Public Lecture (25 April):
Contemporary Art at the Nexus of Cultures
Alexander Alberro's paper engages decolonial theory to explore the dynamic exchanges that materialize today at sites where the aesthetic ideals and values of disparate art frameworks meet. He acknowledges Western art’s epistemic dominance and proliferation but supplant its illusion of universality by recognizing a multiplicity of equally valid coexisting art formations with their own artistic narratives and practices. Many of these configurations are geographical, evolving outside the Western context. However, some are cultural and ideological, developing within the dominant formation’s domain. He sees the Western framework as at once crucial and insufficient for understanding contemporary art and seek to relativize its significance by bringing into focus the complex negotiations that transpire at its boundaries. Alberro's thesis is that the sites of encounter between the Western and other art frameworks are where artists produce much of today’s most innovative and transformative art.
Colloquium (26 April):
or PhD students and advanced Master students of the University of Bern
Part 1 of the colloquium is dedicated to the discussion of the lecture and the texts suggested by the guest. In Part 2, a core group present their PhD thesis, speaking for about 20 minutes on how concepts like “Globality" and related concepts ("Spatiality", "Transfer" etc.) connect to their research questions and which aspects of the texts are of particular relevance to their own work. The presenters raise questions for the discussion with their peers, which should contribute to the development of their thesis. Finally, in Part 3, the conversation will open up again so that the other PhD or advanced MA-students have an opportunity to address issues related to their projects.
Required reading:
Chinua Achebe, “The African Writer and the English Language,” in Isidore Okpewho, ed., ThingsFall Apart: A Casebook (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2003), 62-63;
Ngūgī wa Thiong’o, “Decolonizing the Mind,” Diogenes, 184:46/4 (Winter 1998), 101-104;
Stuart Hall, “Cultural Identity and Diaspora,” in Jonathan Rutherford, ed., Identity: Community, Culture, and Difference (Lawrence and Wishart, 2001), 222-237.
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Alexander Alberro, Virginia Bloedel Wright Professor in the Departments of Art History at Barnard College and Columbia University, has written widely on modern and contemporary art and theory. He is the author, most recently, of Interstices: At Contemporary Art's Boundaries, forthcoming with University of Chicago Press in 2024. He is also the founding editor of the University of California Press’ book series “Studies on Latin American and LatinX Art,” and sits on the editorial boards of Art Margins and Journal of Curatorial Studies. Along with Interstices, his books include Abstraction in Reverse (2017); Working Conditions, edited (2016), Luis Camnitzer In Conversation with Alexander Alberro (2014); What is Contemporary Art Today? edited (2012); Institutional Critique, co-edited (2009); Art After Conceptual Art, co-edited (2006); Museum Highlights, edited (2005); Conceptual Art and the Politics of Publicity (2003); Recording Conceptual Art, co-edited (2001); and Conceptual Art: A Critical Anthology, co-edited (1999). He has also published in a broad array of journals and exhibition catalogues, and delivered many lectures internationally.
Columbia University webpage: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/arthistory/faculty/Alberro.html
