International symposium on and from Edgardo Antonio Vigo. Networks, collaborative practices and projections in contemporary art

Instituto de Historia del Arte Argentino y Americano (IHAAA), Facultad de Bellas Artes, Universidad Nacional de La Plata

Call for papers
Edgardo Antonio Vigo’s work (La Plata, 1928-1997) includes various disciplines (engraving, drawing, collage, poetry), the invention and development of many devices/dispositifs (“señalamientos” or signaling events, mail art, visual poetry, objects), and multiple fields of action (teaching, art criticism, editing, translation, public administration). His practice was guided by a principle of “undisciplined gluttony” –as it is described by Ana María Gualtieri, director of the center that preserves the artist's legacy–, which made him concentrate intensively on multiple production modalities and, at the same time, expand on diverse fields of action and creative strategies. Vigo was a “distance manager” who diagrammed double movements promoting the development of the artistic field in his own city, La Plata, while encouraging its insertion in the international contemporary art field. In the same way, Vigo managed to articulate the sustained production of an individual body of work with the conception of collective projects and collaborative platforms.
Twenty years after the death of E. A. Vigo, the Instituto de Historia del Arte Argentino y Americano (IHAAA) dependent on the Secretaría de Ciencia y Técnica of the Facultad de Bellas Artes (UNLP) invites researchers in art history, visual studies and art theory to submit proposals focused on his work and the issues he raised throughout his career. The International symposium on and from Edgardo Antonio Vigo convenes to discuss and reflect on the legacy of the artist, considering specific aspects of his production, as well as possible projections of these issues in contemporary art.

We welcome paper submissions that address, but are not limited to, the following themes:

- Artists networks, creation networks, diffusion networks. Nature of networks. Networks, circuits, corridors, constellations, weaves. Image and word shifting in networks and circuits. Image and word in motion. Networks as an alternative space for the deployment of resistance strategies. Networks in the age of the Net.

- Collaboration, complementarity and interdiscipline. Art critics and artists in collaborative projects. Artists couples, shared creation. Critical practices on and in artistic languages. Interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary and multidisciplinary practices. Critique of specialization and utopias of transversality.

- Communication. Mail art and distance communication. Artistic practice and print culture: from engraving to editing. Taking the floor in public space: the artist as reader, writer and translator. Artist’s writings. The artist as editor: books, magazines, other publications. Artist’s libraries. Archival practices. From image to text: the artist as critic and theorist of art. Visual poetry. Image/word hybrid devices (dispositifs).

Submission of abstracts
Unpublished original proposals will be received until July 24, 2017. The submission will consist of a summary of up to 5000 characters with spaces and will include the title of the paper and keywords. The abstract should explain the main guidelines of the proposal detailing its thematic relevance, objectives, hypotheses and sources to work.

Two files should be sent simultaneously. The first one will contain:
Title of the paper
Abstract, omitting data of the author, pseudonym or institutional references
Keywords (between 3 and 5)

The other will include:
Title of the paper
Author’s name
Institutional affiliation
Country
E-mail address
Suggested themes in which the proposal may be included

The files will be named as follows: Surname_abstract and Surname_data respectively and will be sent in A4 format, line spacing 1.5, Times New Roman font, justified text. The format should be .doc, .docx, or .odt.

The language of the symposium is Spanish. Papers will also be accepted in English, French and Portuguese, but simultaneous translation during the meeting is not guaranteed.

Submissions will be evaluated by the scientific committee of the symposium and its decisions will be communicated to authors from August 11, 2017. They will be unappealable.

The files should be sent to the following e-mail address: jornada.vigo.ihaaagmail.com

Submission of full papers
The complete papers will be received until October 13, 2017. A maximum of 20 minutes will be allocated for reading or commenting each paper. The organization of the symposium will provide equipment to reproduce images, videos and audio files during the presentation of the papers.

Publication of papers
An electronic publication of the papers is foreseen after the symposium. The method of selection, norms for the authors and other data related to the publication will be communicated in following instances.

Registration and participation in the symposium does not require the payment of a fee.

Contact e-mail: jornada.vigo.ihaaagmail.com

Development of activities
During the symposium, there will be several sessions to read, comment and discuss the papers presented. In addition, special guests and members of the scientific committee of the event will take part. The date of the event coincides with an exhibition on Edgardo Antonio Vigo and mail art organized by the Centro de Arte Experimental Vigo (CAEV) that will take place in the Museo Provincial de Bellas Artes “Emilio Pettoruti” in La Plata.

Scientific committee
María Cristina Fükelman
María de los Ángeles de Rueda
Magdalena Pérez Balbi
Fernando Davis
Florencia Suárez Guerrini
Silvia Dolinko
Vanessa K. Davidson
Jean-Marc Poinsot

With the participation of:
Secretaría de Arte y Cultura, UNLP
Centro de Arte Experimental Vigo (CAEV)
Research project "Écritures et paroles d'artistes: contributions aux scènes artistiques contemporaines d'Amérique latine (ECCO AMLAT)" of the Maison des Sciences de l'Homme de Bretagne (MSHB) and the Université Rennes 2 of Brittany, France