Lecturers:
Lecturers: Thibaut de Ruyter
Dates:16-17-18.05.2025
Time: 14:00- 17:30
We all experience creative blocks, moments of doubt, and hesitation when faced with our own work. In 1975, musician Brian Eno and artist Peter Schmidt invented the Oblique Strategies—a set of 113 cards in a small black box, offering a playful way to overcome such impasses. By drawing a random card, one receives an instruction (cryptic, obscure, impossible, or poetic), which, when followed, helps to break through creative stagnation—leading to unexpected paths, forcing one to do what they don’t know how to do, and taking them places they never thought they would go. These cards have been widely used in music production (Brian Eno worked with U2, David Bowie, and Phoenix), injecting experimentation into the often overly structured world of pop music.
But what works in music also applies to art—both for artists and curators. This workshop will focus on studying the original cards and creating—more accurately, inventing—a new set tailored for curators and visual artists. Participants will learn to embrace obliqueness, to defy expectations, to avoid taking the easy route, to surprise, to think differently, to step aside, to reject formulas, and to resist repeating what they already know. In short, they will learn to be themselves.
One of the original cards reads Into the Impossible—it will serve as our starting point and the motto of the three-day workshop. By the end, participants will leave with a collectively invented set of their own.
The class will be held in English
To be part of the class please register in the link below no later than May 12: https://forms.gle/Kgfs4XPRDMpqftQm7
Thibaut de Ruyter
Thibaut de Ruyter is a French-German architect, curator, and critic based in Berlin since 2001. Trained as an architect, he approaches exhibitions on conceptual, technical, and spatial levels, shaping both content and design. His interests include media archaeology, the intersection of art and architecture, and the artistic scenes of former socialist countries, particularly Central Asia.
He has curated numerous exhibitions, including Wach sind nur die Geister (HMKV, Dortmund, 2009), Nam June Paik Award (Düsseldorf, 2010), Artificial Intelligence (Digitale Demenz) (Berlin, 2015), and 26 x Bauhaus (Berlin, Bremen, Munich, 2019). In 2021, he curated the 14th Museum Biennale in Krasnoyarsk, where 35 Berlin-based artists provided instructions for artworks produced locally.
His recent projects include a retrospective of IRWIN (Dortmund, 2023), a show on Kosovo’s art scene (Prishtina, 2023), an exhibition with artists at risk at IFA-Galerie Berlin (2025), and The Name of Samarkand (Art Station Samarkand, 2025).
He has contributed to L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui, Artpress, Frieze D/E, and co-edited books including Zeitgeist and Stadtbild. He is a member of AICA-France, the Nan Hoover Foundation board, and the advisory board of the ICA Yerevan.
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May Classes 2025 is supported by Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport, KCSF, SMART Balkans