Theory: Art & Mythology (gLV) 

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Nummer und TypBFA-BFA-Th.23H.009 / Moduldurchführung
ModulTheorie 
VeranstalterDepartement Fine Arts
LeitungAnke Kempkes
Zeit
Anzahl Teilnehmendemaximal 11
ECTS3 Credits
VoraussetzungenCourse language: English
ZielgruppenBA Fine Arts students
Open for exchange-students

Interested BA students of other study programmes can register from 28 August - 08 September 2023 by ClickEnroll; https://intern.zhdk.ch/?ClickEnroll

Interested MA students write an email between 28 August - 11 September 2023 2023 to: studium.dfa@zhdk.ch
We will inform you by e-mail in CW 39 whether participation is possible.
Applications before 28 August 2023 will not be accepted.

No registrations through our lecturers will be accepted.
Lernziele / Kompetenzen
  • Knowledge on art history, art theory, 20th- / 21st century with a focus on mythology
InhaltePolitical agendas – both official and revolutionary –as well as gender related themes and same-sex desires were endorsed and continually reinterpreted in European art before the 20th century through the repertoire of ancient myths passed on since classical antiquity. Mythology offered an arena of allegorical or “innuendo” imagery that became a containment for desires considered amoral and deviant, and could only be safely romanticized in a faraway past in the form of a ‘classical drag’.

We will primarily look at mythological narratives that were particularly invested from early on with proto-feminist, rebellious, psychological and “innuendo” motives, such as Narcissus, Daphne, Ganymed, Tiresias, Venus and Cupid, Medusa, Orpheus, Prometheus, Icarus’ Fall, Leda and the Swan, and Pandora’s Box, and also biblical narratives such as the martyrdom of St. Sebastian, or Shakespearian motives like Ophelia, Caliban or Ariel, and the modern myth of Gradiva, ‘the woman who walks’, by Wilhelm Jensen.
The exceptional female Italian Baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi thematized in her paintings based on the motif of ‘Judith slaying Holofernes’ her own story of having been raped by her father’s studio assistant. She is now regarded as one of the most progressive painters of her generation.
The myth of Narcissus, looking with self-love at his mirrored image, has long been associated with vanity, aestheticism, and decadence. While generating rich representations of creative masculinity – in fact becoming the very allegory of creativity – the Narcissus motif retained mostly negative connotations as allegedly “vain, effeminate, immature, antisocial, and apolitical" – as mirrored in Oscar Wilde’s provocative tale of the moral downfall in “Dorian Gray”. Instead, the Narcissus narrative has simultaneously served to destabilize the very cultural and gendered norms that defined him.
While the high-time of the mythological in art took place pre-20th century – with the neo-romantic movement of the Pre-Raphaelites having paved the way to modern art – we will also follow the revival of mythological themes and iconographies in contemporary art and the need for alternative iconographies and archives.


Anke Kempkes (*1968) is a curator, art historian and critic specialised in female avant-Garde, 20th-century abstract movements, surrealism, minimal dance and Avant-Garde, Queer Modernism and Performativity. In 2003/2004, she held the position of Chief Curator at Kunsthalle Basel, CH. From 2005–2017, she ran anresearch institute and gallery focused on the re-introduction of female (neo) avant-garde artists from the US, Europe and Latin America, (USA). In 2021-22, she held the position of Director of Instituto Susch and Curator at Large at Art Stations Foundation / Muzeum Susch, CH.
Her writing includes essays on Alina Szapocznikow, Mária Bartuszová, Wanda Czełkowska, Teresa Murak, Stanislava Kovalcikova, Evelyne Axell, Rosemarie Castoro, Lydia Okumura, Verena Loewensberg, Mary Vieira, Heidi Bucher, Sonja Sekula, and Teruko Yokoi.
Bibliographie / LiteraturWill be handed out during the course
Leistungsnachweis / TestatanforderungMandatory attendance (minimum 80%); active participation
TermineTime: 09:15 - 17:00 o'clock

CW 48: 27 / 28 / 29 / 30 November, 01 December
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Termine (5)