Seven Problematics for Neoliberal Times’, catalogue essay for a monograph on the artist, Apolonija Sustersic.

Problématique is a French term, defined as ‘the art of formulating a problem’. In English, the word ‘problematic’ can be used as an adjective to describe the nature of a problem, as ‘difficult to resolve; doubtful, uncertain, questionable’, or as a noun to indicate: ‘A thing that constitutes a problem or an area of difficulty, esp. in a particular field of study’. If the term ‘liberal arts’ refers to the seven subjects of the medieval university curriculum, which included the Classical Trivium of grammar, rhetoric and logic, and the Renaissance Quadrivium of mathematics, geometry, music and astronomy; what kind of arts education do we need for the neoliberal times in which we live? I suggest here that Apolonija Šušteršic’s practice engages material objects in the generation of specific modes of exchange, particular to the institutional sites in which they are located. Understood as ‘things that constitute problems’, I argue that the projects present seven problematics – critical, spatial, pedagogical, functional, relational, performative and transitional – as sites for debating and enacting alternatives to neoliberalism.

Publication Details: ‘Seven Problematics for Neoliberal Times’, catalogue essay for a monograph on the artist, Apolonija Sustersic, in collaboration with Museo Arte  Contemporaneo de Castilla de Leon published by (Leon and Berlin: Musac and Sternberg Press, 2013) (Spanish/English).

http://www.sternberg-press.com/index.php?pageId=1419&l…

http://home.tiscali.nl/apolonija/