From: "Nancy Condee" [log in to unmask]
Modernity and Contemporaneity (Pittsburgh, PA Nov. 4-6, 2004)
International Symposium on Modernity and Contemporaneity: Pittsburgh, PA
Nov. 4-6, 2004
In early November, the University of Pittsburgh will bring together a group
of the world’s leading scholars and art theorists for a symposium
entitled “Modernity and Contemporaneity: Antinomies of Art and Culture After
the 20th Century.” Among the symposium participants are Fredric
Jameson, Bruno Latour, Antonio Negri, Rosalind Krauss, and Boris Groys.
The symposium will challenge the notions of “modern” and “contemporary” as
they relate to both the works in the exhibition and to art and
culture throughout the world. Registration and detailed information, see:
http://www.mc.pitt.edu/. The event is supported with funds
provided by The Pittsburgh Foundation, The Carnegie Endowments, The Office
of the Provost and Office of the Dean of the School of Arts and
Sciences (University of Pittsburgh), with additional sponsorship from the
University Center for International Studies and the Graduate School
of Public and International Affairs.
The symposium, co-organized by Pitt’s Department of History of Art and
Architecture and the Graduate Program for Cultural Studies, will be held
in conjunction with the 54th Carnegie International, considered North
America’s leading survey of new art work worldwide. The Carnegie
International, organized this year by curator Laura Hoptman, is known as a
barometer of contemporary artistic directions in the Americas, Europe,
Asia, and elsewhere. Just as “modernism” and “postmodernist” have been used
to describe previous periods and movements in the 20th century, the
time in which we now live is already articulating its own descriptives. What
are they? Where are we now?
Partners in the enterprise are the Carnegie Museum of Art; Warhol Museum;
Mattress Factory; Center for the Arts in Society (Carnegie
Mellon University). The conveners are Terry Smith HAA), Okwui Enwezor (HAA),
and Nancy Condee (Cultural Studies, Slavic). Additional confirmed
participants include Wu Hung (University of Chicago), Geeta Kapur (New
Delhi), Robert Storr (Institute of Fine Arts, New York University),
Sarat Maharaj (Goldsmiths' College, University of London), Iwona Blazwick
(Director, Whitechapel Gallery, London), Nicolas Borriaud
(Co-director, Palais de Tokyo, Paris), Darby English (University of
Chicago), Gao Minglu (University of Buffalo), Jonathan Hay (Institute
of Fine Arts, New York), James Meyer (Emory University), Helen Molesworth
(Chief Curator, Wexner Center for the Arts), Sylvester
Ogbechie (University of California, Santa Barbara), Nikos Papastergiadis
(Director, Australia Center, University of Melbourne), Colin Richards
(University of Witwatersrand), Suely Rolnick (São Paulo PUC, Brazil), Monica
Amor (Maryland Institute College of Art), and Charity Scribner
(MIT, Massachusetts).
We look forward to seeing you at the symposium!
Objective:
To bring a number of the most promising young minds working in the arts and
culture from all over the world into direct dialog with the leading thinkers
on the key questions of what it is to be in the conditions of modernity,
postmodernity and contemporaneity, and what it is to represent these
conditions to each other.
Theme:
Recent events indicate profound realignments of modernity's great
formations, as well as the emergence of new ones. Among these: 9.11.01; war
in Afghanistan and Iraq; the uncertain prospect of a US Emperium; the
question of Europe, internally and externally; the implosive fallout of the
Second World; continuing conflicts in the Middle East, Central Europe,
Africa, South America and the Pacific; the deadly inadequacy of tribalism
versus modernization as models for decolonization; the crisis of post-WWII
international institutions as political and economic mediators (UN, IMF,
World Bank); the accelerating concentration of wealth in few countries, and
within those countries its concentration in the few; ecological time-bombs
everywhere; the ubiquity and diversification of specular culture; the
concentration and narrowing of media versus the spread of internet;
contradictions within and between regulated and coercive economies and
deregulated and criminal ones; the coexistence of multiple economies and
cultures within singular state formations (most prominently, now, China);
and the distinctively different models of appropriate artistic practice
foregrounded in major survey exhibitions, such as Documenta 11 of 2002 and
the 50th Venice Biennale in 2003.
This conference will bring together the world's leading analysts of how
broad historical formations manifest themselves in particularities and those
who are active in shaping those particulars. Key questions about the complex
relationships of the visual arts to modernity, postmodernity and
contemporaneity will be addressed. Philosophers, social theorists, artists,
critics, historians and curators will explore the constraints upon, and the
possibilities for, creation, reflection and interpretation in these times.
They will ask if there is, in the configurations of constraint and
possibility, a (paradigm) shift occurring? If so, can it be described as a
shift from modernity to contemporaneity? Or are we experiencing another
(lurching) turn of an older set of wheels? If there is a shift, is it to a
state in which the older paradigms actually continue to run alongside the
new? What of the webs of entanglement and breakage between these
de-synchronous configurations? Are they not the (elusive yet persistent)
stuff of contemporaneity?
Some recent changes in the language of the visual arts alert us to these
issues. "Contemporary" is the term now used everywhere for the art and
culture of the moment. It is the label of preference for the spectacular
occasions and edifices of the official creative industries, as it is for
those who critically contest them. Like "modern" and "postmodern" before it,
this usage is, often, an unreflective default, or it may perform a holding
operation, awaiting the deliverance of a new direction. "Postmodernism" has
long since vanished as a descriptor of current art, so how can
"postmodernity" still be the right concept for the social and cultural
conditions of that art's production? Lags between social domains are not
unexpected: but the arts and epochal formation have been so entwined for so
long that the question is now more urgently worth asking. On the other hand,
there is a modest but noticeable revival of interest among younger artists
and curators in modernisms of the recent past: does this indicate the
persistence of the dominant twentieth century aesthetic, and, in turn,
constitute one of the signs that social and cultural modernity did not
disappear? Only, for a time, change its face? Or is it the siren call of the
existing (modern) institutions, importuning their own survival? From a
larger perspective, these developments may signal that art, now and from now
on, will be, first and foremost, contemprist. And that it will emerge from a
general situation, which is no longer subject to periodization? A condition,
perhaps, of permanent contemporaneity?
Update:
A schedule, with confirmed presenters (including Fredric Jameson, Bruno
Latour, Antonio Negri, Rosalind Krauss, and Boris Groys) for the
Pittsburgh symposium "Modernity and Contemporaneity," 4-6 November, is now
posted at www.mc.pitt.edu. The site also includes summaries of the
22 papers and bios for the presenters. Online credit-card registration is
available on the page Register Now. Details are provided below.
All registrants will receive passes to the 54th Carnegie International
Exhibit, as well as free entry to The Carnegie Museum of Art during this
three-day period.
If you are interested in attending, please register online soon at
www.mc.pitt.edu. We may have limited on-site resources for
registration, and are currently trying to complete registration packets for
all online registrants. Regular registration is $ 50; student
registration rate is $ 25. If you have further questions, please direct
inquiries to Ms. Renee Abrams at [log in to unmask] or 412-363-3112. We
are looking forward to seeing you at this event.
Nancy Condee
(Director, Graduate Program for Cultural Studies, University of Pittsburgh)
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