COPENHAGEN.- Mood Curriculum is a new 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 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.

The series opens with three podcasts featuring JF Martel, Ariana Reines, and Simon Critchley. The first live event will be on 14 August with artist James Richards and curator Fatima Hellberg. Further podcasts and events will follow in the autumn of 2025.

Mood Curriculum, Episode 1: JF Martel

In the first episode of Mood Curriculum, JF Martel discusses the re-issue of his 2016 book Reclaiming Art in the Age of Artifice (Basic Books, 2025). JF Martel is, amongst other things, known for the podcast Weird Studies which he hosts together with Phil Ford.

Mood Curriculum, Episode 2: Ariana Reines

In the second episode, Kristian Vistrup Madsen speaks 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.

Mood Curriculum, Episode 3: Simon Critchley

In the third episode, 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.

Upcoming Event

Negative Hands
James Richards and Fatima Hellberg moderated by Kristian Vistrup MadsenAug 14, 2025, 17:00-20:00

The first event in the series asks us to attune with art's negative potentials: the potency of refrain, the beauty inherent to certain types of loss. The artist James Richards will show a suite of recent films and the curator Fatima Hellberg will talk about her work with the collection at MUMOK in Vienna, where she has just begun her tenure as director.