AiC

Art in Context is an entirely new accredited small-scale international MFA program aimed at deepening students’ skills & collaborative competencies in art practices across various visual arts media and theory.

Join the new MA program at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague! Deadline May 31, 2023!

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ABOUT AIC

Art in Context is an entirely new accredited small-scale international MFA program aimed at deepening students’ skills & collaborative competencies in art practices across various visual arts media and theory.

The Art in Context curriculum combines continuous studio and post-studio practice with collective seminars, projects and individual instruction by a dynamic, inclusive and internationally renowned team of artists, performers, theorists and thinkers. The thematic frameworks are built on the basis of mutual exchange between students and instructors. Two years of intense international learning culminate with a final third year focused around the creation of a diploma work and its public presentation.
The Art in Context programme follows up successful internation program the Studio of Visiting Artist, founded in 2007 and since then hosted plenty internationally  renowned artists and theoreticians like: Borut Vogelnik, Sus Zwick a Muda Mathis, Simon Starling, Josef Dabernig, Gelitin, Simon Wachsmuth, Ruth Noack, Artur Źmijevski, Paulina Olowska, Aneta Mona Chisa and others.
Along with studio work, the Art in Context program offers courses in artistic research and writing, plus lectures in art history and critical theory. Our students are provided access to all the artistic and scientific departments and workshops at the oldest art school in the Czech Republic and benefit from exchanges with a unique and diverse community of students, alumni, artists, curators and art professionals from the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague.

Historical sculpture studio of Ladislav Šaloun
Studio spaces are situated in a charming heritage-protected Art Nouveau building (the Šaloun Studio) built in 1911 in the heart of the cosmopolitan city of Prague. Up to these days the Šaloun Studio has served as the Studio of the Visiting Artist. The studio provides around 100m2 of studio space with ideal light condition – glassy roof and windows oriented to north.
The Academy of Fine Arts in Prague is an autonomous state university constituted on the principles of transparency, the promotion of democratic standards, diversity, inclusion, and equity, and is committed to following sustainable practices.  

WHAT DOES AIC STAND FOR?

Ability/Activity/Art

♥ art practice based on the intersection the individual and the collective 
♥ inclusive approach, training of abilities to present one’s ideas verbally and in writing in a safe environment 
♥ students’ diversity 
♥ three-year study program allowing substantial time for personal development, one to one tutoring, collective seminars, projects
♥ option of organizing the final year according to an individual study plan, including distance learning
♥ off-site activities and excursions within Central Europe, eligibility for Erasmus mobility programs

Individuality/Internationality/Involvement
♥ periodic individual student-focused tutoring 
♥ art theory taught within studio practice and focused on students’ actual work and collectively chosen topics 
♥ critical art theory classes, Issues in Contemporary Art after 1989, East European Art 
♥ a variety of trans-generational local and international instructors and lecturers
♥ involvement in collaborative activities by local and international art institutions as well as in the public sector
♥ we engage in environmentally friendly activities and follow DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion) principles

Cooperation/Creativity/Communication
♥ gender balance, anti-discriminatory composition of instructors, diverse body of students 
highly individual personal approach thanks to small number of students per studio (5 students per year, 15 students per studio)
♥ collaborative projects and group critiques are an integral component of the creative process and its evaluation 
♥ interaction with other AVU studios through internships and cooperation
♥ access to specialized workshops that support students’ practical needs (metal welding, woodworking, stucco, robotics, digital art, 3D)

ADMISSIONS

€6,000 annual fee from October 2023, flat application fee €40. The call for applications begins May 1st 2023 and application DEADLINE is May 31st 2023.

Exams
1st round June 15th 2023 In order to apply you have to submit:
♥ online application here 
♥ portfolio of min 15 works (pdf, jpg format not exceeding 25 MB), for videos submit a link 
♥ motivation letter
♥ cv

2nd round June 26–27th 2023
♥ an invidual online interview
♥ an creative task (an assignment of a specified outline that is handed in within 6 hours/days from being assigned) 

Results of admissions process on July 4th 2023. Academic year begins on OCTOBER 1st 2023.

Admission Procedure 2023/2024

TUTORS

TUTORS IN FINE ARTS
Jiří Kovanda was born in 1953, he lives and works in Prague. Kovanda is one of the most prominent figures in contemporary Czech art and, though he’s reluctant to catalogue his works as conceptual or political, he entered in the international European scene in the late seventies with different public actions, made in a deliberately subtle manner, avoiding any direct involvement by the public. 

James Lewis is an artist, lives and works in Vienna, Austria. He completed his studies within the Fine Art Department at the Royal College of Art in London (2012) and has taught at various universities in Europe like The University of Applied Arts, Vienna; Norwich School of Art, UK; Kingston University, UK; Paris College of Art.

Tomáš Džadoň (1981), a neo-conceptualist artist, became known for his reinterpretations of architecture. These are “construction projects” which relativise habituated views of socialist housing developments. For someone born in 1981 socialist modernism is already history. Džadoň was himself born in a high-rise apartment block and for him this architecture has a strong tradition. He works in depth with the local regional contexts of his native Slovakia. He often combines elements of high-rise apartment block architecture with the folk tradition of Slovak log cabins.

TUTOR IN ART WRITING
John Hill is an artist, curator and writer based in Prague. As a founding member of the collective LuckyPDF, he has had work exhibited internationally and been commissioned by major UK institutions, including Hayward Gallery and Frieze Foundation.

LECTURERS IN THEORY
Pavlína Morganová, Ph. D. is an art historian and curator, based in Prague. Works as a director of the Research Center at the AVU in Prague.

Václav Magid is an artist, curator and writer based in Prague. He works as a researcher and lecturer at the Academic Research Centre of AVU, Prague (since 2006; 2018). He is editor-in-chief of the journal  Notebook of Art, Theory and Related Zones.

STRUCTURE AND CLASSES

STRUCTURE 
The academic year is divided into a winter and a summer semester, with presentation of works and assessments at the end of each semester. Weekly individual studio meetings and less frequent group critiques are accompanied by lectures in theory within the studio; art history lectures and electives are taught separately along with other AVU students. Regular study excursions and lectures including studio visits are a part of the curriculum.

Course annotation for the lecture
Contemporary Art of Václav Magid
This planned two-semester course has been tentatively subtitled “A Critical Theory.” The course’s objective is to introduce students to the basic questions in the debate surrounding the term contemporary art (from the perspective of its historical, formal, and institutional definition) while engaging in a critical interpretation of the concept. In a loose reference to Fredric Jameson, we will look at contemporary art as a “cultural dominant” of the neoliberal era – i.e., as a cultural form that perfectly exemplifies (meaning that it simultaneously embodies and reveals) the contradictions of the global processes of the past four decades. In line with this interpretation, we will date contemporary art as “art after 1977” (Franco Berardi’s “year when the Future ended”), with its peak in the years 1989–2008, followed by a decade of “crisis,” and culminating in debates regarding possible ways of stepping out from under its shadow. In view of the fact that the planned start of instruction is the 2022/2023 school year, the question arises whether, in this post-pandemic period, contemporary art will already be a closed chapter in the history of art.

Course annotation
for Studio Practice of Jiří Kovanda
The teaching method is the absence of a method, for the course will not involve “teaching” in the true sense of the word. Rather, it will involve collaboration on specific things on a purely individual basis. The students will work on what they wish; they will do what they need to do at the moment. There are no assignments, no tasks, no limits regarding content or means. At this stage in their studies, each student should know which direction they want to take, and the teacher’s job is to guide them on this path and act as a source of support. Skills, knowledge, and manual dexterity are like talent – they are not necessary, but merely an advantage. The studio should be an open space for everyone who wants to work in it, regardless of education, social background, religious belief, or political standpoint… We must always realize and emphasize that the essence of art does not lie in skills and knowledge. Even someone with no knowledge or skills can be a good artist – which is purely theoretical, of course, because everybody is capable of something, everybody knows something. Our shared task will be to discover and to reveal things that lie hidden, to identify possibilities overlooked in the practical world, and to make use of these as best as possible, not just in art but in everyday life.


MORE INFO
CURRICULUM


CLASSES
 
Theory, Issues in Contemporary Art after 1989, East/Central European Art of 20th and 21st Centuries

Electives
Drawing, graphic techniques, stucco, metal and wood workshop, introduction to 3D and 3D printing, robotics, video postproduction, foreign language 

Requirements
Studio work per semester, 2 (1?) electives per term, diploma project and thesis, exams and final state exam in Art History

Assessment
Semester assessment of studio work based on self-evaluation, group critique

FACILITIES

Workshops (robotics, digital, printing, metal, wood, stucco)

Library AVU LIBRARY

Computer lab

Eduroam and WiFi

AVU club

AVU Gallery “GAVU”  

Antidiscrimination Platform

Eco-unit

VVP Research Centre VVP AVU

Artyčok TV lab → ARTYCOK.TV

VISITING ARTIST STUDIO 2007–2022

I Wanted a Different Experience DOWNLOAD BOOK

 

CONTACT


AiC coordinator
Tomáš Džadoň
tomas.dzadon@avu.cz
+ 420 731 577 153

Academy of Fine Arts in Prague/Akademie výtvarných umění v Praze
U Akademie 4
170 00 Praha 7
Czech Republic

www.avu.cz


The project AVUEDU + Improving the Quality of Education at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague CZ.02.2.69/0.0/0.0/18_056/0013182 is co-financed by the European Union.