Conference
Initiated by Institutefor Art criticism (Isabelle Graw, Daniel Birnbaum, Nikolaus Hirsch)
Many art works today evoke the human figure: Consider the omnipresence of the mannequin in current installations of artists like John Miller, Thomas Hirschhorn, Heimo Zobernig or David Lieske. Or consider the revival of a minimalist vocabulary, which embraces anthropomorphism as in the works of Isa Genzken and Rachel Harrison. This conference seeks to speculate on the reasons as to why, since the turn of the Millennium, we have encountered so many art works that tend to reconcile Minimalism with suggestions of the human figure. It proposes that this new artistic convention becomes rather questionable when discussed in the light of Franco Berardi´s theory of semiocapitalism – a power technology that aims squarely at our human resources. The participants of this conference are asked to offer possible explanations for this wide acceptance of anthropomorphism – could it be that this is a manifestation of the increasingly desperate desire for art to have agency?
Participants: Hal Foster, Caroline Busta, Michael Sanchez, Ina Blom, Jutta Koether
Respondents: Stefan Deines, Stefanie Heraeus, Magdalena Nieslony, Oliver Brokel
Art and Subjecthood
The Return of the Human Figure in Semiocapitalism
3 pm Welcome (Nikolaus Hirsch)
3.30 pm Introduction Isabelle Graw "When Objecthood turns into Subjecthood"
4 pm Hal Foster "Philosophical Toys & Psychoanalytical Travesties: Dolls, Puppets & Mannequins in the 1920s"
5 pm Caroline Busta “Body Doubles“
6 pm Michael Sanchez “Behavioral: Some Thoughts on Art Under Network Capitalism“
7 pm Ina Blom "Media Animism. Rachel Harrison's Living Images"
8 pm Jutta Koether „Mad Garlands”
The conference is part of the project „Art and Life“ and made possible by Kulturfonds Frankfurt RheinMain
Today
Ongoing
Application: Master of Arts Program in CURATORIAL AND CRITICAL STUDIES
Information, 25 March – 31 May 2024
Phillip Zaiser (1969–2024)
Obituary, 6 April – 6 May 2024
R.H. Quaytman: Book
Lecture, 30 April 2024, 19:00
Camille Norment: Cultural Psychoacoustics
Lecture, 23 April 2024, 19:00
Water Cooler Talks 2024
Event, 10 February 2024, 10:00–18:00
Rundgang 2024
Exhibition, 9 – 11 February 2024, 10:00–20:00
Nora Turato: Lecture
Lecture, 6 February 2024, 19:00
Oladélé Ajiboyé Bamgboyé: Unmasking Series–Towards Public Co-creation
Lecture, 30 January 2024, 19:00
Unextractable? Sammy Baloji and Bénédicte Savoy in Conversation
Lecture, 25 January 2024, 19:00
Manon de Boer: Three Films
Lecture & Screening, 22 – 23 January 2024, 19:00
Ann Demeester: The Museum as Transhistorical ‘Garden of Consciousness’?
Lecture, 16 January 2024, 19:00
Moritz Fehr: Evocation, Installation, Simulation
Lecture, 9 January 2024, 19:00
Art and Subjecthood – a Conference on the Return of the Human Figure in Semiocapitalism
Event 1 July 2011, 19:00–21:00 Aula, Städelschule, Dürerstraße 10, 60596 Frankfurt am Main