Diederichsen er fyrsti gestur í fyrirlestrarröðinni Umræðuþræðir á árinu 2015. Hann heldur opinberan fyrirlestur í Listasafni Reykjavíkur, Hafnarhúsi, fimmtudaginn 26. mars kl. 20.00. Titill fyrirlestursins er „When Did Contemporaneity Start? The Problems of a Degree Zero and the case of 1960“. Í fyrirlestrinum mun hann fjalla um hugtakið samtími og velta upp spurningum er varða hugmyndir um tímabilið í listasögunni sem kallað hefur verið „samtímalist”. Þá mun Diederichsen beina sjónum að árinu 1960 sem hugsanlegum upphafspunkti samtímalistarinnar.

Diedrich Diederichsen (f. 1957 í Hamborg) er einn afkastamesti menningarrýnir Þýskalands, en hann fæst jöfnum höndum við skrif um tónlist, samtímalist, kvikmyndir, leikhús, hönnun og pólitík. Diederichsen var blaðamaður, ritstjóri og útgefandi hjá hinum virtu tónlistarblöðum Sounds og Spex á níunda áratug síðustu aldar. Síðan í byrjun tíunda áratugarins hefur hann m.a. kennt við háskóla í Stuttgart, Pasadena, Offenbach am Main, Munchen, Köln, Los Angeles og Gainesville. Hann var prófessor við Merz akademíuna í Stuttgart frá árunum 1998 til 2007 og hefur síðan 2006 verið prófessor við listaakademíuna í Vínarborg.

Diederichsen skrifar reglulega í helstu tímarit og dagblöð Þýskalands en auk þess hafa birst eftir hann greinar í blöðum á borð við Artscribe, Artforum og Frieze. Nýlegar bækur eftir Diederichsen er m.a: Über Pop-Musik (Köln: Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 2014); The Whole Earth: California and the Disappearance of the Outside (Berlin/New York: Sternberg Press, 2013) og The Sopranos (Zürich: diaphanes-booklet 2012). Diedrich Diederichsen býr í Berlin og Vínarborg.

Umræðuþræðir er samstarfsverkefni Listasafns Reykjavíkur, Kynningarmiðstöðvar íslenskrar myndlistar og Listaháskóla Íslands. Lagt er uppi með að skapa vettvang fyrir alþjóðleg tengsl og umræður um myndlist í fyrirlestraröð ár hvert. Þátttakendur eru virtir sýningarstjórar, fræði- og listamenn sem eiga merkan feril að baki á alþjóðlegum vettvangi.

Styrktaraðilar fyrirlestraraðarinnar Umræðuþráða eru Goethe-Institut, Bandaríska sendiráðið á Íslandi og Promote Iceland.

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Diedrich Diederichsen 

Diedrich Diederichsen, Professor at the Academy of Fine Art in Vienna, is a special guest of the Department of Fine Arts Tuesday March 24th 2015.

Diedrich Diederichsen is the first participant in this year’s TALK Series. He will give a open lectureat the Reykjavík Art Museum, Harbour house on Thursday March 26th at 8 p.m. Diederichsen‘s talk is entitled "When Did Contemporaneity Start? The Problems of a Degree Zero and the case of 1960". Is contemporaneity merely a relational category or is there/was there an epoch that could be called „Contemporary Art“, which started at one point and will be over soon. Or is it already over, as some people argue? In the talk, Diederichsen will discuss the question of contemporaneity in relation to the general philosophical problem of measuring and deciding about historical starting points. More specifically, he will look at the year 1960 as one possible candidate for a starting point of contemporary art. The lecture takes place in English, is open to everyone and free of charge.

Diedrich Diederichsen (b. 1957, Hamburg) is an author, music journalist and cultural critic. He is one of Germany′s most prolific intellectual writers, and writes continuously on pop-music, contemporary art, modern composition, cinema, theater, design and politics. Diederichsen worked as a journalist and editor/publisher of influential music journals Sounds and Spex in the 1980‘s. Since the early 90‘s he has been a visiting professor in Stuttgart, Pasadena, Offenbach am Main, Munich, Cologne, Los Angeles and Gainesville to name but a few. From 1998 to 2007 he was Professor for Aesthetic Theory & Cultural Studies at Merz-Akademie, Stuttgart. Since 2006, Diederichsen has been Professor for Theory, Practice, and Communication of Contemporary Art at the Institute for Art History & Cultural Studies at the Academy of Fine Art, Vienna.

Diederichsen has contributed to numerous magazines, dailies and journals in the German speaking world as well as Artscribe, Artforum, and Frieze. Recent books include: Über Pop-Musik (Köln: Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 2014); The Whole Earth: California and the Disappearance of the Outside (Berlin/New York: Sternberg Press, 2013) and The Sopranos (Zürich: diaphanes-booklet 2012). Diedrich Diederichsen lives in Berlin and Vienna.

Under the title TALK Series, Reykjavík Art Museum, Icelandic Art Center and the Iceland Academy of the Arts initiated a collaborative visitor program in 2012, offering a platform for continual professional-, international encounters to take place in Iceland. Comprising visits by leading figures in the visual arts, this program initiative brings to the Icelandic art community, as well as to the public at large, the burgeoning ideas and diverse practices that define the terms and shape the dialogue within the contemporary international art scene.

TALK Series is generously supported by the Goethe Institute, The American Embassy in Iceland and Promote Iceland.

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