Seminar in Visual Culture
Money Money Money
Institute of Germanic & Romance Studies, Room ST 275
(School of Advanced Study, Stewart House, 32 Russell Square, WC1B 5DN
London)

Thursday 26 Feb, 6.30 - 8.00pm

Samuel Thomson, "Artist Futures" (artist film presentation)
It is certainly no secret that trading in Fine Art can be an extremely
profitable enterprise and the idea of a financially speculative
art-purchase fund has been touted at various points over the last 25
years. A number of such funds have been waylaid by the recent Crunch
and Recession, Art prices apparently having reached their peak. As
dealers and collectors look to leave Europe and America for emerging
markets overseas, perhaps now is a good time to ask if such speculation
has had an identifiable effect on Western Art production in recent years.
Of course, as soon as outsider interests get involved, claims for the
autonomy of art wear increasingly thin. How does this affect the status
of progressive and critical art? To address these issues we must
venture back to the beginnings of Modernism, to the Rationalist's belief
in their own ability to change the world, and to the highly politicised,
debt-funded architecture of Baron Haussman and Robert Moses in Paris and
New York.
Does the recent debt-funded art-boom similarly reflect an aggressive
occupation of our culture by particular ideologies?
We visit galleries!
We visit art fairs!
Clement Greenberg admits he was wrong!

Jon Purnell, Cack-U-Like (art presentation)
The presentation will showcase Cack-U-Like's ceaseless attack on the
commodification of art since the art group's formation in 2001. Works
shown will include their seminal video/performance 'Demonstration
Against Toffs' as well as more recent works such as 'Public Request' and
'Hypno-Cack'
Cack-U-like spokesperson, Jon Purnell will not only highlight these
aforementioned but will give explanations of Cack-U-Like's intent and
underling ideas
It is a rare chance to see an overview of a much discussed,
ground-breaking art groups oeuvre; a display all the more poignant in
today's financial quagmire.
http://jonpurnell.co.uk/

RSVP ricarda.vidalsas.ac.uk so we know roughly how many people to expect.

The Seminar in Visual Culture aims to create a forum for practicing
artists, researchers, curators, students, and others interested in
visual culture to present, discuss and explore the various aspects of a
given theme within the field. In 2009, to keep apace with the present
credit-crunching times, the theme is Money.
While the media are providing us with endless analyses of the credit
crisis from all imaginable economic angles, it is now perhaps time to
look at how artists and writers are responding to Nasdaq and FTSE100, to
shiny coins and colourful banknotes and to the repetitive images of
worried brokers shouting into their mobile phones. After all, money is
itself an object of design and has long been the subject of the creative
arts and the credit crunch has not only inspired economists and
journalists.
The seminar looks at the relationship between art, money and the
everyday - in times of crisis and of affluence. Sessions include
theoretical papers, art presentations of new and existing work as well
as film screenings.
For more information please contact ricarda.vidalsas.ac.uk

Programme:
Thursday 29 Jan, 6.30 - 8.00pm
Dr. Yair Wallach, "Money becomes Text: Gold and Paper in Palestine"
Rebecca Ross (Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design), "Doing
Visual Culture: Currency and Graphic Design"

Thursday 26 Feb, 6.30 - 8.00pm
Samuel Thomson, "Artist Futures" (art presentation)
Jon Purnell, Cack-U-Like (art presentation)

Wednesday 25 Mar, 6.30 - 8.00pm
Marina Vishmidt, "Speculation as Mode of Production: Art, Money and the
Formalism of Value"
Carolyn Kay, "Economics and Gaming" (art presentation)
Tessa Garland, Consumerism and Art (art presentation)

Thursday 28 May, 6.30 - 8.00pm
Dr. Diane Gabrysiak (Birkbeck College), "Let's Make Money - Representing
money on film"
Morgan Adamson (University of Minnesota), "Inflation and the Image:
Film, Financial Crisis, and the End of the Gold Standard"

Wednesday 24 June, 6.30 - 8.00pm
Dr. Gavin Grindon (Kingston University), "Art-Activism, Anticapitalism
and Value - from the Situationist International to now"
Robin Priestley, The Space Hijackers (art presentation)
The Vacuum Cleaner (art presentation)