"What kind of expertise do I have: as a young artist, without a patron, without a king that supports my work, without a castle, without a clear technique, without rules, within the contemporary art field that has no certain mastery? What kind of mastery do I possess?"

 

These were the starting questions of my artistic research in 2017. Notions like tradition, heritage and legacy kept me busy, as well as their relationship to the art which is being created nowadays. How do these notions are reflected in contemporary art? How do they shape the way people think, speak and interact with art? What is the political agenda behind them? Why do institutions insist on playing classics?

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The artistic labs “On the question of Masterpieces” served as a place for artists from different disciplines (sculpture, photography, painting, theatre, dance, film, research, composition, music and poetry) to meet, discuss, exercise and learn from one another. Facilitated with practical and discursive activities, my aim in these labs was to create a space of reflection, questioning, reclaim and experimentation with the subjective understanding of what are the values upon which the term "Masterpiece" is being granted.

 

Masteries were swapped, redefined and critically reflected. Texts were discussed (with “No more masterpieces”/Antonin Artaud as a starting point) and examples of artistic reactions to the topic were both revisited (as works by Andrea Fraser, or the "The Pinky Show") and developed over the course of the lab. An exhibition of artworks, proposals, documentation and details of the research was opened to the public at the end.

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The research was supported by the Breakfast Club Collective (Berlin), as well as DOCK 11 (Berlin) and the Literature Museum Schloß Rheinsberg (Rheinsberg).