Academic year 2024-2025

RESEARCH SKILLS II (BA)
GENERAL

This course aims to develop research skills in the field of Modern and Contemporary Visual Arts. To this end, it focuses on a topic within the visual arts of the twentieth or twenty-first century. The course is designed as a research seminar. The emphasis is not so much on lectures but on various workshops and on carrying out a research assignment. All sessions for the component Research Skills II: Modern and Contemporary Visual Arts are organized collectively for all participating students.

In the 2024–2025 academic year, Research Skills II: Modern and Contemporary Visual Arts is linked on the one hand to the research project "Belgian art of the long eighties transitioning from the regional to the international: Aspects of the Ghent art scene, 1976–1992" (Sofie Frederix, 2024–2028, FWO fellowship, Ghent University). On the other hand, the course fits within a long-term research project on the history of the Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst (S.M.A.K., Ghent) (Koen Brams). More specifically, students investigate two exhibitions (one solo exhibition and one group exhibition) that took place in Ghent between 1965 and 1992. They focus on one artist who connects both exhibitions. Through a literature review, analysis of articles and press reviews, archival research, and interviews, students are expected to formulate and answer a specific research question based on the material they gather.