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2023/2024

Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art Seminar

Code: 100281 ECTS Credits: 6
Degree Type Year Semester
2500246 Philosophy OT 3 1
2500246 Philosophy OT 4 1

Contact

Name:
Jèssica Jaques Pi
Email:
jessica.jaques@uab.cat

Teaching groups languages

You can check it through this link. To consult the language you will need to enter the CODE of the subject. Please note that this information is provisional until 30 November 2023.

Teachers

Gerard Vilar Roca
Jèssica Jaques Pi
Andrea Soto Calderon
Bárbara Bayarri Viñas
Daniela Callejas Aristizabal
Francesc Cortés Alcaraz

External teachers

Androula Michäel
Christine Piot
Emmanuel Guigon (Director Museu Picasso de Barcelona)
Laura Vilar
Margarida Cortadella (Bibliotrcària i documentalista Museu Picasso de Barcelona)
Marie-Laure Bernadac
Reyes Jiménez (Conservació Preventiva i Restauració Museu Picasso de Barcelona)
Sara Gómez
Sílvia Galí
artencurs

Prerequisites

None


Objectives and Contextualisation

The course Seminar on Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art has the subtitle: "Philosophy with art: the Picasso case". The main objective of this course is to make philosophy with art. Being a last-year optional course, it proposes to take a step farther from the philosophy of art and, framed in the field of applied philosophy, seeks the closest proximity between the artistic events and philosophical discourses on them: it aims to understand artistic poiesis attending to both words and things. The chosen artistic practices belong to the Picasso's corpus, in a selection of works that includes object elements (paintings, sculptures, readymades, engravings, and etchings), documentaries (photographs, films), texts (poems, aphorisms, theoretical texts), performative elements (plays, choreography). The discourse will aim to wield unattended narratives in the art writing on Picasso, especially linked to philosophical issues.

The specific objectives are:

            1. The practice of the construction of philosophical narratives about artistic events

            2. The achievement of an initial degree of experience in applied philosophy on the construction of artistic narratives and their impact on the forums of corresponding debates and professionalization.

            3. In-depth knowledge of the corresponding texts

            4. In-depth knowledge of a selection of Picasso's works that are especially interesting for the philosophy and practice of new Picasso narratives

           5. Professionalization in the Picasso work field and related.


Competences

    Philosophy
  • Analysing and summarising the main arguments of fundamental texts of philosophy in its various disciplines.
  • Identifying the main philosophical attitudes in the field of aesthetics and critically applying them in the art world.
  • Recognising and interpreting topics and problems of philosophy in its various disciplines.
  • Students must be capable of applying their knowledge to their work or vocation in a professional way and they should have building arguments and problem resolution skills within their area of study.
  • Students must be capable of collecting and interpreting relevant data (usually within their area of study) in order to make statements that reflect social, scientific or ethical relevant issues.
  • Students must be capable of communicating information, ideas, problems and solutions to both specialised and non-specialised audiences.
  • Students must develop the necessary learning skills to undertake further training with a high degree of autonomy.
  • Students must have and understand knowledge of an area of study built on the basis of general secondary education, and while it relies on some advanced textbooks it also includes some aspects coming from the forefront of its field of study.
  • Thinking in a critical and independent manner on the basis of the specific topics, debates and problems of philosophy, both historically and conceptually.

Learning Outcomes

  1. Accurately describing an artistic object with the specific language of art criticism.
  2. Applying philosophical rigour in a written text following the international quality standards.
  3. Autonomously searching, selecting and processing information both from structured sources (databases, bibliographies, specialized magazines) and from across the network.
  4. Carrying out a planning for the development of a subject-related work.
  5. Carrying out oral presentations using an appropriate academic vocabulary and style.
  6. Correctly, accurately and clearly communicating the acquired philosophical knowledge in oral and written form.
  7. Demonstrating a personal stance over a problem or controversy of philosophical nature, or a work of philosophical research.
  8. Developing self-learning strategies.
  9. Discriminating the features that define the writer's place in the context of a problem and reorganising them in a consistent diagram.
  10. Distinguishing and analysing classical and current debates of the History of Art.
  11. Distinguishing and outlining the fundamental content of a philosophical text.
  12. Effectively communicating and applying the argumentative and textual processes to formal and scientific texts.
  13. Establishing relationships between science, philosophy, art, religion, politics, etc.
  14. Explaining the specific notions of the History of Philosophy.
  15. Identifying the artistic imagery, placing it into its cultural context.
  16. Identifying the regulatory, stylistic or argumentative errors of a text.
  17. Interpreting the contents of a text about Theory of Art.
  18. Organizing their own time and work resources: designing plans with priorities of objectives, calendars and action commitments.
  19. Producing an individual work that specifies the work plan and timing of activities.
  20. Reading basic philosophical text thoroughly.
  21. Recognising, with a critical eye, philosophical referents of the past and present and assessing its importance.
  22. Submitting works in accordance with both individual and small group demands and personal styles.
  23. Using suitable terminology when drawing up an academic text.

Content

The contents are constituted in the form of five especially fruitful correlations for the intended objectives. Philosophical readings are indicated that will help generate a discourse from them.

Contents will be held in alternate sessions at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the UAB and at the Museu Picasso in Barcelona (at the UAB every two weeks, at the MPB every two weeks).

      1. Poiesis and politics: to do in art. *Aristotle, Poetics, selected texts. *Jèssica Jaques, translations of Picasso's plays. *Rancière: El viraje ético de la estética y la política (selected chapters

      2. Stories / history in the stories about the arts (*Hume: On the Standard of Taste, *Kant: the regulative idea and the aesthetic judgment, *Foucault: "Las Meninas", *Lyotard: the postmodern condition, * Didi-Überman, G., Lo que vemos, lo que nos mira

      3. The encounter between gesture and stroke: Tactility as a border between receptivity and productivity. *Merleau-Ponty - "Cézanne's doubt
      
       4. he privilege of succession against the privilege of simultaneity in the narrative about the arts *Hegel: introduction to Lessons on Aesthetics, *Warburg, A. Atlas Mnémosyne; * Didi-Huberman, G.: Atlas. ¿Cómo llevar el mundo a cuestas? 

        5. Discipline / indiscipline in creative processes *Kant: the game of the faculties of mind, *Rancière: Thinking Between Disciplines, *Feyerabend: Against Method

        6. Autonomous creativity/Heteronomous creativity
    1. What is creating? (*Kant: KU §46; *Deleuze, ¿Qué es el acto de creación?; *Feyerabend- "Creativity: A Dangerous Myth")
    2. The workshop - Lab
    3. Friendship and collective creation: polyphenies and ventriloquist *Aristotle Nichomachean Ethics, book VIII. *Kant, Third Critique, first and third definition of the beautiful

          7. 

    1. Autonomous/Heteronomous Work
    1. Construction (*Cassirer: Essay on Man - chap. IX) / Mimesis - Expression
    2. Symbol - sign (*Cassirer: Essay on man - chap. IX, *Krauss Picasso's Papers).
    3. Force / Harmony
    4. Artification / disartification 
    5. Aura / deauratization
    6. Excess / precariousness
    7. Fragment / work
    8. Simultaneity / Succession
    9. Oneness / Series
    10. Authorship / Variations (*Foucault, "What is an author?")
    11. Authorship / Anonymity (*Foucault, "Les heterotopies")
    12. History of painting - history painting (Jèssica Jaques, "Las Meninas de PIcasso, 1957: Cal·llgrafies de la indisciplina")
    13. Memory / Vanishment
    14. Icon / Repetition
    15. Genius / Anonymity
    16. Identity / exorcisms
    17. Self-portrait / metamorphosis
    18. Iconographies / metamorphosis. The case of culinary iconographies. (*Ovid, Metamorphoses, selected texts]
    19. Work / image
    20. Commitment (*Sartre: What is literature?) / freedom
    21. Politics / economics

7. Body and Gender: the Picasso case. the masculinisation of art history. The strong woman in Picasso. *Foucault: Utopian body, **Jèssica Jaques, Picasso en Gósol, 1906 (selected texts). Stein, G., Picasso. & Some poems. 


Methodology

The methodology is Neosocratic, that is: the generation and the transfer of knowledge from the vindication of the formative potential of both students and teachers. It is directed from the Artencurs Teaching Innovation Project, of which Jèssica Jaques is Principal Investigator. In this teaching innovation project several degrees are involved: Philosophy, History of Art, Musicology, Design, Dance and Choreography, with special attention to its intersection. Its scope of action is the route of learning outside the classroom into the classroom, in this direction. The pedagogical model is the neosocratic one. The scope is that of applied aesthetics, in an effort to professionalize philosophical-artistic projects of incidence in the public sphere. It is in response to this question that students who wish and show the skills can do the degree practices with links to the Picasso world.

A good number of the teaching activities will be developed in the Picasso Museum in Barcelona. This means that, for school insurance coverage, the enrollment of the subject is increased by € 5, which will be returned to the student to start the course, as a form of activism by the teacher against the abusive rates of the Catalan university and Spanish.

The directed activities consist of discussion classes with a high incentive to participation, as well as seminars and a tutorial program in small groups and individual meetings

The supervised activities consist of the contributions to the seminars and the contributions to the written tests, as well as visits to museums and art centers recommended at the beginning of the course and in the attempt that the discursive praxis accompany an artistic praxis according to the procedures of aesthetics applied

Autonomous activities have as an essential reference to the readings, their conceptual work and their application on evaluable texts and images.

Annotation: Within the schedule set by the centre or degree programme, 15 minutes of one class will be reserved for students to evaluate their lecturers and their courses or modules through questionnaires.


Activities

Title Hours ECTS Learning Outcomes
Type: Directed      
Lectures, seminars, small-group and individual tutorials 60 2.4 19, 13, 14, 21
Type: Supervised      
Workshops on aesthetic practices, exhibition visits, artistic events, tests, participation in seminars 30 1.2 6, 9, 11, 12, 5, 23, 16, 17, 22
Type: Autonomous      
readings and conceptual work on the texts, work on images 52.5 2.1 3, 8, 9, 11, 19, 4, 20

Assessment

The evaluation will be:
 
Tests 1 and 2. Two exams (subject 1 and2;  3 and 4 respectively) to be done at home and sent digitally from the student's institutional email. For the first test, the student will have chosen a creative picassian practice - either their own or from a third person - that they will mantain throughout all assessments. The two tests will be sent to students by email one week before their submission. Test 3. A written text of 2000 words corresponding to the subjects 5 and 6 of this course; Optionally, the student may choose to include their own aesthetic practices that are linked to their writing (photography, music, dance, illustration, painting: any creative practice); in which case the writing will be 1000 words. The submission will be made electronically to the address <picassouab@gmail.com>.
 
If the student finds themselves in the situation of the digital gap, they will communicate it to Jèssica Jaques beforhand, before the deadline of the test, and an instituional solution will be proposed.  
 
In principle and except for changes in the day to day of the Faculty or force majeure, the days of the submissions are: October 28 (1st test), December 2 (2nd test), January 20  (3rd test). The questions for the first two tests will be sent to the students by email one week before the due date.
 
The tests will have as a maximum puntuation: 1st: 3 points; 2nd: 3 points; 3rd: 4 points.
 
Dates are deadlines and cannot be substituted for posterior dates.
 
Recovery, with a date and place set by the Faculty, is reserved for students who have not taken one of the three tests (being necessary to take 2/3) or who have failed one, two or three. Eachtest must be passed independently of the other two.
 
The student's grade will be "not evaluable" if at the end of the evaluation process they have not submitted one, two or three of the tests.
 

In the event that the tests cannot be done in person, their format will be adapted (maintaining their weighting) tothe possibilitiesoffered by the UAB’s virtual tools. Homework, activities and class participation will be done through forums, wikis and / or exercise discussions through Teams, etc. The teacher will ensure that the Student can access it or offer alternative means, which are within his / her reach.

 

 
The evaluation criteria will be:
 
The pertinent selection of the topics to be treated based on the main questions of the philosophy of art raised from a work or another type of aesthetic reference
The argumentative clarity
The adequate use of vocabulary related to the subject
The manifestation of the understanding of the contents proposed in the theoretical sessions
The manifestation of the understanding of the contents of the obligatory readings
The correction of the writing style
The ability to discuss with the group about the texts.
The audacity in the appropriation of the contents (sapere aude), that is, the appropriation of the contents and the development of creativity
If the event of a student commiting any irregularity would lead to careful training awareness work. It should be noted that the regulations in this regard say: "In the event that the student performs any irregularity that may lead to a significant variation in the rating of an evaluation act, this evaluation act will be rated 0, regardless of the disciplinary process that It is possible to instruct. In the event that there are several irregularities in the evaluation acts of the same subject, the final grade for this course will be 0 ".
The review of each test will be carried out at the usual dispatch hours in the period between this and the next test. The ordinary global review of the subject will be carried out on a specific day that will be indicated in January, and it will be done in the office (in a non-pandemic situation; otherwise it will be done digitally.)
 
This subject is linked to the artencurs innovation project:<https://artencurs.wixsite.com/artencurs>
 
All important indications will be written in Moodle, to leave a public written record.
 

This subject does not incorporate single assessment.


Assessment Activities

Title Weighting Hours ECTS Learning Outcomes
First and second exams 60 % 4.5 0.18 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 11, 13, 4, 14, 5, 17, 18, 22, 21
Third exercice (paper) 40% 3 0.12 3, 6, 1, 8, 9, 10, 11, 19, 13, 4, 14, 12, 5, 23, 16, 15, 17, 20, 22, 21

Bibliography

Aesthetic and Philosophical Compulsory Reading List

Aristòtil, Poètica. Madrid, Gredos.


Aristòtil, Ètica a Nicòmac. Madrid, Gredos

Cassirer , E., « Art », Antropologia filosófica. FCE (1944)

Didi-Huberman, G.: Atlas. ¿Cómo llevar el mundo a cuestas? Madrid: Museo Reina Sofía, 2010.

Didi-Überman, G., Lo que vemos, lo que nos mira, Buenos Aires, Manantial, 2010.

Hegel, G. W., Lliçons d’estètica (Introducció). Barcelona, ed. 62 (1835).

Hume, D : L’estàndard del gust (1757). –Of the Standard of taste. Boston: The Harvard Classics, vol 27., 1909–1914. First published in 1757. On line edition:

[http://www.bartleby.com/27/15.html]. Trad. Cast La norma del gusto, Museu valencià de la Illustració i de la Modernitat, 2008.

Jaques, J. "Las Meninas de Picasso 1957,: Caligrafies de la indisciplina"; a MARÏ, AN. La modenitat Cauta, Angle Editorial, 2015.

JAques, J., "Qué se cuece en el El Deseo atrapado por la cola o la dramatúrgia gastropoiética en la ocupación". La cocina de Picasso, MPB, 2018.

KANT, I., Crítica de la facultat de jutjar. Barcelona, Ed. 62, 2004 (1790),

Krauss, R. The Picasso Papers. New York: Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, 1998.

FEYERABEND, "Creativity: A Dangerous Myth" in Critical Inquiry, 13(4), 1987, pp 700-711.

FOUCAULT, M. "Heterotopias", Topografías

FOUCAULT, M. "El cuerpo utópico", Topografías

FOUCAULT, M., « Las Meninas” (Les suivantes). A las Palabras y las cosas (Les mots et les choses), Barcelona, Paidós, 1997 (1964 /1966)

MERLEAU-PONTY, La duda de Cézanne. Madrid, Casimiro, 2012.

Rancière, J., Pensar entre las disciplinas. Brumaria 268 (2008).

Sartre, J. P., “Qu’est-ce que la littérature?”, Les Temps Modernes, 1947; recollit a Situations II . París: Gallimard, 1951.

WARBURG, A. Atlas Mnémosyne. Madrid, Akal, 2010.

 

 

Recommended Philosophy of Art Readings

AAVV: What is Contemporary Art?, Berlín, Sternberg Press, 2010

AGAMBEN, G., Desnudez, Barcelona, Anagrama, 2011

Belting, H., The End of the History of Art?. The University of Chicago Press, 1987 (1983)

Bourriaud, N., Estética Relacional. Buenos Aires, Adriana Hidalgo, 2006 (1997)

DIDI-HUBERMAN, G., Ante el tiempo. Historia del arte y anacronismo de las imágenes, Buenos Aires, Adriana Hidalgo, 2006 

DIDI-HUBERMAN, G., Pueblos expuestos, pueblos figurantes, Buenos Aires, Manantial, 2014

Jaques, J., Kant’s Aesthetic Reading of Aristotle’s Philia: Disinterestedness and the Mood of the Late Enlightenment. Revista de Filosofia, Vol. 37, 2 (2012): 55-68.  

KRISTEVA, J., Desire in Language, New York, Columbia University Press, 1980

LIPPARD, L. R., Six years: the dematerialization of the art object from 1966 to 1972; a cross-reference book of information on some aesthetic boundaries, Nueva York, Praeger, 1973

LORCA, F. G. Piero Menarini, ed. El maleficio de la mariposa. Cátedra, Madrid, 2009.

Jaeger, W., Paideia :losideales de la cultura griega. México, FCE.

Lorca, F. G, La casa de Bernarda Alba. 

PAGLIA, C., Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1990

RANCIÈRE, J., El inconsciente estético, Buenos Aires, Del Estante, 2005

RANCIÈRE, J., El viraje ético de la estética y la política, Santiago de Chile, Palinodia,2006

WALLIS, B. (ed.), Arte después de la modernidad, Madrid, Akal, 2001.

Sartre, J. P, A puerta Cerrada. (1954)

Sartre, J.-P. Paris sous l’occupation. London: La France Libre, 1945.

Schiller, F., Cartas sobre la educación estética del hombre (1795).

VILAR, G. Desartización. Paradojas del arte sin fin, Salamanca, Ediciones de la Universidad de Salamanca.

VILAR; G., Jean-François Lyotard: Estètica i política. Barcelona, Pensament polític postfundacional, 2019. 

 

Specific texts on Picasso for the Module

Ascal, B., Pablo Picasso.Poèmes & Propos. Alphaboof, Paris, 2013.

Bernardac, M.-L. –Piot, C.. Picasso ècrits. París: Éditions de la

Réunion des musées nationaux: Gallimard, 1989.


Bernardac, M.-L / MICHÄEL, A.. Picasso, propos sur l’art. Paris: Gallimard, 1998.

Brunner, Katheleen. Picasso RewritingPicasso. Black Dog Publisher,

Daix, P., Le nouveau dictionnaire Picasso. Ed. RobertLafont, S.A., París, 2012.

Garaudy, R. Le Communisme et la renaissance de la culture française. Paris: Sociales, 1945.

KRAUSS, R., Arte desde 1900: modernidad, antimodernidad, posmodernidad,Madrid, Akal, 2006.

Krauss, R. “ In the Name of Picasso.” October, no. 16 (March 1981): 5-21.

JAQUES, J., “Las Meninas” de Picasso, 1957: cal·ligrafies de la indisciplina, a MARÍ, A. (ed). La modernitat cauta. Barcelona, Angle Editorial, 2014.

Jaques, J.,  Picasso en Gósol, 1906: un verano para la modernidad. Madrid, Antonio Machado, 2006.

JAQUES, J., “Repenser Picasso. Le désir attrapé par la queue et les iconographies culinaires de l’absurde et de la stupeur”, Proceedings of the European Society of Aesthetics 7, 2015, pp. 297–316.

JAQUES, J., "Qué se cuece en el teatro de Picasso", MUseu Picasso de Barcelona, 2018. 

Michaël, A. – Wolf, L, (Ed.), Le Cahier de l’Herne : Picasso. Ed. de l’herne, París, 2014.

Michaël, A., PicassoPoète, Les Éditions Beaux-Arts de París, 2008.

STEIN, G., Writings, 2 vols. Library of America, 2009.

Steinberg, L., “El burdel filosófico”.

ROMA, Valentín, Economia:Picasso, Museu Picasso de Barcelona, amb el co-comissariat de Pedro G.Romero; Archivo F.X.: Wirstchaft, Ökonomie, Kunjunktur, Württembergischer Kunstverein de Stuttgart. Barcelona, MPB, 2012 .

Texts by Picasso

Inglada, Rafael (ed.), Pablo Ruiz Picasso. Textos Españoles (1894-1968). Málaga, BAMC, 2006.

Jaques, J., Una sel·lecció dels textos de Picasso seran proposats durant el curs segons la traducció de la professora responsable de l’assignatura, especialment els de teatre. 

Michaël, A., Picasso Poèmes. Ed. Le Cherche Midi, París, 2005. Trad. Cast. de Anna Nuño. Barcelona Editorial, 2008.

General Texts on Picasso

At the beginning of the module a general bibliography on Picasso will be provided, focusing on the research work proposed by each of the students. 


Software

No especific software required.