Deutsche Akademie der Künste in Chelyabinsk is a performative project of German artists Detlef Schlaghek and Leonid Kharlamov.
DAKC experimentally explores the educational system that has developed in Germany, and also creates a platform for communication and exchange of experience between members of art communities. It is a performance that mimics the stages of academic art education. The curators of the project, artists from Germany Leonid Kharlamov and Detlef Schlaghek, raise universal questions about what contemporary art is and whether it is possible to teach and learn it.
On the one hand, it is a kind of group play where everyone can act a certain part. On the other hand, the result of the program is a genuine exhibition that is presented to the audience and requires authenticity. Within the framework of this contradiction, the role of the enacted professor turns into the role of a real teacher who must take responsibility for his students. And the enacted student becomes real, because s/he wants to seriously prepare for the exhibition. This tightrope walk between play and reality makes DAKC an artistic act that begins with an exam and ends with an exhibition. In addition, the project creates a platform for communication and exchange of experience between members of different art communities in a particular city.
The final exhibition, which opened in the creative space Klopovnik, is the final event of the Academy, allowing the student artists to show their graduation works to a wide audience. 18 participants with different backgrounds and artistic experiences, as well as art teachers Detlef Schlaghek and Leonid Kharlamov presented different forms of contemporary art: video and photographic objects, installations, performances. In total – 28 works by artists from Chelyabinsk, St. Petersburg and Ekaterinburg.
– When we came up with this performance, we wondered if it was even possible to teach contemporary art, said the artist Leonid Kharlamov. – This is the third time Detlef and I have implemented a project of the German Academy of Arts. Before that we were in Krasnoyarsk and Krasnodar, now in Chelyabinsk. And it seems to me that it is possible to teach contemporary art, you just need to develop a certain methodology for yourself. I have one, I call it "Methodology of encouragement." Not prohibition, but encouragement. When a person is given complete freedom and conditions so that s/he can express her/himself.
Artists: Alexander SLIM, Alesya Zaripova, Alisa Gorelova, Anastasia Gurvich (Lipskaya8), Anastasia Chernikova, Ekaterina Kolyachenko, Larissa Deperschmidt, Lyaisan Azamatova, Maria Sushko, Masha Grogoryeva, Nataly Brezhneva, Roxy Sych, Sergey Udichev, Stas Bur, Cobalt Blue, Last _emery, lk_a08, t.aouj