Liverpool Biennial Conference
dal 18/10/2006 al 21/10/2006
Segnalato da
18/10/2006
Liverpool Biennial Conference
Liverpool Biennial, Liverpool
City Breaks?: Art and Culture in Times of Expediency. Biennial exhibitions are habitually criticised for spectacularising the presentation of art. However, in recent years the proliferation of Biennials has yielded different models.
Today, the idea of culture as an expedient has gained legitimacy in West and
underpins the enormous capital investment in a contemporary art infrastructure (of
late in China). Increasingly, culture is supported as a purveyor of economic
development and a tool to remediate social inequality. This trend has produced a
contradiction for art whereby accountability and visibility jar with
self-organisation and open-ended processes of valorisation.
Biennial exhibitions are habitually criticised for spectacularising the presentation
of art. However, in recent years the proliferation of Biennials has yielded
different models that distinguish themselves notably in their relation to place.
Where on the one hand this multiplication follows the logic of globalised capital on
the other a revaluation of our relation to the global has generated renewed
attention to the local situations and translocal existencies. In addition new
alliances between art, science and fe. ngo’s, cunning, trickery and ruses displace
rugged nostalgia for oppositionality. Arguably some Biennials have contributed to
the creation of new public spheres and a meaningful critique therefore needs to be
precise about the ways in which the relation between the local and global is
constituted. How does this new generation of Biennials fare?
Arguably some Biennials have contributed to the creation of new public spheres in
their localities. Is it possible to square demands of city marketing and cultural
tourism with an engagement with issues of citizenship, communities, dissensus and
denizens? How can we constitute a bifocal perspective allowing us to examine the
visual regime of capitalist consumption and the immanent meaning of art and social
practices at the same time?
City Breaks? takes place over four days (the length of a ‘city break’), starting on
the Thursday evening with an evening lecture, and followed by morning panels and
afternoon workshops, in which thinking and doing enacts both local and international
dimensions.
With:
Ackbar Abbas, Cecilia Andersson/Work Ltd, Christian Nolde/ Biomapping, Claire
Bishop, John Byrne, Nina Edge, Charles Esche, Flying City, Beatriz Garcia, Jonathan
Harris+Felipe Hernandez/CAVA, Pablo Helguera/ The School Pan-American Unrest, Manray
Hsu, Gerardo Mosquera, Amalia Pica, Jean Francois Prost, Sala-manca, Stealth
Unlimited, Paul Sullivan/Static, Ti-Nan Chi, Stephen Wright, George Yudice, a.o.
October, 19, 2006
Liverpool Biennial
The Tea Factory - 82 Wood Street - Liverpool