ACT − Program in Art, Culture, Technology. Artistic research and transdisciplinary cooperation at MIT

from the series of lectures “Conceptual Paradise. Artistic Practice in the Age of the Social Web”

The artistic practice has undergone significant changes in the last hundred years. Both the continual expansion of artistic techniques and their interconnection with supposedly non- artistic fields, imply a permanent readjustment of our understanding of art. This phenomenon calls for the development of new approaches in the workup, the reception, the teaching and the archiving of art.

Ute Meta Bauer will talk about the challenges posed by the dealings with art in the spheres of teaching and research at MIT. At the same time insights in an educational system are offered, in which artistic formation is partly embedded in (technical) universities, whereas in Europe the institutional differentiation between scientific and artistic institutions of higher education is maintained.

Ute Meta Bauer is director of the Visual Arts Program and professor in the Faculty of Architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, USA. Previously she was professor at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and guest professor at several European art academies, among them ERSEP Tourcoing/France, Ecole des Beaux Arts Bordeaux/France, ESAV Genève/Switzerland and Universitaet der Kuenste Berlin. After having studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Hamburg she has been working as a curator for exhibitions and presentations on contemporary art, film and video with a focus on transdisciplinary formats. She has served as director for various art institutions as well as an advisor for a number of high-profile cultural boards.

As artistic director at Kuenstlerhaus Stuttgart e.V. from 1990 to 1994, she gained international visibility for her exhibitions and conferences, among them ‘A new spirit in curating?’ (1992) and ‘Radical Chic’ (1993). 1994 she was a participant of the first international symposium of the Kunstraum of the University of Lueneburg in the context of the opening project of this space, ‘Services’, curated by Andrea Fraser and Helmut Draxler. From 2002 to 2005 she was director of the Office for Contemporary Art Norway in Oslo. She served as the commissioner for the Scandinavian Pavilion of La Biennale di Venezia in 2003, and as commissioner for the Norwegian contribution for the Bienal de S_o Paulo in 2004. Ute Meta Bauer furthermore co-curated documenta 11, being part of the team of artistic director Okwui Enwezor. From 2003 to 2004, she was the artistic director of the 3rd Berlin biennial for contemporary art. META 1 - 4 (Stuttgart) , case 1-2 (Barcelona, Porto) and Verksted #1-6 (Oslo) are art journals, founded and edited by her.

Ute Meta Bauer was member of the advisory committee of the 8th Triennial of Yokohama, Japan (2008), of the board of IKT, the International Association of Curators (1998 - 2002) and of the advisory committee of Generali Foundation, Vienna (1995 to 1997). Currently she is head of the advisory committee for visual art of the Goethe-Institutes and member of the advisory committee of the Foundation Bauhaus Dessau.