Co-presented by the Department of Art Hist
ory\, Visual Art and Theory and
to elaborate: discentre for c
uratorial projects
Monda
y\, December 4\, 2017
5:30 pm
Room 102\, Frederic Lasserre Buildi
ng
6333 Memorial Road\, University of British Columbia
Please co ntact the AHVA Visual Resources Centre for access to the event recording: < a href="mailto:ahva.vrc@ubc.ca">ahva.vrc@ubc.ca.
Through this per formative lecture\, Paul O’Neill reflects upon his curatorial practice\, co llective exhibition-making\, and the public as a constructed readymade. Tak ing his recent multi-year exhibition project We are the Center for Curatorial Studies\, Hessel Museum (2016–18) as its starting point\, this lecture reflects upon curatorial studies and extends a conception of the cu ratorial to account for multiple sites of contact\, assemblages and gatheri ng of diverse bodies and subjects as well as their discursive connections. In doing so\, it opens up a concept of the formation of the “exhibition” it self as a potential mode of research action in its own process of becoming.
O’Neill explores how different points of contact are made possible w hen exhibiting becomes a form of escape for the artwork as much as for the viewer. Here\, O’Neill identifies escape as a key concept for the curatoria l\, which defines itself as an act of release—from something\, somewhere\, someone—accompanied by the wish to be transformed. Escape implicates langua ge itself as being complicit with our need to be able to\, at least\, imagi ne ourselves elsewhere. How can a language of exhibitions\, therefore\, ena ble us to think attentively about escape as a curatorial form?
Dr. Pa ul O’Neill is an Irish curator\, artist\, writer\, and educator. He is Arti stic Director of Checkpoint Helsinki. From 2013 until July 2017 he was Dire ctor of the Graduate Program at the Center for Curatorial Studies (CCS)\, B ard College. O’Neill is widely regarded as one of the foremost research-ori ented curators and a leading scholar of curatorial practice\, public art\, and exhibition histories. O’Neill has held numerous curatorial and research positions over the past twenty years and he has taught on many curatorial and visual arts programs in Europe and the UK. O’Neill is one of the most w idely published authors in the field\, most notably with The Culture of Curating\, the Curating of Culture(s)\, published by MIT Press in 201 2. He received his doctorate in visual culture from Middlesex University\, London\, in 2007.