Enabling Knowledge
Klaus Jung
Glasgow School of Art
This booklet is an enhanced transcript of a keynote address presented at the Sensuous Knowledge conference in Solstrand, Norway, in November 2006. The presentation tried to introduce a new dimension into the discussion about where knowledge is located in relation to artworks and artistic production. It is based upon semi-structured interviews with three artists – whose production appears disparate, but who nonetheless share a fundamental interest for learning – which will be taken in conjunction with a consideration of some aspects of my own production as an artist in relation to knowledge and supported by a brief analysis of some of the positions adopted in relation to art and research that were published in the UK between 2000 and 2004.
From the book by Klaus Jung:
“I base my engagement with research in Higher Art Education and as an artist, on the understanding that artistic approaches may be edgy and full of contradictions. They may seemingly embrace too many risks or have an excessive sense of the essential, by constantly shifting focus from details to the bigger picture. Reconciled with intuition – sometimes painstakingly simple and methodical, sometimes rather non-scientific and complex – artistic practice aims to grasp, rather than analyse and understand.
It is my long-term goal to provide new insights in the ongoing investigation into whether artistic approaches produce knowledge. With this in mind, it must be in our own interest as artists and as art schools to place artistic practice right in the centre of our social communities, rather than on the fringes, in a distanced – though highly cultivated – orbit.10 This necessitates an engagement with research and, while it may be uncomfortable to broaden our artistic horizons and allow research-equivalent thinking into our discourse, avoiding doing so, or even resisting it, could prove to be fighting the wrong windmills.”
About the author
Klaus Jung (1955), born in Germany, is a practicing artist, educated at Kunstakademie Düsseldorf (1973-1979) and the Royal College of Art, London (1979-1980). He has been Head of the School of Fine Art at Glasgow School of Art since 2002. He is a former Rector of the Kunstakademie Trondheim, Norway and the Kunsthøgskolen in Bergen, Norway. He has been actively involved with ELIA, European League of Institutes of the Arts, based in Amsterdam, and has been member of its executive group from 2000 until 2006. Jung exhibited extensively with shows in many European cities.
For further information see www.klausjung.com
There is also an online-version available:
