Multiples in Context: The Early Years

This session explores the emergence of multiples—three-dimensional objects issued in edition—from the late 1950s through the 1960s. Artists associated with Fluxus, Nouveau Réalisme, Pop, GRAV, and Zero, among others, embraced the multiple as means of challenging the elitist status of the art object and engaging with conditions of industrial production, commercial marketing, mass communication, and an increasingly global economy. We seek papers that investigate the diversity of approaches, modes of fabrication, and sociopolitical views articulated by artists across Europe and the Americas via the production and distribution of multiples. Topics such as international exchanges facilitated by multiples, the readymade as the forerunner of the multiple, and the relationship between multiples and emerging kinetic and proto-conceptual practices that demanded new kinds of audience participation are welcome. Papers that address the apparent contradiction between the democratic aspirations espoused by some producers of multiples and the realities of an expanding consumer culture that informed these endeavors are also encouraged.

Please email your proposals to Meredith Malone, Washington University in St. Louis, meredith_malonewustl.edu; and Bradley Bailey, Saint Louis University, bbaile10slu.edu.

Proposals should include:

1. Completed session participation proposal form.
2. Preliminary abstract of one to two double-spaced, typed pages.
3. Letter explaining speaker’s interest, expertise in the topic, and CAA membership status.
4. CV with home and office mailing addresses, email address, and phone and fax numbers. Include summer address and telephone number, if applicable.
5. Documentation of work when appropriate, especially for sessions in which artists might discuss their own work.

For further submission requirements see: http://www.collegeart.org/pdf/2013CallforParticipation.pdf

Chairs will determine the speakers for their sessions and reply to all applicants by June 4, 2012.