Reimagining Modernism, Mapping the Contemporary: Critical Perspectives on Transnationality in Art

A major, two-day international conference reconceptualising modernist artistic practices from a transnational, interdisciplinary perspective.

The conference develops a critical perspective on the proliferating discourses of the transnational, considering how they have reshaped the study of modern and contemporary art and the links that are articulated between them. It focuses on scholarship which foregrounds the methodological implications, as well as the historical unfolding, of transnational developments in and between artistic and curatorial practice.

PROGRAMME

Monday, 23 September 2013

9.45-10.15
Registration and Coffee

10.15-10.30
Welcome and Introduction
Luke Skrebowski and Devika Singh (University of Cambridge)

10.30-12.00
Panel 1: Transnational Modernisms
The “Modern” or the Missing Chapter in the History of Contemporary African Art
Maureen Murphy (Paris I – La Sorbonne)

Husain’s Walk Out of the Nation
Shruti Kapila (University of Cambridge)

Goodbye Marilyn, Goodbye Elvis: Tanaami Keiichi’s Response to America
Hiroko Ikegami (Kobe University)

Chair: Karolina Watras

12.00-13.00
Keynote 1
Why Do We Need to Reimagine Modernism?
Partha Mitter (University of Sussex)

13.00-14.00
Lunch

14.00-15.30
Panel 2: Spectures of Colonialism
After Revolution: Art and Homage
Stephanie Schwartz (UCL, London)

Purity of Art in Times of Transculturality:Modernist Art Theory and the Culture of Migration
Christian Kravagna (University of Vienna)

Transnationality in Contemporary Art and Ecology
TJ Demos (UCL, London)

Chair: Khadjia von Zinnenburg Carroll

15.30-16.00
Tea

16.00-17.30
Film Programme, currated by Shanay Jhaveri (RCA, London)

- Les Visites de Rabindranath Tagore chez Albert Kahn, Paris (1927)
- Charles and Ray Eames - House (1955)
- Pere Portabella - Mudanza (2008)
- Sedat Pakay - James Baldwin: From Another Place (1973)
- The Otolith Group - People to be Resembling (2012)

18.00
Drinks reception at Kettle’s Yard hosted by Andrew Nairne


Tuesday, 24 September 2013

9.00-10.30
Panel 3: Cosmo-Contemporary
The Positive Effect of the Anthropological Turn in Contemporary Art
Zahia Rahmani (INHA, Paris)

Populism, Elite Art and the Transnational
Julian Stallabrass (The Courtauld Institute of Art, London)

Interruption and Conjuncture
Kobena Mercer (Yale University)

Chair: Alyce Mahon

10.30-10.45
Coffee

10.45-12.15
Curating Panel / Roundtable; Cuating in the Global Field

Chaired by Andrew Nairne (Kettle’s Yard)
Participants: Elvira Dyangani Ose (Tate Modern), Kate Bush (Barbican Art Gallery), Vasif Kortun (SALT, Istanbul)

12.15-13.15
Keynote 2
Thinking Contemporary Art, World Historically
Terry Smith (University of Pittsburgh)

13.15
Close

The conference is organized by Luke Skrebowski and Devika Singh (University of Cambridge).

It has received support from: the Japan Foundation; the Terra Foundation for American Art; the Institut Francais and the Austrian Cultural Forum; in addition to that of the Centre for Research in the Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH), the Department of History of Art, Churchill College and Kettle's Yard (University of Cambridge).

Event webpage and registration: http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/2063/
Programme: http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/2063/programme/