Zurich Yearbook of the Arts

Series edited by Hans-Peter Schwarz Art and

­A rtistic
Research
Edited by Corina Caduff, Fiona Siegenthaler, Tan Wälchli

Zurich University of the Arts

Scheidegger & Spiess
colophon 4

Zurich Yearbook of the Arts 2009, Volume 6

Series Editor . . . . . . . Hans-Peter Schwarz

Art and Artistic Research

Editors . . . . . . . Corina Caduff & Fiona Siegenthaler & Tan Wälchli
Design . . . . . . . NORM, Zürich
Copyediting . . . . . . . Jonathan Fox
Translation . . . . . . . Steve Gander (Caduff, Langkilde & Winter, Mareis,
Omlin, Schenker, Scheuermann & Ofosu, Schwarz, Toro-Pérez),
Jonathan Fox & Tan Wälchli (Preface, Görlich & Wandeler),
Mark Kyburz (Editorial)
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Zurich University of the Arts

content 6 7 content

Page 10 Hans-Peter Schwarz . . . . . . . editorial Places, Projects, Universities

Page 12 Corina Caduff, Tan Wälchli . . . . . . . introduction
Page 170 Hans-Peter Schwarz . . . . . . . from undisciplined to

transdisciplinary (zurich)
Art and/as Research Page 180 Kirsten Langkilde, Stefan Winter . . . . . . . new morphologies (berlin)

Page 190 Julie Harboe . . . . . . . art-driven research (lucerne)

Page 24 Nina Malterud . . . . . . . can you make art without research? Page 200 Arne Scheuermann, Yeboaa Ofosu . . . . . . . on the situation of

Page 30 Germán Toro-Pérez . . . . . . . on the difference between artistic research (bern)
artistic research and artistic practice
Page 40 Johan Öberg . . . . . . . difference or différance?

Page 46 Marcel Cobussen . . . . . . . the intruder Page 212 . . . . . . . contributors
Page 56 Michael Schwab . . . . . . . first, the second Page 218 . . . . . . . selected bibliography

Disciplines Page 224 Meret Wandeler, Ulrich Görlich . . . . . . . the archive of the place

Page 72 Henk Borgdorff . . . . . . . artistic research as boundary work

Page 80 Huib Schippers, Liam Flenady . . . . . . . beaut y or brains?
Page 88 Claudia Mareis . . . . . . . design research
Page 98 Corina Caduff . . . . . . . literature and artistic research
Page 106 Mats Rosengren . . . . . . . art + research ≠ artistic research

Artists’ Views

Page 122 Efva Lilja . . . . . . . throw the stones really hard at

your target or rest in peace

Page 132 Sibylle Omlin . . . . . . . guile of innocence

Page 142 Claire MacDonald . . . . . . . in her acoustic footsteps

Page 154 Christoph Schenker . . . . . . . value judgments

christoph schenker 154
Value judgments
Christoph Schenker
More than with the intention of taking up the theme of “art and research”
as a writing collaborator, but rather to permit an art practitioner have
his say, I turned to the artist A.S. We had an intensive conversation and
I reproduce a good part of his propositions here. They are declarations
and assertions, which he almost exclusively expressed in the form of
statements and value judgments. What I had originally found difficult
became clear to me towards the end of the transcription. The artist is
someone who constantly makes decisions during the work process. I
have bundled his statements into eight sections according to subject
and quoted the references in footnotes with guidance from the artist.
155 value judgments
*
• It is right, as Buren says, that “it paints.”1
• It is right, as Lehnerer writes, that in my work I, the “artist’s con-
sciousness,” am only one factor among others.2
• It is right that in their individualism and autonomy the material,
the devices, and the machines that I use to create my work go beyond
what I know, what I can, and what I want.
• It is right that the success of a work depends on to what extent I
allow these instruments to develop their own life.
• It makes sense to say that competences are embodied in the con-
crete, material conditions of artistic work that are no different than in
scientific experimental arrangements where, according to Rheinberger,
knowledge takes the shape of instruments, devices, and equipment.3
• It is right, as Gertrude Stein writes, that things we know flow
down our arm and that before we write them we do not really know that
we know them.4
• It is right, as Newman states, that exhaustive research in the field
of art requires the most modern, highly developed technology—just
like research in other fields.5
• It is right that as an artist I can certainly create favorable conditions
for the success of a work, but that the actual success of a work cannot be
predetermined.
• It is right, as Lyotard says, that “it happens.”6
• It is right, as Rheinberger says, that experimental systems are
extremely tricky set-ups for the production of unanticipatable occur-
rences.7
1 Daniel Buren, “It Rains, It Snows, It Paints,” Arts Magazine 44, no. 6
(April 1970), p. 43.
2 Thomas Lehnerer, Methode der Kunst (Würzburg, 1994), p. 105
[trans. S.G.].
3 Hans-Jörg Rheinberger, “On the Art of Exploring the Unknown,”
in Say It Isn’t So: Art Trains Its Sights on the Natural Sciences, ed. Peter Friese, Guido
Boulboulle, and Susanne Witzgall (Heidelberg, 2007), pp. 82–90.
4 Gertrude Stein, Four in America (New Haven, 1947), p. xi.
5 Barnett Newman, “Interview with Thomas Hart Benton” [1938], in
Selected Writings and Interviews (New York, 1990), pp. 14–18.
6 Jean-François Lyotard, “The Sublime and the Avant-Garde,” Art
Forum 22, no. 8 (1982), pp. 36–43.
7 Rheinberger, “On the Art of Exploring” (see note 3).
christoph schenker 156
**
• It is right to say that my studio is like a scientific laboratory, which
represents a sometimes more and sometimes less complex material en-
vironment for experimental arrangements.
• It is right: to the same degree it is also the “intellectual catchment
area”—an expression from Gerhard Merz, if I’m not mistaken—that
forms the basis of my work.
• And it is right to say that in artistic work making and thinking
mutually determine one another, interrelate, and work together.
• It is wrong to think that artistic work has no concept simply be-
cause it is not charged with theory or because it does not explicitly dem-
onstrate its intellectual aspects.
• It is right, as Musil says, that the writer, the artist, applies the same
kind and capacity of rationality and does not make less use of the intel-
lect than the scientist.8
• It is right, as Paul Valéry does, to summarize this thinking as
literature “behind the scenes of production,” whether it is put down on
paper or not.9
• It is right that the majority of my artistic work consists of a dia-
logue with myself, a dialogue about the work in the process of creation,
the already created, and the not yet created.
• It is right that thinking in art demonstrates various forms and a
different character, and that the literature of artistic production has
different functions.
• It makes sense to distinguish between the artist’s knowledge10
and art knowledge,11 between the artists’ theories12 and art theory, and
between philosophy and theory.13
8 Robert Musil, “Sketch of What the Writer Knows” [1918], in Precision
and Soul: Essays and Addresses (Chicago, 1994), pp. 61–65.
9 Paul Valéry, “About Corot” [1932], in Collected Works, vol. 12, Degas
Manet Marisot (Princeton, 1989), pp. 134–54: 135.
10 Tom Holert, Künstlerwissen: Studien zur Semantik künstlerischer
Kompetenz im Frankreich des 18. und frühen 19. Jahrhunderts (Munich, 1997).
11 Gernot Böhme, “Kunst als Wissensform” [1980], in Für eine ökolo-
gische Naturästhetik (Frankfurt am Main, 1989), pp. 141–65.
12 Michael Lingner, “Reflections on/as Artists’ Theories,” in Bekannt-
machungen: 20 Jahre Studiengang Bildende Kunst der Hochschule für Gestaltung und
Kunst Zürich, ed. Studienbereich Bildende Kunst and Kunsthalle Zürich (Zurich,
2006), pp. 231–38.
15 7 value judgments
• It is wrong that art and intellectuality—according to the terribly
simplifying view—are two separate spheres.
• It is true that artists have to continually struggle for the status of
men of thought and to fight against the accusation of inferior thinking
—as Newman has already said.14
• It is wrong to believe—the whole history of art speaks against it
—that it is university research—embraced by the term theory—that
brings thinking into art.
• It is right, as Newman said, that art itself is an expression of
thought and is itself a realm of thought.15
***
• It is wrong to think that it is only the university context that
forms the basis and framework for artistic research.
• But it is right to distinguish between artistic research at art uni-
versities and that outside universities.
• It is right to say that one of the differences between university and
non-university artistic research is how the research process and its re-
sults are reflected upon and legitimized.
• But it is wrong to assume that the forms of division of work and
collaboration would not be more efficient outside the university con-
text.
• It is certainly right to hope that the contribution of universities to
artistic research consists of accelerating the conceptual development of
art and that, through this, the preferences of market-orientated research
and development are corrected.
• It is right to say that there is no significant difference between
artistic work and artistic research.
• This is right if we want to understand art as exclusively successful
art.
• For it is right to ask what makes art into research, i.e., what makes
good art and what makes great art with far-reaching consequences.
13 See Jean-François Lyotard, interview by Bernard Blistène, “A Con-
versation with Jean-François Lyotard,” Flash Art 121 (March 1985), pp. 32–39.
14 Barnett Newman, “The Painting of Tamayo and Gottlieb” [1945], in
Selected Writings and Interviews (see note 5), pp. 71–77.
15 Barnett Newman, “On Modern Art: Inquiry and Confirmation”
[1944], in Selected Writings and Interviews (see note 5), pp. 66–71.
christoph schenker 158
• In the context of research it is right to make a distinction in art
between “correct” and, as Wittgenstein said, “tremendous things”16 ;
or, as Hirschhorn says, between “quality” and “energy”17 —partly com-
parable to the distinction between “normal” and “extraordinary” science,
pointed out by Kuhn.18
• It is right that an enormous requirement is thereby demanded of
us artists.
• It is not wrong to say that art as an activity can also be art research,
similar to science studies and philosophy of science, as an investigation
and interpretation of a specific style of thinking and its contexts; but it
would be wrong to say that it is exclusively art research.
• It is therefore right to make a distinction between artistic research
and art research.
• In artistic research it is right if we mainly orient ourselves on art
and artists outside of universities.
****
• It is wrong to believe that there is something extra added on to art
practice, that it is advanced investigation or subsequent reflection that
makes art into research.
• It is wrong to think that it is proximity to science or a connection
with theory—based on it, derived from it, or saturated by it, referring
to or including it—that makes art into research.
• But it is right, as Merz says, that the artist must also be aware of
what is known outside art.19
• It is utterly wrong to think that we artists would not carry out
studies and subject our work to a thorough critique, and that we would
not absorb everything that is necessary for our work, and furthermore
also not think about the consequences that the work can have in various
contexts of art and life.
16 Ludwig Wittgenstein, “Lecture on Aesthetics” [1938], in Lectures
and Conversations on Aesthetics, Psychology and Religious Belief, ed. Cyril Barrett
(Oxford, 1966), pp. 1–40.
17 Thomas Hirschhorn, during a seminar with art students at the Zür-
cher Hochschule der Künste (ZHdK), December 3, 2008 [trans. S.G.].
18 Thomas S. Kuhn, “Logic of Discovery or Psychology of Research,”
in Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge, ed. I. Lakatos and A. Musgrave (London,
1970), pp. 1–23.
19 Gerhard Merz, “Interview,” in Binationale: Deutsche und amerikani-
sche Kunst der späten 80er Jahre, ed. Jürgen Harten, et al. (Cologne, 1988), pp. 226–28.
159 value judgments
• It is right that understanding art as research does not require an-
other type of artistic practice but a different perspective—which, how-
ever, is not new—towards this practice.
• It is right that it is this change of perspective that draws attention
to the work process and its preconditions and effects, and which has the
consequence that artistic work is now micrologically observed, analyzed,
and evaluated, which enables artistic practice to be understood as a
process of research.
• It is right to ask precisely what status the artifact has in this context.
• It would be wrong to regard the artifact only as a work, as the
result or product of a process, or as a precipitate or representation of
experience and knowledge.
• It is right and important to understand the artifact as a tool, as an
instrument for the production and experience of insight and intensity.
• It is right, as Newman writes, that the goal is not the voluptuous
quality in the tools but rather what they do.20
• And it is right, as Whitehead says—although today we would
express ourselves differently—that we do not find ourselves on a high-
er level of imagination because our imaginations have become finer, but
rather because we have better instruments.21
*****
• It is right that as an artist I do not primarily allow myself to be
guided by an interest in products—be they works or theories.
• It is right, as Nauman says, that the concept of art is more attached
to the activity than the product, and that the product is of no impor-
tance for the self-awareness of the artist.22
• It is right, as Rheinberger said in conversation, that science—and,
we should add, art as well—is not to be understood from the structure
of its products but from the practices of its making and production.23
20 Barnett Newman, “The Plasmic Image” [1945], in Selected Writings
and Interviews (see note 5), pp. 138–55.
21 Alfred North Whitehead, Science and the Modern World (New York
1970 [1925]), p. 114.
22 Bruce Nauman, interviewed by Ian Wallace and Russell Keziere,
“Bruce Nauman Interviewed” [October 9, 1978], Vanguard 8, no. 1 (February 1979),
pp. 15–18.
23 Hans-Jörg Rheinberger, at a research seminar at the Institute for
Contemporary Arts Research at the Zürcher Hochschule der Künste on January 19,
2007.
christoph schenker 160
• For it is true that as an artist I am essentially interested in the de-
velopment of material structures, the development of those moments
that make it possible for unpredictable occurrences to happen, that
show the previously unseen, and lend a voice to the speechless.
• It is right, to say once more with Rheinberger, that it is the produc-
tion of epistemic—and aesthetic—things, that it is the making available
of phenomena, that it is this space of creation that constitutes the core
of scientific experimentation as well as artistic exploration.24
• It is right when Wittgenstein inquires how a work is made, when
he wants to understand why the artist has done something in a certain
way.25
• And it is right, as Valéry says, that every artwork desires to be
answered, that the primary cause of any work is the wish to be spoken
about.26
******
• It is not wrong, when inquiring into the singular characteristics
of research in art, to look for differences between artistic research, sci-
entific research, and philosophical work, as well as for points of com-
parison and similarities.
• It is wrong to think that scientific paradigms would thereby be
adopted or that a scientific concept of research would be transferred to
art.
• It is right, as Busch writes, that research and knowledge should
not be hastily abridged and equated with scientific methods.27
• It is right that it is often not easy to separate what belongs inalien-
ably to the internal conditions and precepts of the research process, and
what is external to research.
• It is right that, in relation to the pragmatics of research, the two
systems, of “art” and of “science,” are not essentially different.
• It is wrong to think that the art world does not also have a dif-
ferentiated peer review system that serves to define the internal and
24 Ibid.
25 Wittgenstein, “Lecture on Aesthetics” (see note 16).
26 Valéry, “About Corot” (see note 9).
27 Kathrin Busch, “Artistic Research and the Poetics of Knowledge,” in
A Portrait of the Artist as a Researcher: The Academy and the Bologna Process, ed. idem
and Dieter Lesage, AS Mediatijdschrift, no. 179 (2007), pp. 36–45.
161 value judgments
external framework conditions of “research,” to check “research find-
ings” in accordance with their axioms and precepts, and to control access
to the “research community.”
• It is right that a great many criteria important to the sciences are
also important to the art system: the paradigm, the state-of-the-art, a
diversity of skills, the relevancy of the problems, the criterion for rele-
vance, the new, verifiability, and so forth.
• It would be wrong to say that the art world and the art market have
been left behind in this respect, and that science and the universities
should therefore be given preference.
• It is right that the decision about norms and power structures in
one field or another is tantamount to a decision in favor of a belief system.
*******
• It is right that basically we artists do not have at our disposal a
number of standardized methods that are accepted by everyone and
generally practiced and which are comparable in function and status
with methods in the system of science.
• And it would be wrong to cite the experiment—which has its be-
ginnings in physics—for the specific characterization of artistic research.28
• It is right that in the traditional arts, such as painting, tools are
used which are applied exclusively in the field of art and which here also
constitute the specific instruments of research.
• But it is right as well that art is also increasingly using means that
are not only also used in other contexts of life but are part of the research
equipment of the sciences too.
• It is not wrong to say with Musil that the realm of values and
valuations, the realm of ethical and aesthetic relationships, constitutes
the core area of art.29
• But it is wrong to say that this area is the exclusive preserve of art,
and it is right that there is hardly a field of knowledge with which art is
not also concerned.
28 Gunhild Berg, “Zur Konjunktur des Begriffs ‘Experiment’ in den
Natur-, Sozial- und Geisteswissenschaften,” in Wissenschaftsgeschichte als Begriffs-
geschichte: Terminologische Umbrüche im Entstehungsprozess der modernen Wissen-
schaften, ed. Michael Eggers and Matthias Rothe (Bielefeld, 2009), pp. 51–82.
29 Musil, “Sketch of What the Writer Knows” (see note 8).
christoph schenker 162
• It is right to conclude that it is neither methods nor specific instru-
ments, nor that it is a particular field of knowledge that characterizes
artistic research as a particular type of research.
• It is right that research in art, as thought, creation, and action,
does not only orient itself on the criterion of truth but also on the cri-
teria of justice and happiness, correctness and efficiency.
• It is right that the knowledge of art, beyond epistemic competence,
as Lyotard says, also includes “‘good’ performances” such as know-
how, knowing how to live, knowing how to speak, and knowing how
to listen.30
• It is right that this knowledge, again in Lyotard’s words, is to be
understood as a tightly woven web of various competencies and that art
is the form and producer of a condensed knowledge.31
• It is right to say that it is this form of knowledge production—as
it is customarily called today—which basically distinguishes artistic
work from scientific research.
• It is right: art of this type is not an expository project like science
and theory, it is principally a non-expository, an explorative, problem-
atizing project.
• But it would be false to claim that this form of knowledge produc-
tion was only inherent in art.
********
• It is right that philosophy, as Hampe states, can be understood as
a specific form of activity, as a practice of conceptual experimentation.32
• It is right that philosophical activity is thus a creation and testing
of other, new abilities to distinguish, because, as Ros says, in the under-
standing of pragmatism terms are habits of distinction.33
• It is right that, as Hampe puts it, concepts can be rooted in percep-
30 Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on
Knowledge (Minneapolis, 1984 [1979]), pp. 18, 21.
31 Ibid., pp. 20, 21.
32 Michael Hampe, Denken, Dichten, Machen und Handeln: Anmer-
kungen zum Verhältnis von Philosophie, Wissenschaft und Technik (2004), http://
www.phil.ethz.ch/fileadmin/phil/files/Antrittsvorlesung_Hampe.pdf (accessed
7/10/2009).
33 Arno Ros, Was ist Philosophie? (1997), http://www.uni-magdeburg.
de/iphi/ar/content/t97a.htm (accessed 7/10/2009).
163 value judgments
tion and action without them also having to be shaped in verbal lan-
guage.34
• It is right that it is the experimentation with concepts—whether
in the field of the senses or the intellect—that is the specific form of
activity which art shares with philosophy.
• It is right to say that this activity is not research in a dogmatic,
scientific sense, even though it is explorative experimentation and part
of a long tradition of artistic problems.
• From a conservative point of view it is thus not wrong to say that,
strictly speaking, artistic research does not exist, comparable to philoso-
phy, which, according to Hampe, should also not be understood as re-
search.35
• It is right that in the context of art the term “research” in everyday
use is more fruitful: as an investigation of a new field, as a development
of a new perspective, and as an effort to want to understand something.
• It is right, as Filliou says, that research is not the prerogative of the
knowledgeable but, on the contrary, the domain of the unknowledge-
able, and that each time we direct our attention to a subject we do not
know, we carry out research.36
34 Hampe, Denken, Dichten, Machen und Handeln (see note 32).
35 Ibid.
36 Robert Filliou, Sans titre – Sans tête, video, color, sound, 17 min., 1983.