How has the production of art been studied and with what concepts, methods and frames? How can we define emerging relations between individuals, collectives, and institutions, trace levels of cultural policy and implementation, and map political influence in and through the arts? To what ends is art harnessed, by whom, where, and how is it imbricated in contemporary political and economic discourses?
This course offers an introduction to analysing infrastructures of art and their situated discourses. Considering case studies and critical approaches, throughout the term we will map the dynamics of a political economy of the arts while taking a look at the uses and limits of various concepts, including the social production of art, abolitionism and reform, institutional critique, and critical theory of artists’ labor. Case studies will range across institutional historiographies and attendant entanglements with changing definitions of autonomy and art as a social good. Each analytic approach will offer a lens through which to consider the varied dimensions of cultural production and circulation.
Following current debates will help students gain an understanding of the concepts, methodologies and frameworks that have been used in the study of art worlds, and will equip students with tools to unpack specific interventions, where art intervenes in the realm of labor, political economies, urban development and vice versa.
Interdisciplinary discussions between students of anthropology, arts, and other disciplines are expected and most welcome in this course.
The course will be held in English.
Bitte melden Sie sich verbindlich zum Seminar an: Natalia Kalicki kalicki(at)eth.mpg.de
Die Veranstaltung richtet sich vornehmlich an Studierende des Studiengangs Kunstwissenschaften (MA).
Studierende der Studiengänge Kunst (Lehramt) und Lehramt Kunst (M.Ed.) können Teilnahmescheine erlangen (s.u.). Fragen zur Scheinvergabe richten Sie bitte an Prof. Dr. Burkhardt.
Studierende der Diplomstudiengänge sind herzlich willkommen, Fragen zur Scheinvergabe richten Sie bitte an Prof. Dr. Bätzner.
Name der Lehrenden / Name of Teacher
Natalia Kalicki
kalicki(at)eth.mpg.de
Veranstaltungsart und –methodik – Teaching and working methods
Seminar
Beurteilung – Assessment
Studierende des MA Kunstwissenschaften: Teilmodulleistung (unbenotete Präsentation)
Studierende Kunst (Lehramt) und Lehramt Kunst (M.Ed.): Teilmodulleistung (unbenotete Präsentation)
Verwendbarkeit
M.A. Kunstwissenschaften: Modul 2 (Theorien und Diskurse) oder Modul 3 (Reflexive Praktiken)
Kunst (Lehramt): Wahpflichtmodul Kunstwissenschaften
Lehramt Kunst (M.Ed.): Modul Kunst- und Designwissenschaften
Zugangsvoraussetzung – Prerequisites
Keine
Umfang in SWS
2
Häufigkeit, Dauer und Termin / Ort des Angebots
Wednesdays, 14:15-15:45 hrs
Start: October 21, 2026
Teaching term: 21.10.2026 - 03.02.2027
Location:
Seminar für Ethnologie / Seminarraum
Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg
Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropology
Reichardtstraße 11
06114 Halle (Saale)
About the teacher
Natalia Kalicki is an artist and anthropologist. She holds a BFA in Painting from Concordia University, Montreal, and an MA in Anthropology from University of Leipzig. She is a currently PhD candidate at the Anthropology of Politics and Governance department of the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle, Germany. Her work is supported by a doctoral scholarship from the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation. Her research looks at bottom-up art worlds, particularly at the intersection of experimental economies and political engagement, and through the mores and materialities that constitute emergent modes of being and belonging. Her doctoral work is a case study of artist-run spaces and artistic margins in Warsaw, Poland, with the explicit aim of co-producing knowledge and unsettling the established canons of modernism. Central in her work is the collection of oral histories, and questions of public and private memory as a substance of political power. As an artist she has maintained a studio practice in Leipzig since 2016 and is a permanent member of Kombinat e.V, a collective atelier located in Halle 14 at the Spinnerei, where she also co-organizes an annual cycle of art residencies.
