WHEN

INSTITUTIONAL
CRITIQUE
BECOMES
FORM
DR. EMILY SCOTT & DR. NINA ZSCHOCKE
HISTORY OF ART AND ARCHITECTURE 051-0320-15L

SEMINAR SPRING SEMESTER 2017 D-ARCH ETHZ

THURSDAYS 16.45-18.15 + 3 DON18 LECTURES UNTILL 20.00
HIL E5

THIS SEMINAR WILL REVISIT KEY EXAMPLES OF

INSTITUTIONAL CRITIQUE IN ART FROM THE 1960S-PRESENT,
EAGER TO IDENTIFY THEIR “TEETH“ AND TO PUT THEM TO WORK
IN THE SERVICE OF EXAMINING INSTITUTIONS OF CONTEMPORARY
ART AS WELL AS ARCHITECTURE. WHILE THERE IS AN ART HISTORICAL
BASIS TO THE CLASS, THEN, ONE OF ITS AIMS IS TO EVALUATE CURRENT
ARCHITECTURAL PRODUCTION, INCLUDING THE OFTEN UNEXAMINED
STRUCTURES, SUPERSTRUCTURES, AND PRACTICES BY WHICH IT
PROCEEDS (E.G., JURIED COMPETITIONS, ARCHITECTURE SCHOOLS,
„THE CRIT“ AS A DEFINING DISCIPLINARY APPARATUS).
HOW DO VARIOUS INSTITUTIONS STRUCTURE AND DELIMIT CONTEMPORARY
ART AND ARCHITECTURE? HOW MIGHT INSTITUTIONAL CRITIQUE TAKE
(ARCHITECTURAL) FORM? AND TO WHAT ENDS MIGHT CRITIQUE AID IN
REDISTRIBUTING THE POWER TO SHAPE INSTITUTIONS AND, THUS,
PRODUCTION?

SPECIAL EVENTS: DON18, A SERIES OF TALKS BY INTERNATIONAL

GUEST SPEAKERS (IBRAHIM MAHAMA, CHRISTIAN PHILLIPP MÜLLER,
HILLARY MUSHKIN, JANE RENDELL, AND STEVE ROWELL).

IMAGE: HANS HAACKE: GERMANIA, 1993, DEUTSCHER PAVILLON, BIENNALE DI VENEZIA

 When Institutional Critique Becomes Form
Spring 2017 / Thursdays 4:45-6:15pm / course #051-0320-17L

Institute for the History and Theory of Architecture, ETH Zürich / Chair for the History of Art, Prof. Dr. Philip Ursprung

Instructors:
Dr. Emily Eliza Scott & Dr. Nina Zschocke

Haus-Rucker-Co, Oase Nr. 7 (Oasis No. 7), installation at Documenta 5, Kassel, Germany, 1972.

OVERVIEW:
Today, critique has come under increasing fire, or “run out of steam,” in the words of the sociologist Bruno Latour. This
seminar, however, will explore its continued potential as a process of negotiation and intervention from an always-inside
position rather than from any point of presumed distance.
More specifically, we will investigate a body of work from recent and contemporary art known as institutional
critique. Revisiting some of its key moments and examples (e.g., Michael Asher’s architectural modifications from the
1960s, Andrea Fraser’s performative encounter with Guggenheim-Museum Bilbao, Hito Steyerl’s writing on “duty-free
art”), we are eager to locate and identify the “teeth” of institutional critique, so to speak, and to put them to work in
the service of examining contemporary institutions of art as well as architecture. Which is to say, while there is an art
historical component to the class, one of our core intentions is to evaluate the conditions of current architectural
production, including the often unexamined structures, superstructures, and practices by which it proceeds. Among
other topics, we will consider architecture and the market, the architecture school, and “the crit” as a defining
disciplinary apparatus. More generally, this seminar asks: How do various institutions structure and delimit contemporary
art and architecture? What strategies have been developed to expose and challenge existing realities and to thereby
suggest alternatives? How might institutional critique take (architectural) form? And to what ends might critique aid in
redistributing the power required to shape institutions and, thus, production?

REQUIREMENTS:
Students are expected to complete all required readings in advance of each week’s class and to participate actively in
group conversations. There is no exam, but students will develop final projects in small groups, to be presented during
our final session. The final project will consist of an institutional critique project on the D-ARCH (Department of
Architecture) at our own ETH Zurich.
Class will meet for 90 minutes each week, except in the three cases when a DON18 event is scheduled.
(DON18 is ongoing lecture/dialogue series with leading international artists and architects, hosted by the Chair of
Philip Ursprung.) On these evenings, class will begin at the normal time, but run until 8pm. As with regular class times,
attendance at DON18 is mandatory for those enrolled in the course. (Students who miss more than two sessions will
not get credit for the course.) If you wish to participate in this course, the first meeting is compulsory.

CONTACT:
Emily Eliza Scott: emily.scott@gta.arch.ethz.ch / Nina Zschocke: nina.zschocke@gta.arch.ethz.ch
Office: HIL D63.1

SCHEDULE:

WEEK 1 (Feb 23): WHAT IS (THE STATE OF) CRITIQUE?

• Required readings:
o Lieven de Cauter, “Rebellious Prologues: Notes on Subversion / Theses on Activism,” in Art and
Activism in the Age of Globalization, eds. Lieven de Cauter, Ruben de Roo and Karel Vanhaesebrouck
(NAi, 2011), 8-18.
o Bruno Latour, “Why Has Critique Run Out of Steam?,” Critical Inquiry (Winter 2004): 225-248.
o Jeremy Till, “Reality in the Balance,” Places Journal (January 2017):
https://placesjournal.org/article/reality-in-the-balance/
• Suggested additional sources:
o Issue on “Critique,” Transversal (2006): http://transversal.at/transversal/0806
o Issue on “The Art of Critique,” Transversal (2008): http://transversal.at/transversal/0808 (esp. Chantal
Mouffe, “Critique as Counter-Hegemonic Intervention”)
o Judith Butler, “What is Critique? An Essay on Foucault’s Virtue,” Transversal (2001):
http://eipcp.net/transversal/0806/butler/en/
o Hal Foster, “Post-Critical,” The Brooklyn Rail (Dec, 10, 2012):
http://brooklynrail.org/2012/12/artseen/post-critical
o Michel Foucault, “What is Critique?,” in The Politics of Truth: Michel Foucault, ed. Sylvére Lotringer
(Semiotext(e), 1997), 23-82.
o Boris Groys, “Under the Gaze of Theory,” e-flux journal 35 (May 2012): http://www.e-
flux.com/journal/35/68389/under-the-gaze-of-theory/
o Lane Relyea, “After Criticism,” in Contemporary Art: 1989 to the Present, eds. Alexander Dumdabze
and Suzanne Hudson (Wiley-Blackwell, 2013), 357-366.

WEEK 2 (March 2): INSTITUTIONAL CRITIQUE, PART I (THE EARLY YEARS)

• Focus artists: Hans Haacke, Michael Asher, Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Louise Lawler, Haus-Rucker-Co
• Required readings:
o Alexander Alberro, “Institutions, Critique, and Institutional Critique,” in Institutional Critique: an
Anthology of Artists’ Writings, eds. Alexander Alberro and Blake Stimson (MIT Press, 2011), 2-19.
o Andrea Fraser, “From Critique of Institutions to an Institution of Critique,” Artforum (Sept. 2005): 278-
286.
• Suggested additional sources:
o Inke Arns, “Social Technologies: Deconstruction, Subversion & the Utopia of Democratic
Communication,” Media Art Net (2004):
http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/themes/overview_of_media_art/society/1/#ftn1
o Julia Bryan-Wilson, Art Workers: Radical Practice in the Vietnam War Era (Univ. of California Press,
2009).
o Benjamin Buchloh, “Conceptual Art 1962-1969: From the Aesthetic of Administration to the Critique of
Institutions,” October vol. 55 (Winter 1990): 105-143.
o Jack Burnham, “System Esthetics,” Artforum (Sept. 1968): 30-35; and “Real-Time Systems,” Artforum
(Sept. 1969): 49-55.
o Esther Choi, “Atmospheres of Institutional Critique: Haus-Rucker-Co’s Pneumatic Temporality,” in
Hippie Modernism: the Struggle for Utopia, ed. Andrew Blauvelt (Walker Art Center, 2015), 31-43.
 o Ross Elfline, “The Dematerialization of Architecture: Toward a Taxonomy of Conceptual Practice,”
Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians vol. 75, no. 2 (June 2016): 201–223.
o Finkelpearl, Tom, “Interview: Mierle Laderman Ukeles on Maintenance and Sanitation Art,” in
Dialogues in Public Art (MIT Press, 2000), 294-322.
o Lucy R. Lippard, Six Years: The Dematerialization of the Art Object from 1966-1972 (Preager, 1973).
o ---. “Sweeping Exchanges: The Contribution of Feminism to the Art of the 1970s,” CAA Art Journal 40
(Fall–Winter 1980): 362–65.
o “Live in Your Head: When Attitudes Become Form (Works – Concepts – Processes – Situations –
Information)” exhibition, Kunsthalle Bern; curator: Harald Szeemann (1969).
o Brian O’Doherty, Inside the White Cube: the Ideology of the Gallery Space [1976-1981] (Univ. of
California Press, 1999), 13-15 (part I) and 87-107 (part IV).

WEEK 3 (March 9): INSTITUTIONAL CRITIQUE, PART II (CONTEMPORARY DEBATES)

• *** SPECIAL EVENT (optional): Parity Talks II: Institutional Strategies and Working Tools (March 8, HIT Werner-
Siemens-Auditorium, 9am-5:45pm with 6pm keynote lecture by Martha Thorne, Executive Director Pritzker
Price and Dean IE School of Architecture Madrid)
• Focus artists: Guerrilla Girls, Andrea Fraser, Project Row Houses, Christoph Buchel, The Yes Men, Theaster
Gates, Tania Bruguera, Carey Young, Hito Steyerl, Critical Art Ensemble, The Natural History Museum
• Required readings:
o Shannon Jackson, “Quality Time: Social Practice Debates in Contemporary Art,” in Social Works:
Performing Art, Supporting Publics (New York and London: Routledge, 2011), 43-74.
o Gregory Sholette, “Merciless Aesthetic: Activist Art as the Return of Institutional Critique” (response to
Boris Groys, “On Art Activism”): http://field-journal.com/issue-4/merciless-aesthetic-activist-art-as-the-
return-of-institutional-critique-a-response-to-boris-groys
o Hito Steyerl, “Politics of Art: Contemporary Art and the Transition to Post-Democracy,” e-flux journal
(Dec. 2010): http://www.e-flux.com/journal/21/67696/politics-of-art-contemporary-art-and-the-
transition-to-post-democracy/
• Suggested additional sources:
o “Brooklyn Talks: Ai Weiwei and Tania Bruguera,” at Brooklyn Museum on Oct. 29, 2016 [VIDEO]:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MszNiaJy2FE
o Finkelpearl, Tom, “Interview: Rob Lowe on Project Row Houses,” in Dialogues in Public Art (MIT Press,
2000), 234-257.
o Pamela Fraser and Roger Rothman, eds., Beyond Critique: Contemporary Art in Theory, Practice, and
Instruction (Bloomsbury, forthcoming 2017).
o Grant Kester, “The Device Laid Bare: On Some Limitations in Current Art Criticism,” e-flux journal #50
(Dec. 2013): http://www.e-flux.com/journal/50/59990/the-device-laid-bare-on-some-limitations-in-
current-art-criticism/
o Miwon Kwon, “From Site to Community in New Genre Public Art: the Case of ‘Culture in Action,’” in
One Place After Another: Site-Specific Art and Locational Identity (MIT Press, 2002), 100-137.
o Yates McKee, Strike Art: Contemporary Art and the Post-Occupy Condition (Verso, 2016).
o Not an Alternative, “Institutional Liberation,” e-flux journal #77 (Nov. 2016): http://www.e-
flux.com/journal/77/76215/institutional-liberation/
o Martha Rosler, “Take the $$$ And Run? Can Political and Socio-critical Art ‘Survive’?,” e-flux journal
#12 (Jan. 2010): http://www.e-flux.com/journal/12/61338/take-the-money-and-run-can-political-and-
socio-critical-art-survive/
o Alix Rule and David Levine, “International Art English,” Triple Canopy 16 (July 2012):
https://www.canopycanopycanopy.com/issues/16/contents/international_art_english
o Nato Thompson, Living as Form: Socially Engaged Art from 1991-2011 (MIT Press, 2012) and Seeing
Power: Art and Activism in the 21st Century (Melville House, 2014).
o Nato Thompson and Gregory Sholette, eds., The Interventionists: The Interventionists: Users' Manual
for the Creative Disruption of Everyday Life (MIT Press, 2004).
o John C. Welchman, ed. Institutional Critique and After (JRP-Ringier, 2006).
o Hennessey Youngman, “Institutional Critique,” “Relational Aesthetics,” and others (2011) [VIDEOS]:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pf_aUZ0HZdo&t=45s,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yea4qSJMx4
WEEK 4 (March 16): INSTITUTIONAL CRITIQUE, PART III (THE LIVE VERSION)
• *** SPECIAL EVENT: DON18 with Christian Philippe-Mueller (CH) http://christianphilippmueller.net, preceded
by screening of Andrea Fraser films (meet at the Migros Museum of Contemporary Art)
• Required reading:
o Andrea Fraser, “Isn’t this a Wonderful Place? (A Tour of a Tour of the Guggenheim Bilbao),” in Andrea
Fraser, Museum Highlights: the Writings of Andrea Fraser (MIT Press, 2005), 233-260.

WEEK 5 (March 23): NO CLASS / SEMINARWOCHE

WEEK 6 (March 30): DISOBEDIENT OBJECTS & SPACES

• *** SPECIAL EVENT: DON18 with Hillary Mushkin (USA/in person) http://www.hillarymushkin.com and Steve
Rowell (USA/via Skype) http://www.steverowell.com; HIL E67
• Focus artists/architects: Teddy Cruz, Lucy Orta, Azra Aksamija
• Required readings:
o Catherine Flood and Gavin Grindon, “Introduction,” in Disobedient Objects (Victoria & Albert Museum,
2014), 6-25.
o Brian Holmes, “Extradisciplinary Investigations: Towards a New Critique of Institutions,” Transversal
(2007): http://eipcp.net/transversal/0106/holmes/en
o Scott Lash and Antoine Picon in conversation with Kenny Cupers and Isabelle Doucet, “Agency and
Architecture: How to be Critical?,” Footprint 04: Agency in Architecture: Reframing Criticality in Theory
and Practice (Spring 2009): 7-19.
• Suggested additional sources:
o Paola Antonelli et. al., Design and Violence (Museum of Modern Art, 2015).
o Pedro Levi Bismarck, “Architecture and the Aestheticization of Politics,” Places Journal (February 2014):
https://placesjournal.org/article/architecture-and-the-aestheticization-of-politics/
o Lahiji, Nadir Z., ed., Can Architecture Be an Emancipatory Project?: Dialogues on Architecture and the
Left (Zero Books, 2014); esp. chapter by Lahiki and Erik Swyngedouw, “On The Impossibility of an
Emancipatory Architecture: The Deadlock of Critical Theory, Insurgent Architects, and the Beginning of
Politics”
o “The Other Architect” exhibition, Canadian Centre for Architecture; curator Giovanna Borasi (2015):
http://www.cca.qc.ca/en/explore?event=3538
o Jane Rendell et al., eds., Critical Architecture (Routledge, 2007).
o Miguel Robles-Duran, “The Rise of Instant Activism and How It’s Transforming Architecture, Urbanism,
and the Way Our Cities Are Built,” in Art and Activism in the Age of Globalization, eds. Lieven de
Cauter, Ruben de Roo and Karel Vanhaesebrouck (NAi, 2011), 184-190.
o Hito Steyerl, “How To Kill People: A Problem of Design,” e-flux journal (Dec. 2016): http://www.e-
flux.com/architecture/superhumanity/68653/how-to-kill-people-a-problem-of-design/

WEEK 7 (April 6): ART/ARCHITECTURE & THE MARKET

• Focus artists/architects: Rural Studio, The Architecture Lobby, Postcommodity
• Required readings:
o “Architecture and Capitalism: from Production to Product: an interview with Peggy Deamer,” in
Reflections on Architecture, Society and Politics, ed. Graham Cairns (Routledge, 2016).
o Douglas Spencer, “Ch 4: Labour Theory: Architecture, Work and Neoliberalism” and “Conclusion: The
Necessity of Critique,” in The Architecture of Neoliberalism: How Contemporary Architecture Became
an Instrument of Control and Compliance (Bloomsbury, 2016), 73-109, 161-163.
• Suggested additional sources:
o The Architecture Lobby: http://architecture-lobby.org
o Peggy Deamer, The Architect as Worker: Immaterial Labor, the Creative Class, and the Politics of
Design (Bloomsbury, 2015).
o ediciones chafa, “The Broad: Class Hatred, Concentrated,” edicioneschafa.wordpress.com (May 24,
2016): no longer available (contact Emily for PDF).
o James McAnally, “The Work of the Institution in the Age of Professionalization,” Temporary Art Review
(Feb. 23, 2016): http://temporaryartreview.com/the-work-of-the-institution-in-an-age-of-
professionalization/
 o Hito Steyerl, “Duty Free Art,” e-flux journal (March 2015): http://www.e-
flux.com/journal/63/60894/duty-free-art/
o Lee Vinsel & Andrew Russell, “Hail the Maintainers,” Aeon (2016): https://aeon.co/essays/innovation-is-
overvalued-maintenance-often-matters-more

WEEK 8: *** SPECIAL EVENT: DON18 with Ibrahim Mahama (Ghana) on Tuesday, April 11, 6pm; HIL E67
(NO CLASS on April 13)
• Required reading:
o “The Politics of Form and Materiality: an Interview with Ibrahim Mahama,” C&: Platform for
International Art from African Perspectives (April 27, 2015):
http://www.contemporaryand.com/magazines/test-the-politics-of-form-and-materiality/

WEEK 9 (April 20): NO CLASS / EASTER BREAK

WEEK 10 (April 27): ART/ARCHITECTURE SCHOOL

• *** SPECIAL EVENT (in class): architectural historian/theorist Jane Rendell (UK) will join discussion via Skype!
• Focus artists/architects: Forensic Architecture (Goldsmiths), Center for Spatial Humanities (Columbia GSAPP)
• Required readings:
o Jane Rendell, “Giving an Account of Oneself: Architecturally,” Journal of Visual Culture (2016): 1-15.
o Issue on “The Research Turn,” Volume 48 (2016): selected excerpts by Tim Ingold (pp. 43-49), Adrian
Lahoud (pp. 50-53), Irit Rogoff (pp. 116-119), and Eyal Weizman (pp. 144-145).
• Suggested additional sources:
o Archiculture, 25-mins. documentary film directed by David Krantz and Ian Harris (2014):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62r3UPrOS9k
o “Class Dismissed: Roundtable on Art School, USC & Cooper Union,” Artforum (Oct. 2015): 244-255.
o Hannah Rose Mendoza, “Beyond Doing Good: Civil Disobedience as Design Pedagogy,” Thresholds:
Socio- (Journal of the MIT Dept. of Architecture) vol. 40 (2012): 234-36.
o Douglas Spencer, “Ch 5: Festivals of Circulation: Neoliberal Architectures of Culture, Commerce, and
Education,” in The Architecture of Neoliberalism: How Contemporary Architecture Became an
Instrument of Control and Compliance (Bloomsbury, 2016), 111-137.
o Philip Ursprung, “Out of Bologna: Lacaton and Vassal’s Nantes School of Architecture,” e-flux journal
64 (April 2015): http://www.e-flux.com/journal/64/60867/out-of-bologna-lacaton-and-vassal-s-nantes-
school-of-architecture/

WEEK 11 (May 4): EVERYDAY ART/ARCHITECTURAL APPARATUS (e.g., Crit, Brief, Residency, Software)
• Focus artists/architects: Arno Brandelhuber, Liam Young, Parlour: Women, Equity, and Architecture
• Required readings:
o Bruno Latour & Albena Yaneva, “‘Give Me a Gun and I Will Make All Buildings Move’: an Ant’s View of
Architecture,” in Explorations in Architecture: Teaching, Design, Research, ed. R. Geis (Birkhäuser;
2008), 80-89.
o “Legislating Architecture” issue of ARCH+ (May 2016): selected excerpts.
o “Thinking Through Space: a conversation between Nikolaus Hirsch and Markus Miessen,” in What is
Critical Spatial Practice?, eds. Nikolaus Hirsch and Markus Miessen (Sternberg, 2012), 151-61.
• Suggested additional sources:
o Giancarlo de Carlo, “Architecture’s Public” (1970), ARCH+ vol. 211/212 (Summer 2013): 88-96.
o Renan Laru-An, “‘Please Hold Your Questions’: A Culture of Asking Questions as Criticism and
Authority,” Momus (May 30, 2016): http://momus.ca/please-hold-your-questions-a-culture-of-asking-
questions-as-criticism-and-authority/
o Parlour: Women, Equity, and Architecture non-profit/web platform: http://archiparlour.org
o Martin Waldmeier, “‘I Propose, Therefore I Am’: Notes on the Art World’s Proposal Economy,” The
Exhibitionist 10 (Oct. 2014): 28-33.

WEEK 12 (May 11): NO CLASS / FINAL PROJECT PREPARATIONS

WEEK 13 (May 18): FINAL PROJECTS „NON-CRIT“ [[DOUBLE-SESSION]]