This course is a unique opportunity to connect with art through our strongest emotions: love and hate. Held in Berlin, Europe%E2%80%99s most artistic city with its galleries, interventions and museums on every corner, where every other person you meet is an artist, but which also opens a door to the largest and most ruthless action against modern art under the Nazi regime.Most of us will have felt lost when entering a museum or an art gallery. Grand emotions are expected of us, but sometimes, it is difficult to make a genuine connection with the visual object that faces us. The Berlin Art Connection course will break away that invisible wall, by providing tools to connect with artworks on a meaningful level. And what better way to relinquish apathy than by exploring the strongest emotions felt by people for artworks: love and hate? Frequently, they were two sides of the same coin.LOVE: The processes driven by a love of art can have many faces: it can be the drive of an artist for their work, the passion felt by an art collector for making a good financial investment, or the deep emotions felt by a curator for a work that is conventionally %E2%80%98ugly%E2%80%99 but phenomenally truthful, and thus, beautiful.HATE: We will examine different kinds of hatred against art: from the Nazis%E2%80%99 ferocious repression of modern art to individuals who decided to attack artworks, for instance by throwing acid onto a canvas. We will look at much more subtle %E2%80" but not less effective %E2%80" ways of censoring art, such as the strategy of withdrawing funds from all-too-progressive institutions. Finally, we will explore the problems surrounding art in public space. More often than not, artistic expressions in public spaces encounter a lot of resistance, even if you would never have expected it from the look of such artworks.

Course leader
Dr. Nausika El-Mecky

Target group
The course is aimed at any students interested in expanding their connection with art, and is as useful for persons with an advanced knowledge of art history as it is for those who consider themselves beginners in the field.

Course aim
The main course objective is to really get to grips with the fundamentals by delving into questions that lie at the heart of art such as: How does the art world work? Is art a necessity or a product of decadence? What is the marker by which something can be defined as art in the first place? What is the creative drive? How does the current infrastructure of the art world shape our experience of art works?It will be a voyage through the entire infrastructure that produces art, from inception, through exhibition and finally how reception shapes the production of new art. Guest speakers from curators to journalists will expand on the lectures whereas the course's field trips will take students to a wide range of places, such as an artist's studio, auction house and prestigious art academy.The highly interdisciplinary course will connect with a diverse range of fields, such as Philosophy, Aesthetics, Museum Studies and Arts Marketing & PR.

Credits info
6 ECTS GRADING Attendance and participation: 40 % Small assignment 1: 5% Small assignment 2: 10% Presentation: 20% Essay: 25%

Fee info
EUR 1350: Tuition EUR 250: Program fee

Freie Universit%C3%A4t Berlin
Address: FUBiS, Malteserstr. 74-100
Postal code: 12249
City: Berlin
Country: Germany
Website: http://www.fubis.org/
E-mail: fubis@fubis.org
Phone: +49-30-838 73472