Magdalena HoldarSenior lecturer, associate professor
About me
Magdalena Holdar is senior lecturer of Art History and Curatorial Studies at the Department of Culture and Aesthetics. She is also Director of Studies in Art History.
Teaching
I have been teaching courses and supervised students on all levels including PhD candidates since 2005, at Stockholms University but also at Södertörn University College and Konstfack University College of Arts, Crafts and Design. Between 2007 and 2014 I was Director of the two-year international Master's programme Curating Art, an education I remain engaged in through teaching and supervision of theses. In 2014 I taught a course at Amherst College, in close collaboration with the Mead Art Museum. The semester in Amherst was part of the STINT programme Teaching Sabbatical (prev Excellence in Teaching).
Courses:
- The Politics of the Art Exhibition (swe/eng)
- Artists on Art (swe/eng)
Courses developed for other colleges/universities: Art History I and II (Konstfack) and Contemporary Art and Curatorial Practices (Amherst College, MA, USA).
Courses on Advanced level:
- Curatorship (eng)
- The Practice of Art History (swe/eng)
- Exhibition and Master Thesis (examination courses) (eng)
Course developed for other university: The Effects of Exposure (Södertörn University College).
Research
I received my PhD at Stockholm University in 2005 with the dissertation Scenography in Action: Space, Time and Movement in Theatre Productions by Ingmar Bergman. Using director Ingmar Bergman’s late productions as case studies, the thesis developed theoretical and methodological tools for the analysis of art that is ephemeral or primarily exists in a state of continuous change.
My interest in the performative aspects of art and analysis has been further developed in later projects, such as the ongoing research Next to Fluxus / Seen from the Side (2016). This project investigates artistic and creative strategies in the transnational artists' network Fluxus (from circa 1960), with focus on the nodes Stockholm, Copenhagen, Cologne, Tokyo and New York.
Engagement in the curatorial master's programme Curating Art has also coloured my research interests and is currently being developed in a project that will investigate migrations in the work of artists in the 1970s and 1980s, when artistic practices were adopted by curators and thereby shifting the power-relations of the artfield.
Publications
A selection from Stockholm University publication database
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Fluxus as a Network of Friends, Strangers, and Things: The Agency of Chance Collaborations
2022. Magdalena Holdar.
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Framträdanden: performativitetsteoretiska tolkningar av Tadeusz Kantors konstnärskap
2022. Magdalena Holdar. Konsthistorisk Tidskrift 91 (3), 182-187
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Recension: All-Women Art Spaces in Europe in the Long 1970s
2019. Magdalena Holdar. Tidskrift för Genusvetenskap 40 (1), 110-112
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The Unlimited Performativity of Instruction Art
2018. Magdalena Holdar. The power of the in-between, 99-128
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Doing Things Together
2017. Magdalena Holdar.
ArticleHarald Szeemann's exhibition Happening & Fluxus (Kolnischer Kunstverein 1970) was the first to bring Fluxus into an institutional art world context. Previously avoiding such situations, Fluxus had primarily grown through artist-based networking, collaboration and self-curation during the 1960s. The exhibition evoked conflict both before and after the opening but had surprisingly little impact on Fluxus's aftermath. This article explores Szeemann's art historical take on the works in Happening & Fluxus. It concludes that by reducing attention to Fluxus's collaborative strategies and network structure, Szeemann overlooked the characteristics that are today acknowledged as the group's most significant.
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Glorious Catastrophe. Jack Smith, Performance and Visual Culture
2014. Magdalena Holdar. Konsthistorisk Tidskrift 83 (4), 335-339
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Mot könsmaktsordningen
2013. Magdalena Holdar. Svensk illustration, 320-331
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Gesten i ett material
2010. Magdalena Holdar. Det åskådliga och det bottenlösa, 42-49
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Klangen av 92 events /The Sound of 92 Events
2023. Magdalena Holdar. Ken Friedman: 92 events
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The historicization of Fluxus and its eventual institutionalization: A dialogue with professor Magdalena Holdar
2022. Magdalena Holdar. Fluxus Anthology, 78-83
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Show all publications by Magdalena Holdar at Stockholm University