Don't Look Back Review

One of our recent talks, organised in collaboration with Verso books and the New Statesman, was recently reviewed in Art in America. Just click on the title of this post to read the review..

Here's a bit of information about the event itself:


Don't look Back
Radical thinkers and the arts since 1909

Thursday 26 November 2009, 18.30–20.00

On the 100th anniversary of the Futurism Manifesto, critical thinkers Terry Eagleton, Simon Critchley, Kate Soper, Eyal Weizman joined chair Alberto Toscano in exploring a century of radical thinking and the arts - and debating what lies ahead. The recent Futurism exhibition at Tate Modern reminded us of an age when politics and aesthetics were densely interwoven in an explosive rejection of the past. This distinguished panel attempted to assess the legacy of modernism, and asked how today's radical thinkers might understand the role of the arts at the dawn of the twenty first century and beyond.

Speakers:

TERRY EAGLETON is Professor of English Literature at the University of Lancaster. His many books include Walter Benjamin: Or, Towards a Revolutionary Criticism in Set 4 of Radical Thinkers, Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate and the forthcoming The Task of the Critic: Terry Eagleton in Dialogue

SIMON CRITCHLEY is Professor of Philosophy at the New School for Social Research in New York and author of Ethics-Politics-Subjectivity: Derrida, Levinas and Contemporary French Thought in Set 4 of Radical Thinkers, Infinitely Demanding: Ethics of Commitment, Politics of Resistance, The Book of Dead Philosophers, On Humour and Continental Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction.

KATE SOPER is a Professor in the Department of Humanities, Arts and Languages at London Metropolitan University and author of To Relish the Sublime? Culture and Self-Realization in Postmodern Times.

EYAL WEIZMAN is an architect and Director of the Centre for Research Architecture at Goldsmiths College, University of London and author of Hollow Land: Israel’s Architecture of Occupation.

Chair: ALBERTO TOSCANO, editor of Historical Materialism, lecturer in sociology at Goldsmiths College, University of London and author of The Theatre of Production: Philosophy and Individuation Between Kant and Deleuze and the forthcoming Fanaticism: On the Uses of an Idea.

Late at Tate Britain

© Tate

Late at Tate Britain runs on the first Friday of each month from 18.00-22.00. It is the perfect opportunity to explore art after hours, relaxing with a drink and enjoying exhibitions, performances, music, talks and films. All events are free, and exhibition entry is half price.

For more information, visit the Late at Tate Britain facebook page.

The next Late at Tate to be curated by Paul Goodwin, the Cross Cultural Curator, will be Afrodizzia on 4 February 2010, celebrating the forthcoming Chris Ofili exhibition.

© Tate

Previously Paul curated the Late at Tate Britain in March 2009, responding to the Tate Triennial, Altermodern.

Altermodern: Remix explored some of the themes raised by the idea of Altermodernity in music, contemporary art and society. The concept of remixing was taken into the gallery with DJ sets from CDR, free-style poetry from Platform 21, and discussions on docu-fiction with the Delfina Foundation.

Check out the video of the evening made by CDR…

CDR Late @ Tate Britain from burntprogress on Vimeo.

2013

Laura Oldfield Ford

© The artist, 2009

Laura Oldfield Ford

Laura Oldfield Ford
Abandoned McDonalds
© The artist

Series two of Conversation Pieces begins with Laura Oldfield Ford considering the apocalyptic work of John Martin in the Sublime Display in Room 9, which will be visited as part of the talk.

Her own work depicts dystopian scenes and post-apocalyptic urban ruins. Taking her immediate habitat as inspiration, Ford makes work that imagines a future London which simultaneously sifts through the detritus of history. She weaves in narratives and personal histories, both her own and others occupying the same territory through past, present and future, resulting in an examination of London through different lenses. Semiotic ghosts haunt the desolate landscapes depicted in ballpoint pen, fluorescent spray paint and acrylic.


Laura Oldfield Ford
Savage Messiah Issue 8
© The artist

Since 2005 Ford has been making a zine called 'Savage Messiah' which uses apocalyptic language and imagery to create a sense of prescience and unease. Religious references are recuperated to scry into Britain's socio-economic future. Responding to the gentrification, or 'yuppification', of east London, Ford wishes to activate the past in order to conjure up a different future of ruptures in the smooth space of late capitalism.

Ford, originally from Halifax, West Yorkshire, completed a Fine Art Painting MA at The Royal College of Art in 2007 and has since become well known for her politically active and poetic engagement with London as a site of social antagonism.

In one sense the drawings allow for a chronicling of a disappearing London, and she has recently produced over a hundred ballpoint pen drawings as part of an ongoing project chronicling the impact of regeneration on London, 2013, Drifting through the ruins.

The drawings form a broken narrative, focusing on the part of east London currently being cleared for the 2012 Olympic site. Ford has made many walks through these abandoned areas and imagines them populated by the semiotic ghosts of failed utopias in the year 2013.

She writes on her website 'The London I conjure up in these drawings is imbued with a sense of mourning. These are the liminal zones where the free party rave scene once illuminated the bleak swathes of marshland and industrial estates'.

To view some more of Laura Oldfield Ford's work please click here.

Status of Difference

What is the status of difference: as moral imperative, sociological fact, cultural strategy or a form of aesthetic engagement? This series is a year-long platform for leading artists and thinkers to layout their visions about the status of cultural difference in the fast-evolving visual arts landscape.

Here's Paul Goodwin, Cross Cultural Curator, Tate Britain, to explain further:

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The next Status of Difference lecture will be:

Doreen Massey
Geographies of Difference
Wednesday 4 November 2009, 18.30-20.00

Eminent geographer and writer Doreen Massey challenges some of the current thinking about space and difference, asking if the very notion of place can be reworked to have progressive meaning in a globalised world. Is it time to re-imagine the geographies of difference?


Doreen Massey
© courtesy Open University


And here's some infomation about previous lectures:

Entangled Modernities
Wednesday 12 November 2008, 18.30-20.00
Writer and critic Kobena Mercer discusses how cross-cultural perspectives modify the standard picture of twentieth-century art; presenting ‘difference’ as a question of mutual entanglements among multiple modernisms and expanding out understanding of the conditions within which art circulates.
Responded to by art historian Dr Dorothy Rowe.


Post-Identity and Difference
Just What Is It That Makes Today’s Debates, So Different, So Appealing?
Wednesday 26 November 2008, 18.30-20.00
Writer, critic and curator Gilane Tawadros offers an insight into the shifting nature of ‘difference’, drawing on her ongoing engagement with artistic and curatorial practices in both the UK, Europe and Southern hemisphere.
Responded to by artist Sonia Boyce.


Richard Hamilton
Just what was it that made yesterday's homes so different, so appealing? 1992
Tate © Richard Hamilton 2008. All rights reserved, DACS


The Otolith Group
Nervus Rerum
Wednesday 4 February 2009, 18.30-20.00
The Otolith Group, founded in 2000 by artist Anjalika Sagar and writer and theorist Kodwo Eshun, presents Nervus Rerum (2008) and talk about their artistic work which rethinks various archives of futurity though moving image, sound, text and curatorial practice. Chaired by Paul Goodwin, Curator: Cross Cultural, Tate Britain.


Still from Nervus Rerum, in the room of Faridi Awad. Jenin Refugee Camp, 2008
© The Otolith Group 2008


Thelma Golden
Post-Black Art Now
Wednesday 11 March 2009, 18.30-20.00
Curator and writer Thelma Golden reflects upon the status of the term ‘post-black art’ in the context of debates about the globalisation of the art of the African diaspora and current notions of cultural difference.


Thelma Golden
Photo: © Timothy Greenfield-Sanders

Conversation Pieces

This series, which began in December 2008, aims to generate fresh perspectives on the art in Tate Britain’s displays. In dialogue with key art works, themes such as modernity, class, post-colonialism and aesthetics are tackled by artists from cross-cultural and trans-disciplinary viewpoints. Here’s the Cross Cultural Curator, Paul Goodwin, to say a bit more about it…





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The next Conversation Piece will be:

Laura Oldfield Ford
Wednesday 9 December 2009

Artist Laura Oldfield Ford considers the apocalyptic work of John Martin and his group of three 'Judgement Pictures'.


Laura Oldfield Ford
Site next to Queens Head Pub on Newton Road
© The artist


John Martin
The Last Judgement
© Tate


And here's some information about previous Conversation Pieces:

Ingrid Pollard on Landscape
Wednesday 10 December 2008, 14.00–15.00
Artist and photographer Ingrid Pollard reflects upon her artistic practice in conversation with key landscape works from Tate Britain’s collection displays.


Ingrid Pollard
Bursting Stone 1994
© The artist


Sir Nathaniel Dance-Holland
Thomas Nuthall with Dog and Gun
© Tate


Susan Stockwell
Transforming the Everyday
Thursday 5 February 2009, 14.00-15.30
Sculptor Susan Stockwell responds to themes of trade, mapping, recycling and re-appropriation both in her own work and key works in the collection.


Susan Stockwell's 'Taipei Stack' in the foreground, and 'Freefall' in the background, at the Hong's Foundation, Taipei, Taiwan, September 2008
© The artist


Vong Phannit
What Falls to the Ground but Can't Be Eaten
© Tate


Raimi Gbadamosi
Race, Power and Language
Thursday 12 March 2009, 14.00-15.30
Artist and theorist Raimi Gbadamosi asks crucial questions of race, language and power, referring to both the Tate Collection and his own practice: ‘What do I do?’, ‘What did they do?’ and ‘What do we all do now?’


Raimi Gbadamosi
Flag of the Republic
© The artist


Dante Gabriel Rossetti
The Beloved
© Tate


Maria Kheirkhah: The Anatomy of Ignorance. Part III 1001 Questions
Thursday 23 April 2009, 14.00-15.30
Installation and performance artist Maria Kheirkhah discusses issues around the relationship between artists, artworks and audiences within specific institutional and cultural contexts.


Maria Kheirkhah
The Anatomy of Ignorance
© Maria Kheirkhah 2009


Tate Britain
© Tate Photography


Nada Prlja
Return of the Red Bourgeoisie
Friday 15 May 2009. 14.00-15.30
Yugoslavian artist Nada Prlja’s art historical education was illustrated by crude black and white reproductions or photocopies of many works from the Tate Collection, here she revisits these works through her memories of growing up as part of the ‘red bourgeoisie’.


Nada Prlja
Illegal Alien, or how the perfect human jumps, from 'Aliens Within.Ltd
© The artist


Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Ecce Ancilla Domini! (The Annunciation)
© Tate


Leo Asemota
Beyond Portraiture
Wednesday 3 June 2009, 14.00-15.30
Artist Leo Asemota explains how his practice, and The Ens Project, expands traditions of portraiture through the complex layering of history, culture, memory and identity.


Leo Asemota
A Singular Plural 2005
© Leo Asemota & EotLA



Marcus Gheeraerts II
Captain Thomas Lee
© Tate

Introduction to the Cross-Cultural Programme

Hi all,

As some of you may know, the Cross Cultural Programme has been up and running at Tate Britain for a few years now, but we've not had a space to put up podcasts/videos of our events, nor interviews with artists/curators or images of work. Until now.. Welcome to the Cross Cultural Blog!

To start off with, here's a few words to outline what we're about and why we are here from the Cross Cultural Curator, Paul Goodwin.

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Working within the Public Programmes department, the Cross-Cultural Programme contributes to the contributing to the established programme of talks, conferences, study days and events but can also involve organising special displays and working with artists on education and interpretation projects, gallery interventions and performances.

Essentially, we aim to provide creative platforms for artists, curators, writers, commentators and academics to engage with cross-cultural ideas and concerns.

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This is a key moment in the ‘British’ art and cultural politics, which has led to our focus around the following themes:

Debates about ‘Britishness’ and visual culture (these ideas are also being explored in the Tate Encounters project)

The globalisation of the art world and the impact of migrant geopolitics on art practice and theory

Shifts in thinking about ‘multiculturalism’ and diversity in policy terms

We have already had a few years of exciting and thought provoking events. Highlights of 2009 include a film screening by the Otolith Group, a talk on Post-Black by Thelma Golden, Director of the Studio Museum, New York, and music and performances throughout the Late at Tate programme. Watch this space for news on upcoming activity....

(You can also check out the Cross Cultural facebook page)