{"id":47228,"date":"2019-01-16T11:48:29","date_gmt":"2019-01-16T10:48:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/test.steinmuehle.de\/blog\/2019\/01\/16\/advanced-art-class-explored-kassels-art-school-scene\/"},"modified":"2026-06-18T15:41:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T13:41:08","slug":"advanced-art-class-explored-kassels-art-school-scene","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/blog\/2019\/01\/16\/advanced-art-class-explored-kassels-art-school-scene\/","title":{"rendered":"Advanced Art Class Explored Kassel’s Art School Scene"},"content":{"rendered":"

Graduates and master\u2019s students from the programs in Fine Arts, Art Education, Art History, Product Design, and Visual Communication at the Kassel Art Academy hosted their graduation exhibition in December. The exhibition took place in the documenta Hall. The artists\u2019 final projects gave the students of the Steinm\u00fchlen Art Elective Course, led by Ines Vielhaben, insight into the quality and diversity of contemporary art and design in Kassel. The report from the Steinm\u00fchlen Art Elective Course states: <\/p>\n

Armed with their cameras, the students first wandered through the exhibition, capturing the unusual, the surprising, and the thought-provoking from various perspectives. The students agreed: Almost everything about these exhibits is amazing! While they had previously been accustomed to traditional art forms such as drawing, painting, sculpture, film, and design at school, the arrangements in this exhibition seemed to blend all these genres together, employing cutting-edge technical methods and repeatedly subjecting art itself to ironic scrutiny. For example, graduates of the film classes painted over canvases and projected animated drawings of a running figure onto them. <\/p>\n

The Creepy Face Scanner<\/strong><\/p>\n

One graduate experimented with seemingly mundane materials from the hardware store and the kitchen to create painterly images that emerged more by chance. A work featuring a facial scanner\u2014which was given its own room\u2014was both unsettling and technically impressive. Here, visitors could interactively animate a virtual face\u2014similar to a video game\u2014by changing their own facial expressions and head position. The face scanner\u2019s learning ability was very unsettling for everyone and hinted at cutting-edge programming for artificial intelligence. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Changing Role of the Viewer <\/strong><\/p>\n

In an installation that included a real swimming pool, above which a projection screen displaying a video was mounted, the boundaries of art became completely blurred. In the videos, the artist staged herself as she explored existential questions about life and its meaning. Through this artistic work, the students realized that, in addition to the use of unusual materials, the role of the viewer in contemporary art had also changed significantly: By being invited to step into the 37-degree water\u2014swimwear and towels were provided\u2014the viewer became a participating subject, intended to experience a sense of \u201coneness\u201d with the water and with the other swimmers. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Female visitors as part of the performance <\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cEven though,\u201d the report states, \u201cnone of us accepted this invitation, our small group was to become part of a performance-like presentation.\u201d After an hour of exploring the art exhibition on their own, the students pinned their hopes on a guided tour by a professional art educator that would hopefully explain everything. But the guide, Julian, dashed those expectations right at the start of his tour. He literally slipped into the \u201crole of the educator\u201d by donning a costume, thereby making them\u2014and us\u2014part of a performance: he had photos of the exhibition printed on canvas, from which he had sewn together elements of clothing that exuded power. In this way, as the guide for this exhibition, he demonstrated his authority to us; at the same time, however, this attire reflected his ironic approach to the role of the educator, upon whose shoulders rested the burden of interpretive authority and the evaluation of the exhibition\u2019s exhibits. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Discussing Aspects of Art Studies <\/strong><\/p>\n

Apparently, the older visitors who had intended to join our guide were so unsettled by his slightly provocative manner that only our advanced art class continued to listen to his explanations. Even though Julian didn\u2019t explain the exhibits themselves, he was able to share some insightful background information with us about the creation of the masterclass final projects and the concept behind the exhibition. As the \u201cprivate tour\u201d came to a close, the students found it particularly exciting to ask him about various aspects of studying art and the art scene. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A visit like being thrown in at the deep end<\/strong><\/p>\n

All in all, this first-time visit to a contemporary art exhibition felt to the students as if they had been thrown into cold water\u2014not 37 degrees. However, the discussions with the guide and former Steinm\u00fchle student Maren Eidenm\u00fcller about studying at the Kassel Art Academy were so interesting for everyone that no one regretted spending the third Sunday of Advent in the documenta hall instead of enjoying cookies and candlelight. The conclusion: These days, everything seems worthy of being called art and possible within the visual arts. It\u2019s just a matter of how you sell it and how you make your case. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Graduates and master\u2019s students from the programs in Fine Arts, Art Education, Art History, Product Design, and Visual Communication at the Kassel Art Academy hosted their graduation exhibition in December. The exhibition took place in the documenta Hall. The artists\u2019 final projects gave the students of the Steinm\u00fchlen Art Elective Course, led by Ines Vielhaben, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":47229,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"give_campaign_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[94,85,97],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-art-music-theater","category-news","category-steinmuehle-on-the-road"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47228"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47228\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48938,"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47228\/revisions\/48938"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}