Press Release, May 2021
School of Re-Membering “The Empty Pedestal”
A talk with Dina El Kaisy Friemuth & Melanie Kitti
NOTE: This event will be in English.
“Let the museums remain empty and the pedestals bare. Let nothing be installed upon them. It is necessary to leave room for utopia regardless of whether it ever arrives. It is necessary to make room for living bodies. Less metal and more voice, less stone and more flesh.” - Paul B. Preciado (ArtForum, 2020).
In the final talk, we want to direct the gaze towards the empty piedestal and raise the question of what should we place there, now that it is bare? Or could it be used as a stage for suppressed voices and stories of resistance? Or if it should be left as it is? It raises questions of how we want to shape our future places of art education, creation and distribution.
During Afgang 2021 (The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Art's MFA Graduation Show), School of Re-Membering and Kunsthal Charlottenborg will present three talks to unfold and support relevant criticism based on the bust happening that took place in the fall of 2020 in Copenhagen.
The three talks are:
The White Sculpture (5/5)
The Folded Layers (12/5)
The Empty Pedestal (19/5)
Talk: Wednesday the 19th of May, 7-8pm. Facebook event.
Zoom-link: The link will be announced via the Facebook event.
School of Re-Membering is a network in flux consisting of current and former students at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, who want to create educational spaces that recognize and work with the colonial past of the institution. We are critical of the narratives of Eurocentric art history and demand nuances and space for more inclusive and intersectional narratives and want to address the lack of representation among both students and staff at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts.