Spring 2016
Center for Curatorial Studies
Bard College
Annandale-on-Hudson, NY 12504-5000
T +845 758 7598
[email protected]
Dearest Visitor,
We would like to invite you to be part of the Visitor Talks program at CCS Bard this semester in the framework of “Plus One”—a series of lectures, discussions, and presentations about “being singular plural.”
Firstly, let us explain what we are up to over the coming months as a way of helping you make an informed decision. This semester we will engage in a number of topics, which we believe are worth sharing with you. Some of us will be curating cinema, or exploring sound and sexual difference. Whereas, others will be counter-planning architecture, media, and spatial design. Most of us will be analyzing curatorial thinking, art criticism, and histories of contemporaneity, whilst a few of us will be navigating our paths through archives, forensics, and evidential truths. As always we will be attempting to disentangle theory from practice, but this semester we will focus our interrogation on a number of leading questions such as: who actually constitutes the Center for Curatorial Studies? Is the art world normal? Does size matter? How do institutions really think?
Will you come visit us while we consider some of these questions? We would be particularly interested in having your singular perspective. That is, we aspire, as Jean-Luc Nancy did, to have insight into the nature of subjectivity as a state of always “being with” one “other.” This suggests being singular as akin to always being between one and the other.
Ultimately, we want to hear you talk about you “being with” another—a something or someone. Can you tell us about a solitary idea you are fixated upon, or singular thing, event, or an individual person you would like us to hear about over the course of an hour or so? Would you speak to us about one overarching question, which has preoccupied you forever or to come tell us of a more recent incident, object, project, artwork, exhibition, or informative practice you are currently thinking about?
Given the excess of information, narratives, representations, and references we experience today, there is little time for a deep, focused and critical reflection upon the extraordinary, the atomized, and the specific. Additionally, given that our self-presentational default is to “show and tell” everything we have done, we believe it could be more productive to hear about one solitary thing, a unique certain thought about or with one artist, group, curator, thinker, text, concept, show, or an artwork deemed worthy of our attention.
I really hope this works out. We are also open to you bringing a friend, a colleague or a guest and therefore our guest as well. You and your “plus one” are welcome in all forms.
Looking forward to hearing from you and setting a date.
Warmest wishes,
Paul O’Neill Director of the Graduate Program
The Visitor Talks are held at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, Classroom 102, 5–7pm, unless otherwise noted. All are free and open to the public.
Schedule of talks this spring are as follows:
February 8: Richard Birkett
February 15: Bridget Crone
February 17, 2–4pm: Maryam Jafri
March 7: Chris Kraus
March 14: Annet Dekker
March 28: Thelma Golden
April 4: Sarah Rifky
April 18: David Getsy
April 25: Thomas Lax
Previous speakers can be viewed here
