[Nettime-ro] Fwd: :: COMMUNISMS' AFTERLIVES :: 13.02.10 :: WIELS, BXL

[stefan rusu <suhebator@gmail.com>]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: marko stamenkovic <marko.stamenkovic1@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Feb 4, 2010 at 2:22 PM
Subject: :: COMMUNISMS' AFTERLIVES :: 13.02.10 :: WIELS, BXL
To: marko <marko.stamenkovic@gmail.com>




WIELS

Saturday, 13 February 2010 > 15:00 - 18:00
Av. Van Volxemlaan 354, Brussels

*
*
*COMMUNISMS' AFTERLIVES*

A conference curated by Elena Sorokina and Natasa Petresin-Bachelez for The
Public School.
With contributions from Adrian Rifkin, Marko Stamenkovic, Oxana Timofeeva,
Grant Watson.

http://www.wiels.org/site2/event.php?event_id=345


 Yevgeniy Fiks, Song of Russia no. 17, 2005-2007. Oil on canvas, 36 x 48"
A conference curated by Elena Sorokina and NataÅa PetreÅin-Bachelez for The
Public School <http://brussels.thepublicschool.org/>. With contributions
from Adrian Rifkin, Marko Stamenkovic, Oxana Timofeeva, Grant Watson.

Through a series of polemic dialogues, we would like to trace different
generations of intellectuals (artists, curators, philosophers, art
historians) from the former East and West of Europe that deal with "shades
of red", the afterlives of Communism and its (un) expected turning points in
its most recent philosophical and artistic reception following the financial
and, more generally, post-Fordist crisis.

After the collapse of the Soviet block, communism as idea, image or problem
has been regarded as "outmoded, absurd, deplorable or criminal, depending on
the case". Today, it is often presented by the mainstream media as a
parenthesis of history, an aberration of the 20th century, as "a completely
forgotten word, only to be identified with a lost experience". Although the
communist hypotheses of previous eras may no longer be valid, their
histories, narratives and key notions have never ceased to spark attention
and inform recent discussions such as the communal versus the common, and
material versus immaterial property, to name just a few. Perceived from a
greater distance today, communism has re-emerged as a topic for
investigation in artistic and exhibition production, that reflects it in
diverse ways, addressing the relevance of the term today or inviting
provocative comparisons with the present.

This seminar aims at presenting various works that recast ideas related to
communism and revisit it as a complex and diverse arena of political and
aesthetic attitudes, which varied between nations, communities and
historical periods. By no means does the seminar intends to take a nostalgic
tour through the past decades, but rather seeks to address the topic through
concrete art and exhibition projects realized recently. All of them are
trying to deconstruct the idea of monolith, still very present in today's
reception, and to recuperate various episodes, stories and notably, the
"communist apocrypha" - texts, music, visual production - which have never
been part of the established ideological canon, and whose intellectual
patterns shed new light on what the contemporary uses of the notion of
communism might be. Instead of treating communism as pure political
abstraction, the projects presented by the seminar deal with concepts,
events and/or particular personalities related to communism and its history
which have survived the Bildersturm of the recent past and can be
artistically reactivated.

The conference is part of The Public School Brussels, a permanent project by
the curatorial collective Komplot <http://www.kmplt.be/>.

NataÅa PetreÅin-Bachelez is a curator and critic based in Paris and
Ljubljana. She is a Ph.D. candidate at the EHESS in Paris where she also
runs a seminar on contemporary artistic practices with Patricia Falguieres,
Elisabeth Lebovici, and Hans Ulrich Obrist. She is currently working as an
associate curator at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. She is a member of the
editorial board of ARTMargins and Maska.

Elena Sorokina is Paris/Brussels based curator and critic. She was a Whitney
Museum of American Art ISP fellow in New York in 2004. Her recent projects
include "Petroliana" at the Moscow Biennial 2007; "Laws of Relativity" at
the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin, Italy; "On Traders' Dilemmas"
at YBCA, San Francisco, 2008; and âScÃnes Centrales" at Tri Postal, Lille,
France, 2009. She has been writing for Artforum, Moscow Art Magazine, Die
Zeit and other publications.

Grant Watson is a curator at MuHKA. He was previously the Curator of Visual
Arts at Project in Dublin where he focused on solo commissions from
contemporary Irish and international artists as well as themed projects such
as a series on communism that included an exhibition, book and radio
programme. Watson has worked with modern and contemporary Indian art since
1999, researching this subject for Documenta 12, as well as co curating
Reflections on Indian Modernism an ongoing series of exhibitions, talks and
events at the Office for Contemporary Art Norway.

Adrian Rifkin is a Professor of Art Writing at the Goldsmith University of
London. He is the author of Street Noises â Parisian Pleasure 1900-1940
(1993), Ingres Then, and Now (2000) and Cornelius Cardew: Play for Today and
other publications. He has researched and written widely on cultural and art
history and on topics ranging from popular music and opera to Kantian
aesthetics and gay subjectivities, and is currently preparing a book length
text provisionally titled "Losing myself".

Oxana Timofeeva is currently a researcher at the Jan van Eyck Academy
(Maastricht). She is a co-editor of the âNew Literary Observerâ magazine,
Moscow, and a contributing editor of different magazines on theory and art.
She has been a member of the St-Petersburg based group âChto Delatâ ("What
is to be done?") and worked on art projects, which were recently presented
at the Istanbul Biennial, Van Abbemuseum, Ludwig Museum of Contemporary Art
and other institutions.

Marko Stamenkovic is an independent curator based in Belgrade (Serbia). He
has been curating projects and exhibitions in Serbia and abroad, among which
the most recent are Splav Meduze (Center for Contemporary Art, Celje) and
Never Means Nothing (Tatjana Pieters Gallery, Gent). He has participated in
numerous international curatorial programs. His current interest revolves
around the existence of insular curatorial and artistic practices, the
reading of the image, the âspirit of expatriation' and dispersed experience
of subjects in constant movement.
 In English
3-6pm
Free
Since there are only a limited number of seats, it is strongly recommended
to book seats from:
http://brussels.thepublicschool.org/
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