In the third episode of Mood Curriculum, Kristian Vistrup Madsen speaks with philosopher Simon Critchley about his book On Mysticism (NYRB, 2024). With On Mysticism Critchley offers a roadmap to mystical practice and thought within the Christian tradition. He understands mystical experience as experience in its most intense form – mysticism is mediated immediacy. It is an antidote to melancholy, as Julian of Norwich puts it, "to the heaviness with which the self is attached to itself, riveted to itself. " It is also a call to intensify the senses: "God is all mouth", he quotes from Madame Guyon, and a movement away from the self: to write, in the words of Annie Dillard, "without a face".

Music by bitsy Knox and Roger 3000. Cover art by Tolia Astakhishvili.

In the second episode of Mood Curriculum, I speak with poet Ariana Reines about her book Wave of Blood (Divided, 2024), in which the native properties of poetry are harnessed to reckon with an acute real life crisis during the first months of the war in Gaza. In Wave of Blood there is real grief and anger; it is a challenging and very personal work. It opens with a quote from the poet and painter Etel Adnan that reads: "Science must not replace pain, because when that kind of catastrophe happens, it has no mercy."

Music by bitsy Knox and Roger 3000. Cover art by Tolia Astakhishvili.

Mood Curriculum is a series of podcasts and events curated by Kristian Vistrup Madsen that takes as its starting point his essay Mood Over Content, published by Kunstkritikk last year. Mood (Stemning) implies both attunement and resonance; the possible dissolution of the boundary between object and subject.

Mood is not information, but inherent to art's own ontology. Here, artwork and practice cannot be separated, but form a unit that necessitates that art's dissemination in itself must be practiced as an art form. What it posits is something at once so obvious and so completely alien as a turn towards aesthetic experience in contemporary art.

In the first episode of Mood Curriculum, JF Martel discusses the re-issue of his 2016 book Reclaiming Art in the Age of Artifice. I came across JF in the podcast Weird Studies which he hosts together with Phil Ford. Some of the heroes of the Weirdosphere, as they call it, are Carl Jung, David Lynch, figures from the history of esoteric thought like William James, James Hillman.

JF writes that "If the majority of aesthetic works fails to astonish us ... It may also have something to do with the fact that art ... is constantly being put to uses that are at odds with its essence." Instead, the kinds of objects that Martel is interested in are ones that come closer to the concept of mood: “The work shines from within,” he writes, emitting a “supreme quality that the medieval Scholastics defined as the quidditas or “whatness” of things.”

Music by bitsy Knox and Roger 3000. Cover art by Tolia Astakhishvili.

The conversation gathers the founders of three legendary exhibition spaces in Copenhagen. Each in their own way, and in their own decade, they have pushed the boundaries of what can be considered art, how it can be presented, and not least, how the audience can interact with it.

Self-organisation carries a long and important tradition within contemporary art – one that resists assimilation into institutional logics and insists on other ways of working, showing, and being together. Self-organization, as invoked here, is not a fallback plan for those positioned ‘outside’ the art world’s revolving doors. It is a conscious, persistent, and often precarious methodology – a plan in and of itself.

Taking Denmark as a starting point and examining its interconnected role within the global landscape, this talk seeks to politicize sustainable practices while underscoring the urgent need to confront colonial history. In this endeavor, it seeks to reimagine and conceptualize more equitable futures through chronopolitical methodologies, at a time when the pervasive visibility of enduring systems of violence and oppression makes the very idea of a collective future seem almost unimaginable. Yet, grassroots movements and organizations, drawing from Indigenous radical traditions and emancipatory praxis, are pioneering new experiments through visual culture, aesthetics, and social activism.

Thinking Out Loud is a new series of talks, performances, and events that will delve into critical themes spanning arts, philosophy, and social sciences. It aims to showcase diverse perspectives, promoting a collective exchange of ideas and dialogue.

The first event: Solidarity in the Arts, focuses on the intricate challenges associated with the ways cultural institutions engage in conversations, mediation and progression in times of crisis. It examines the extent and formats to which these institutions administer their agency amid complex questions and conditions. The presence of double standards, particularly in addressing colonial oppression, underscores the necessity to reassess collective discourse. This critical juncture has spurred an in-depth discussion about what tools cultural workers possess, and how institutions and spaces position themselves, especially when faced with censorship and financial limitations. This discussion also explores the potential for these institutions to adopt a more fluid, transgressive, and eclectic stance.

Simian is pleased to present Freja Sofie Kirk and Anna Weile Kjær in conversation about Kirk’s exhibition The End currently on view at Simian. The conversation will seek to unfold Kirk’s practice and revolve around the her methods and experiences in creating the work in the exhibition.