Andrea Fraser’s work is an on-going investigation of what we want from art. She has used performance, video, and a range of other media to explore the motivations that drive artists, collectors, art dealers, corporate sponsors, museum trustees and museum visitors, from the pursuit of prestige to financial investment to sexual fantasy to self-realization. Developing on site-specific and research-based practices that emerged with conceptualism, combined with feminist investigations of subjectivity and desire, her methods are rooted in the psychoanalytic principle that one can only impact structures and relationships in the immediate performance. She is Professor in the Department of Art at the University of California Los Department and is visiting faculty at the Whitney Independent Study Program.

Fraser will speak about her work and the challenge of conceiving any way to participate in the art field that do not seem completely bankrupt and compromised.