Panel: Does It Need to Be Called Art?

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Maureen Connor, SPQ faculty member, is part of a panel that looks to answer, maybe, a very interesting question:

Does It Need to Be Called Art?

Tuesday, January 29, 2013 @ 7pm
SVA Theatre
333 West 23rd Street

Free and open to the public.

When art is made or used as a tool of social or political activism, is it still best described as “art”? Critic and curator Saul Ostrow moderates a discussion on the topic with artist Maureen Connor, academic and activist Stephen Duncombe, curator and Percent for Art Director Sara Reisman and artist and urban designer Damon Rich. Presented by the BFA Visual & Critical Studies Department.

Moderator:

Saul Ostrow is an independent critic and curator and art editor at large for Bomb magazine. Since 1987, he has curated over 70 exhibitions in the United States and abroad. From 2002–12, he was chair of Visual Arts and Technologies at the Cleveland Institute of Art. He currently serves on the board of directors of the  College Art Association. http://www.collegeart.org/

Panelists: 

Maureen Connor combines installation, video, interior design, ethnography, human resources, feminism and social justice. Her exhibition venues include the Akbank Sanat, Austrian Cultural Forum New York, International Artists Studio Program (IASPIS), Momenta Art, Antoni Tàpies Foundation, Queens Museum of Art and Wyspa Art Institute. http://www.maureenconnor.net, http://theiwt.com

Stephen Duncombe is an associate professor at the Gallatin School and the Department of Media, Culture and Communications of New York University, where he teaches the history and politics of media. A lifelong political activist, he co-founded a community-based advocacy group in the Lower East Side and works as an organizer for the New York City chapter of Reclaim the Streets, an international direct action group. http://www.stephenduncombe.com

Sara Reisman is the director of New York City’s Percent for Art program, which commissions permanent public artworks for newly constructed and renovated city-owned
spaces. She has curated more than 40 exhibitions and projects for institutions, nonprofits and art spaces including The Cooper Union, Kunsthalle Exnergasse, Museum of Contemporary Art Republic of Srpska and Smack Mellon. She was the 2011 critic-in-residence at Art Omi, an international visual artist residency in upstate New York. http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcla/html/panyc/panyc.shtml

Damon Rich is a designer, artist and the urban designer and waterfront planner for Newark, New Jersey. His work represented the United States at the 2008 Venice Architecture Biennale and has been exhibited at the Canadian Centre for Architecture, MoMA PS1, the Netherlands Architecture Institute and the Storefront for Art and Architecture. He founded the Center for Urban Pedagogy, a nonprofit that uses design and art to improve civic engagement, in 1997. http://damonrich.net, http://welcometocup.org

It’s the Political Economy, Stupid!

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SPQ faculty member Greg Sholette has shared with us excerpts of his just-published compilation of essays, co-edited with Oliver Ressler, It’s the Political Economy, Stupid: The Global Financial Crisis in Art and Theory. 

The publication is accompanied by an exhibition at the Pori Art Museum in Finland, opening February 1.

The title of the book and the exhibition is a rephrasing by Slavoj Žižek of the phrase “It’s the economy, stupid”, a widely circulated phrase used during Bill Clinton’s successful 1992 presidential campaign against incumbent President George Bush Senior.

As Pluto Press, publishers of this and other books by Greg, put it:

“It’s the Political Economy, Stupid brings together internationally acclaimed artists and thinkers, including Slavoj Žižek, David Graeber, Judith Butler and Brian Holmes, to focus on the current economic crisis in a sustained and critical manner. Following a unique format, images and text are integrated in a visually stunning bespoke production by activist designer Noel Douglas. What emerges is a powerful critique of the current capitalist crisis through an analytical and theoretical response and an aesthetic-cultural rejoinder. By combining artistic responses with the analysis of leading radical theorists, the book expands the boundaries of critique beyond the usual discourse.”

Greg has generously shared excerpts from Its The Political Economy Stupid.  You can also buy it with money, or as one of the writers in this book calls it, the queen of all commodities.   Go to www.plutobooks.com