Since its inception, scientific knowledge has aimed to be objective.
This applies not only to the natural sciences but also to the humanities, including the history of art, the methodology of which is even today inseparably linked to the aspiration to describe art as it actually is. But what if objectivity is nothing more than a scientific virtue and not a regimen for knowing the world? Referring to Donna Haraway’s article «Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective, ” artist Nadya Ishkinyaeva suggests not describing our environment from the position of the Cartesian Self, «pure reason, ” the specialist/expert or from personal experience.
The meeting in the West Gallery at Garage will involve joint exploration and discussion of visual images with the help of exercises devised by the artist: from sketches and walks around the museum space to the practice of audio description for blind and partially sighted people. The basis of the conversation will be the theme of the corporeality of the eye. What does it mean when we say that the eye has its own corporeality? In what way is the idea of the subjective gaze built into the classical art historical tradition and does it contribute anything new? In answer to the latter question, the artist suggests rejecting the discussion of ways of interpreting works of art and instead focusing on «the art of seeing» as a complex and multifaceted process of translating the visual image into words or text.
