EduArt – think Science and Arts Together

A calm time after the opening of the gallery ??? I thought so … and I had been proven wrong. Tidying up after a delightful gathering on the 11th of April had been the smallest thing. Dealing with the backlog of tasks that had piled up was also manageable – although such an endeavour always has a touch of Zeno’s paradox about it. As you work through one thing, new tasks inevitably arise, and so it seems like a never-ending task.

The regular opening hours each Saturday and Sunday require some change, i.e. during this time I am here, I commit myself to be here – even though it is at the moment quiet: the sunny days, the “unknown sign and invitation” and some hesitation to step in — finally it is a private home, even if it is made public. The good thing: So, as the stream of visitors is not really a stream, there are opportunities for in-depth conversation … oh, and just look at all the people who’ve come from near and far.

But not least: now the catalogue of the first is finalised — those works that are exhibited from the own collection, and those that are for sale .. and those that are somewhere in a secure safe.

One thing remains to be mentioned here, taking from the catalogue … I think it is important enough to be stated here too as it is in my understanding relevant for the arts scene and beyond in general:

One aspect deserves mention, emerging from the reading of Walter Benjamin’s work on The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction and Pierre Bourdieu’s reflection on Les règles de l’art : genèse et structure du champ littéraire/The Rules of Art: Genesis and Structure of the Literary Field. Both highlight — in different ways and equally agreeable, a specific aura that is characterising the original, or a genuine piece of art. While Benjamin highlights the religious aspect that stands at the origin, being the main reason behind such aura and loosing its magic effect not due to processes of secularisation but du to the fact that mechanical reproduction, going hand in hand with the (increasing) separation of the work of art from its specific context of its production,Pierre Bourdieu is much clearer and more radical. It is not secularisation but a process that we can summarise under the heading de-education and de-culturalisation, i.e. the process during which the specific value of education and culture is victim 

of the impact of the emergence of industrialists and businessmen of colossal fortunes … . Fostered by the Second Empire’s industrial expansion, they were self-made man, uncultured parvenus ready to make both the power of money and a vision of the world profoundly hostile to intellectual things triumph within the whole society.

I am proposing here that this admittedly tiny project of a gallery in a private home ca be seen as kind of vanishing point in a twofold sense: allowing the visitor to escape for a few moments — even a lengthy stay will not be more, considering the average life expectancy — the setting of utter madness of daily life; and it may allow to reinvent a new “aura”, one that understands space as customisable and open and (re-)shaped by public engagement.