close

A*DESK has been offering since 2002 contents about criticism and contemporary art. A*DESK has become consolidated thanks to all those who have believed in the project, all those who have followed us, debating, participating and collaborating. Many people have collaborated with A*DESK, and continue to do so. Their efforts, knowledge and belief in the project are what make it grow internationally. At A*DESK we have also generated work for over one hundred professionals in culture, from small collaborations with reviews and classes, to more prolonged and intense collaborations.

At A*DESK we believe in the need for free and universal access to culture and knowledge. We want to carry on being independent, remaining open to more ideas and opinions. If you believe in A*DESK, we need your backing to be able to continue. You can now participate in the project by supporting it. You can choose how much you want to contribute to the project.

You can decide how much you want to bring to the project.

Spotlight

25 January 2018

Benjamin and Brecht. Friendships and Extreme Thoughts

They were friends. Yet they had their differences. They first met in 1924 and for ten years they would meet up, play chess and share projects, holidays and exiles. They couldn’t have been more dissimilar however, at the same time, they were allies and had many shared affinities. The Benjamin und Brecht. Denken in Extremen exhibition has resulted from exhaustive research in the archives of both authors, on deposit at the Akademie der Künste, and includes comments by contemporary authors such as Theodor W. Adorno, Ernst Bloch, Ruth Berlau and Hannah Arendt.

Through rigorous documentation and an impeccable mise en scène, the show at the Akademie der Künste reveals the more human side of both writers and the essence of their thinking.

Structured in sixteen sections that act as tags, it allows for statements by B&B on subjects ranging from chess, the radio, crisis and criticism, to Fascism, Kafka and Marx, among others, that enable us to draw parallelisms with the present.

Together, they planned to write a detective story, although Benjamin liked to delve into the nineteenth century, while Brecht preferred the analytical approach of the Arthur Conan Doyle tales. The novel was never completed, but the reflections that accompanied its process deserve being revisited here and now:

‘In times of terror, when everyone is something of a conspirator, everyone will be in a situation where he has to play detective.’ Benjamin

‘This process of making observations, drawing conclusions from them, and thereby coming to decisions, provides us with all sorts of satisfaction, for the simple reason that everyday life seldom permits our thought processes to proceed so effectively, and usually many obstacles intervene between observation and conclusion as well as between conclusion and decision. In most cases we are simply not in a position to utilise our observations; whether we make observations or not has no influence on the course of our relationships. We are neither masters of our conclusions, nor masters of our decisions.’ Brecht

 

 

 

Montse Badia has never liked standing still, so she has always thought about travelling, entering into relation with other contexts, distancing herself, to be able to think more clearly about the world. The critique of art and curating have been a way of putting into practice her conviction about the need for critical thought, for idiosyncrasies and individual stances. How, if not, can we question the standardisation to which we are being subjected?
www.montsebadia.net

Media Partners:

close
close
"A desk is a dangerous place from which to watch the world" (John Le Carré)