*Posted on behalf of Robert Summers*
Call for Lunch Time Panel Proposal
Queer Caucus for Art (QCA) an Affiliated Society of the College Art Association (CAA)
Annual Conference—Chicago, IL, 2010
Chairs: Virginia Solomon and Robert Summers
How is “Queer” Art Relational?
Ever since Nicolas Bourriaud’s 1998 text Relational Aesthetics, many art historians, critics and artists have been theorizing about and/or making art as a relationality, as community- and as world- making. But is “queer” art (however construed) engaged in the Bourriaudean notion of “relational aesthetics”? Or is it engaged in a slightly different style or form of relationality, with a different understanding of what constitutes the political, within both art and the relational? If Bourriaud is interested in the art of Liam Gillick, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Carsten Höller and others, then what of art and artists who work outside of this mainstream “art world”? How do “queer” practices and tactics—such as those enacted by LTTR, Ridykeulous, Ryan Trecartin, Ron Athey, General Idea, Ray Johnson, Jack Smith and others—enact a different version of so-called “relational aesthetics”? Or, indeed, those who refuse the “art world” yet
make “art” nonetheless—for example, the “art” of the cruise, the glance, the political action? How does “queer” (art)work enact an aesthetics of the relational that is critical of normativity in all of its forms? Who is left out of the framework of so-called “relational art” and its attendant history? Indeed, how are we to think relationality and aesthetics (the writing, the research and the art) “queerly”?
In seeking short papers that address some or all of the questions above, this panel aims to be inclusive of not only artists, art historians and critics, but also established and emerging scholars and practitioners in performance studies, theater, film, philosophy, sociology and other fields. Presenters must be or become dues paying members of the Queer Caucus of art by CAA.
Please send a 250 word abstract with a one-page CV to both Virginia Solomon and Robert Summers by the deadline June 1; accepted papers will be notified no later than June 15.
Virginia Solomon – [log in to unmask]
Robert Summers – [log in to unmask]
