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• 20th and 21st February 2009
  Workshop on Jorge de Oteiza's Radical Thought

Jorge Oteiza’s Radical Thought

A Two-Day Workshop on Jorge Oteiza’s Radical Thought

Centre for Modern Thought and Hispanic Studies
University of Aberdeen
20th and 21st February 2009
Old Senate Room

“Art does not transform anything, it does not change the world, it does not change reality. What really transforms the artist, whilst advancing, transforming and completing his modes of expression, is himself. And it is this man, transformed by art, who can attempt to transform reality through life.”
Jorge Oteiza

“I do not wish to blemish my record as a loser with a shitty victory.”
Jorge Oteiza

“Mieux vaut un désastre qu’un désêtre.”
Alain Badiou

Jorge Oteiza (1908–2003) is one of the key artists of the 20th century. His theoretical writings explore the connections between art and life - more specifically the spiritual dimension of art and the political role of the artist. A few years before the publication of his most influential text Quousque tandem…! (1963) Oteiza had already decided to cease creating rather than to repeatedly reproduce what he considered to be the formal conclusion of his artistic experimentation, the work which had won him the top prize for sculpture in the 1957 Sao Paolo Biennial. At a time when Guggenheim museums are mushrooming everywhere, art seems to amount to little more than a commodity of the tourist industries of well-developed countries and regions. Meanwhile, the aura of great works is being stolen, or masked and even forgotten? Did art ever have any impact on society? Clearly visualizing this end of art, Jorge Oteiza sculpted, thought, and wrote, about all these contemporary concerns.

Oteiza’s theoretical writings deal with the possibility or impossibility of escaping capitalism. The sculptor, always worried about the relationship between man and space, defined four different men, all on the verge of being destroyed due to the capitalist machine: the “Prehistoric man,” the “Neolithic man,” the “Religious man” and, finally, the “Man of hope.” Man, space, and void -or “desocupación”- are key elements in his writings, dialoguing with the philosophical work of Martin Heidegger, among others. This relationship is yet to be explored fully in the wake of a new understanding of art, politics, and theory.

Since 1996 the Oteiza Foundation has been showing the artist’s work at the Oteiza Museum [www.museooteiza.org], and republishing his theoretical and creative writings. A series of academic publications and events have marked the 2008 centenary of Oteiza’s birth. This workshop organised jointly by Hispanic Studies, the Centre for Modern Thought and Visual Culture will discuss Oteiza's theoretical writings from a multidisciplinary perspective (such fields as Anthropology, Cultural Studies, Philosophy, Sociology and Visual Culture), framed by the wider theoretical debates on art, and engagement, lost causes and grand narratives, which give rise to questions concerning, for example:

• The end of art
• The commodification of art
• Laboratory vs museum
• Space and art
• The artist as cultural terrorist
• Failure in art
• The spiritual dimension of art
• Art as social therapy
• Oteiza and Heidegger
• Oteiza and Beuys

Information on guest speakers

Images from the event

Programme

Click here to download the programme as a Word document.

Please click on title to download position paper.

Friday 20th February

• 1.45 pm Oteiza Today: Research Questions
• 2-3 pm Joseba Zulaika, "Subject and Decision in Oteiza" (Centre for Basque Studies, University of Nevada Reno)
  Respondent: James Leach (Anthropology, Aberdeen)
• 3-4 pm Elixabete Ansa, "The Origin of the Work of Art through Jorge Oteiza's Writings" (Hispanic Studies, Indiana University)
  Respondent: Joseba Zulaika
• 4-4.30 pm Coffee break
• 4.30-5 pm Documentary "Oteiza tiembla" ["Oteiza shivers"] directed by Félix Maraña and Nuria Ruiz Cabestany (2005)

Saturday 21st February

• 10-11 am Teresa Vilarós, "Building. Dwelling, Digging: Oteiza's Dark Light (via Gaudí and Dalí)" (Hispanic Studies and Centre for Modern Thought)
  Respondent: Andrew Ginger (Spanish, University of Stirling)
• 11-1 pm Beth Lord, "Spaces of Life and Death: the Museum and the Laboratory" (Philosophy, University of Dundee); Nerea Arruti, "The Scale of Failure: Failure and Scale in Oteiza" (Hispanic Studies, Aberdeen); Juan Arana (Museo Oteiza), "Quixote, Unamuno, Loyola and Oteiza: Four Faces of Voluntarism"
  Respondent: Janet Stewart (German and Visual Culture, Aberdeen)
• 1-2 pm Lunch
• 2-3 pm Arturo Leyte, "Can a Statue be a Dwelling? Artistic Space, Political Space and Religious Space" (University of Vigo, Spain)
  Respondent: Alberto Moreiras (Centre for Modern Thought and Hispanic Studies, Aberdeen)
• 3-3.30 pm Coffee break
• 3.30-4.30 pm Alberto Moreiras: "Harassed Unrest. Notes on Heidegger's 'Building Dwelling Thinking' "
  Nick Nesbitt's Response (French and Centre for Modern Thought, Aberdeen)
• 4.30-5.30 pm MLitt in Visual Culture: Art Matters, discussion led by Rachele Ceccarelli (Visual Culture, Aberdeen)

The seminar discussion will be based on readings of Oteiza's Selected Writings. Each participant will offer a twenty-minute position paper, to be followed by a discussion.

• A brief portrait of the artist by Txomin Badiola.
• Images of Oteiza at work.
• Video on the Guggenheim Bilbao Museum exhibition: Myth and Modernism
• The Guardian obituary

Workshop organisers:

• Elixabete Ansa (Hispanic Studies, Indiana University)
• Nerea Arruti (Hispanic Studies, University of Aberdeen)

Contact nerea.arruti@abdn.ac.uk for further information

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