The Visual Culture of Work
The Visual Culture of Work
The visual representation of work has had a complicated relationship to the emergence of capitalist society. To what extent did such approaches enable or make plain a range of political and aesthetic agendas? What were the considerations at stake in capturing the “facts” of industrial production? This project considers cross-disciplinary ideas and influences—ranging from art history, film and media studies, the history of science, literature, feminist theory, and political history—in the economy of work within modern and contemporary visual culture. In Winter Quarter 2016, this research project was launched as part of the Special Topics in Art Practice/Theory graduate seminar, entitled “Creative Life.”
The visual representation of work has had a complicated relationship to the emergence of capitalist society. To what extent did such approaches enable or make plain a range of political and aesthetic agendas? What were the considerations at stake in capturing the “facts” of industrial production? This project considers cross-disciplinary ideas and influences—ranging from art history, film and media studies, the history of science, literature, feminist theory, and political history—in the economy of work within modern and contemporary visual culture. In Winter Quarter 2016, this research project was launched as part of the Special Topics in Art Practice/Theory graduate seminar, entitled “Creative Life.”
Creative Life
Creative Life
This course is a pilot seminar on life and work focusing on methodologies of production—art, creative writing, history, theory, and criticism. It examines historical definitions of work, and practices and activities from life that have typically qualified or have the potential to qualify as work (in addition to critiques of these equivalencies). One central concern will be the consideration of intersubjective relations—professional and personal partnerships, friendships, and networks—which not only influence the trajectory of one’s life, but also the research one chooses to undertake and its variety of inflections. With the awareness that a range of libidinal drives and investments inhabit one’s production, participants will be asked to reflect upon their own working practices as a means of critically engaging the affective relations governing artistic and intellectual labor. Our emphasis will be on close readings, discussion, and the active workshopping of ideas and hypotheses related to the state of participants’ ongoing research. Readings include texts by Montaigne, Goethe, Hegel, Marx, Taylor and Mill, Weber, Husserl, and Foucault, as well as a range of critics, writers, and artists representing different methodological approaches and outcomes.
This course is a pilot seminar on life and work focusing on methodologies of production—art, creative writing, history, theory, and criticism. It examines historical definitions of work, and practices and activities from life that have typically qualified or have the potential to qualify as work (in addition to critiques of these equivalencies). One central concern will be the consideration of intersubjective relations—professional and personal partnerships, friendships, and networks—which not only influence the trajectory of one’s life, but also the research one chooses to undertake and its variety of inflections. With the awareness that a range of libidinal drives and investments inhabit one’s production, participants will be asked to reflect upon their own working practices as a means of critically engaging the affective relations governing artistic and intellectual labor. Our emphasis will be on close readings, discussion, and the active workshopping of ideas and hypotheses related to the state of participants’ ongoing research. Readings include texts by Montaigne, Goethe, Hegel, Marx, Taylor and Mill, Weber, Husserl, and Foucault, as well as a range of critics, writers, and artists representing different methodological approaches and outcomes.
Creative Life public seminars & events
Creative Life public seminars & events
Carla Lonzi: Subjectivity of Work
Carla Lonzi: Subjectivity of Work
Giovanna Zapperi, École Nationale Supérieure d’Art, Bourges
Giovanna Zapperi, École Nationale Supérieure d’Art, Bourges
Tuesday, January 26, 2016, 4pm, Visual Arts @ SME 406
Tuesday, January 26, 2016, 4pm, Visual Arts @ SME 406
Suggested Readings:
Suggested Readings:
Claire Fontaine, “We Are All Clitoridian Women: Notes on Carla Lonzi’s Legacy.” e-flux journal 47 (September 2013).
Claire Fontaine, “We Are All Clitoridian Women: Notes on Carla Lonzi’s Legacy.” e-flux journal 47 (September 2013).
Carla Lonzi, “Let’s Spit on Hegel,” in Patricia Jagentowicz Mills, ed., Feminist Interpretations of G.W.F. Hegel. University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996: 275–298.
Carla Lonzi, “Let’s Spit on Hegel,” in Patricia Jagentowicz Mills, ed., Feminist Interpretations of G.W.F. Hegel. University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996: 275–298.
Carla Lonzi, “Excerpt from Introduction to Autoportrait,” trans. Caroline Beamish, in Richard Flood and Morris Frances, eds., Zero to Infinity: Arte Povera, 1962–1972. Minneapolis: Walker Art Center, 2001: 165.
Carla Lonzi, “Excerpt from Introduction to Autoportrait,” trans. Caroline Beamish, in Richard Flood and Morris Frances, eds., Zero to Infinity: Arte Povera, 1962–1972. Minneapolis: Walker Art Center, 2001: 165.
Judith Russi Kirshner, “Voices and Images of Italian Feminism,” in Lisa Gabrielle Mark, ed., WACK!: Art and the Feminist Revolution. Los Angeles: Museum of Contemporary Art, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2007.
Judith Russi Kirshner, “Voices and Images of Italian Feminism,” in Lisa Gabrielle Mark, ed., WACK!: Art and the Feminist Revolution. Los Angeles: Museum of Contemporary Art, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2007.
Lucy Lippard: Art/Work of the 1960s and 70s
Lucy Lippard: Art/Work of the 1960s and 70s
Lecture and Workshop with Sabeth Buchmann, Professor of Modern and Postmodern Art at the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna
Lecture and Workshop with Sabeth Buchmann, Professor of Modern and Postmodern Art at the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna
Tuesday, March 8, 2016, 3:30pm
Tuesday, March 8, 2016, 3:30pm
Visual Arts @ SME 406
Visual Arts @ SME 406
In advance of Sabeth Buchmann’s lecture, Melinda Guillen and Paloma Checa-Gismero, PhD students in the Art History, Theory and Criticism Program in the Department of Visual Arts at UCSD introduce key themes of relevance for thinking through and learning from Lippard’s practice, and contextualize Lippard’s life and work. Melinda Guillen, whose research focuses on the institutionalization of art during the Vietnam War era in the United States, will share an excerpt a presentation entitled, “Naming Names: Feminist Revisionism and Socially Engaged Art Criticism” on labor, feminist art criticism, and the early work of Lucy Lippard, which she will present at the Open Engagement 2016 conference at the Oakland Museum of California in conjunction with the California College of the Arts. Paloma Checa-Gismero, who studies critical theory, cultural history, and contemporary art, will look at the topic of collaboration from Lippard’s 1979 novel I See/You Mean, which she has recently translated into Spanish for a feminist press in Bilbao.
In advance of Sabeth Buchmann’s lecture, Melinda Guillen and Paloma Checa-Gismero, PhD students in the Art History, Theory and Criticism Program in the Department of Visual Arts at UCSD introduce key themes of relevance for thinking through and learning from Lippard’s practice, and contextualize Lippard’s life and work. Melinda Guillen, whose research focuses on the institutionalization of art during the Vietnam War era in the United States, will share an excerpt a presentation entitled, “Naming Names: Feminist Revisionism and Socially Engaged Art Criticism” on labor, feminist art criticism, and the early work of Lucy Lippard, which she will present at the Open Engagement 2016 conference at the Oakland Museum of California in conjunction with the California College of the Arts. Paloma Checa-Gismero, who studies critical theory, cultural history, and contemporary art, will look at the topic of collaboration from Lippard’s 1979 novel I See/You Mean, which she has recently translated into Spanish for a feminist press in Bilbao.
Suggested Readings:
Suggested Readings:
Lucy R. Lippard, I See/You Mean: A Novel. Los Angeles: Chrysalis Books, 1979.
Lucy R. Lippard, I See/You Mean: A Novel. Los Angeles: Chrysalis Books, 1979.
Lucy R. Lippard and Charles Simonds, Cracking. Cologne: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, 1979.
Lucy R. Lippard and Charles Simonds, Cracking. Cologne: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, 1979.
Lucy R. Lippard, Issue: Social Strategies by Women Artists: An Exhibition. London: Institute of Contemporary Arts, 1980.
Lucy R. Lippard, Issue: Social Strategies by Women Artists: An Exhibition. London: Institute of Contemporary Arts, 1980.
Lucy R. Lippard, Connie Butler, Peter Plagens, and Griselda Pollock. From Conceptualism to Feminism: Lucy Lippard’s Numbers Shows 1969–74. London: Afterall Books, 2012.
Lucy R. Lippard, Connie Butler, Peter Plagens, and Griselda Pollock. From Conceptualism to Feminism: Lucy Lippard’s Numbers Shows 1969–74. London: Afterall Books, 2012.
Lucy R. Lippard, ed., Six Years: The Dematerialization of the Art Object from 1966 to 1972; A Cross-Reference Book of Information on Some Esthetic Boundaries.... New York: Praeger, [1973].
Lucy R. Lippard, ed., Six Years: The Dematerialization of the Art Object from 1966 to 1972; A Cross-Reference Book of Information on Some Esthetic Boundaries.... New York: Praeger, [1973].