"Please, teach me…"

For more than 10 years, Rainer Ganahl has been engaged in a subtle exploration of the points of overlap of art and learning, using a variety of media including photographs, videos, books, wall texts, and tapestries. Much of Ganahl's work falls into the following categories: Libraries, collections of scholarly books, intended to be perused by gallery visitors; Seminars and Lectures, where he attends and photographs seminars and lectures by leading scholars; Readings, where he photographs and/or videotapes invited participants as they analyze theoretical texts with him; Studies, portraits of himself as a learning machine, documenting his efforts to study new languages; and Dialogs, either interviews or collaborations outside educational institutions. Ganahl has had numerous solo exhibitions in Europe and New York and was selected as one of three Austrian representatives to the Venice Biennale in 1999. William Kaizen, a Columbia University doctoral candidate in art history, is the curator