Jakob Jakobsen is a politically engaged visual artist\, educator and activist. He was part of the Copenhagen Free Universi ty from 2001 to 2007 (copenhagenfreeuniversity.dk)\, was co-founder of the trade union Young Artworkers (UKK) (ukk.dk) in 2002\, and the artist run te levision station tv-tv in 2004. He was professor at the Funen Art Academy f rom 2006 to 2012. Recent exhibitions include Billed Politik at Overgaden\, Institute of Contemporary Art in Copenhagen (billedpolitik.dk) and This Wor ld We Must Leave at Kunsthalle Aarhus in 2010 (thisworldwemustleave.dk) and Trauma 1 - 11: Stories about the Copenhagen Free University and the sur rounding society in the last ten years at the Museum of Contemporary A rt in Roskilde in 2011 (https://vimeo.com/29529903). Was part of And An d And / dOCUMENTA13(andandand.org) with the The Antiuniversity Res earch Project (antihistory.org) in 2012.
"I began to use the con cept of 'self-institutionalisation' during 1998 and 1999 in relation to the establishment with Henriette Heise of a project space\, Info Centre\, in E ast London. For us this was the start of a series of practical experiments with the construction and use of institutions. Info Centre" was a combined exhibition space\, archive and bookshop. The first 'info sheet' of the Info Centre stated: 'We are committed to an understanding of art practice that is not exclusively related to the making of artworks\, but also includes th e establishing of institutions for the experience and use of art and genera lly the making of institutions for human life."
Behind this point of
view lay an uneasiness with the then pervasive notion of 'institutional cri
tique'. What had began life in the 60s as an interesting new political prac
tice and what had reappeared in the late 80s as an ideological critique\, h
ad by the late 90s become ossified into a reflex towards\, rather than a pa
ssionate refusal of\, power. The various modes of institutional critique ha
d outlived any critical function and appeared increasingly blind to its soc
ial\, historical and political context. The moments of revolution and renew
al you find with early Conceptual Art and the Situationist International ha
d disappeared. The institutional critique had lost its force as art institu
tions adapted to these new forms of critique - as capital and its instituti
ons often do. Those practising institutional critique found themselves depe
ndent upon the very historical bourgeois art institutions they were purport
ing to critique\, and that were\, anyway\, in the process of disappearing i
n the course of the neoliberal restructuring of public institutions of the
90s. The critique was irredeemably complicit with art institutions as they
turned critique into new forms of spectacle. When we write 'art institution
' we refer to the socio-economic conglomerate of galleries\, foundations\,
museums\, institutes\, educational facilities\, magazines and councils that
constitute the basis of the dominating understanding of art in a society.
Institutional critique and other anti-institutional practices of the late 9
0s did not make these institutions more diverse and rich\, but instead ensu
red the consolidation and concentration of power within an ever-narrowing s
ystem."
Jakob Jakobsen\, "Self-Institutionalisation\," Art Monthly
July-August 2006
As part of the Distinguished Visiting Artist P rogram\, Jakobsen will discuss his ongoing research into the politics of pe dagogical systems and their intersection with the conditions of life. As pa rt of his visit\, he will be researching the Vancouver Free University that operated here between 1969 and 1974.
"The biopolitical moulding of b
odies integrated with a rather crude sorting mechanism determined by econom
ic powers and class is an increasingly transparent and evident worldwide pr
ocess. What was formerly a part of social reproduction has become an import
ant part of capitalist production and turning it into an expanding site of
capitalist accumulation. This is perhaps the main structural change since t
he institutional landscape of the 1960s. There is nothing surprising to thi
s\, but more and more people even within the middleclass are feeling the in
herent sorting mechanisms imposed by institutional production of today as t
hey enter the educational system. Franco Basaglia already pointed this out
in relation to the treatment of the mentally ill in Italy in the 1960s\, in
stating that there were two kinds of psychiatry\, one for the rich and one
for the poor. At the time he rejected any demands for reform\, his analysi
s led to a call for 'The Destruction of the Mental Hospital as a place for
institutionalisation'. Joseph Berke's analysis of the State sanctioned Univ
ersity leading to the establishment of the Antiuniversity had a similar rad
icality: "The schools and universities are dead. They must be destroyed and
rebuilt in our own terms. These sentiments reflect the growing belief of s
tudents and teachers all over Europe and the United States as they strip as
ide the academic pretensions from their 'institutions of higher learning' a
nd see them for what they are – rigid training schools for the operation an
d expansion of reactionary government\, business\, and military bureaucraci
es."
Jakob Jakobsen\, "The pedagogy of negating the institution -
Some reflections on the antihospital and the antiuniversity." 2012.
http://c openhagenfreeuniversity.dk/
LOCATION:Frederic Lasserre\, Room 102 GEO:49.267665;-123.255830 URL;VALUE=URI:https://ahva.ubc.ca/events/event/jakob-jakobsen-artists-talk/ ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://ahva.cms.arts.ubc.ca/wp-content/uploads/sites/37/2021/05/1183.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:America/Vancouver BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0700 TZOFFSETTO:-0800 DTSTART:20121104T090000 TZNAME:PST END:STANDARD END:VTIMEZONE END:VCALENDAR