wood or linoleum in the Alte Saline Hallein and in an empty building, scheduled for demolition, in the neighbourhood. In the meantime, if you happen to be in Berlin, you can still see Thomas Kilpper's exhibition resist! – oder let it be! at Nagel Draxler gallery until 31 August.
Photo: Simon Vogel

Professional, amateur or genius? This is the title of our lecture series to reflect on the relation between professional artists and amateurs, that has remained anchored in the history of the Summer Academy since its founding by Oskar Kokoschka in 1953.
Ralph Rugoff, director of the Hayward Gallery in London is going to talk about the Return of the Amateurs on 20 August. His exhibition Alternative Guide to the Universe is on view at the Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre, London right now, dealing exactly with our overall topic of the amateur.
Photo: Javier Téllez, Oedipus Marshal, 2006, video still. Courtesy the artist and Galerie Peter Kilchmann, Zurich.

Olga Chernysheva opens her first major solo exhibition Compossibilities in Germany in the Kunsthalle Erfurt on 4 July, 7 p.m. It is presented by V-A-C Foundation, a Moscow-based not-for-profit institution committed to the international presentation, production and development of Russian contemporary art in collaboration with Kunsthalle Erfurt. At the Summer Academy, Olga Chernysheva is directing the course Artist's territory at Hohensalzburg Fortress from 12 to 31 August. Additionally, she comments on Sebastian Cichocki's lecture on National Realism in 21st-century Poland on 13 August.

Tonight, the ORF will broadcast a documentation on the Salzburg International Summer Academy of Fine Arts by Peter Beringer. In the frame of kultur.montag at 11.45 p.m. (Only in German)

© photo: Erich Lessing