Facing Forward: Lecture Evening #5

The position, function, scope, and character of the modern and contemporary art museum was defined in a drastically new way by the critical practices of conceptual artists in the 1960s and 1970s. The institutional criticisms which emerged in the 1980s also raised questions which made the future of the museum as an institution increasingly uncertain. Where will art belong in the future? Will it still have a place in the museum? And where will the museum belong, considering the public and context? Or is the utopian art institute a museum that is truly global and public, so that we can no longer talk in terms of a sense of “belonging”?

The future is not always rosy. In the Netherlands and other parts of Europe, museums and contemporary art institutes are currently facing drastic spending cuts which will force them – in the most ideal case, if they do not disappear altogether – to think of new institutional strategies and methods. If the museum of the future will soon be organized completely differently, if the four walls of the “white cube” are broken down and museums begin to function extra muros, what will the new theory of the art institute look like? What institutional, futuristic concepts do we need to deal with these sorts of changes?

About the speakers:

Hans Belting has taught as Professor for Art History at the universities of Heidelberg and Munich, where he held the most prominent chair in the field. In 1992, he became co-founder of the School for New Media (Hochschule für Gestaltung) in Karlsruhe, where he built up the discipline of Art Theory and Media Studies. In 2003, he held the European Chair at the College de France in Paris, where he presented a series of public lectures on the history of looking. He received an honorary degree from London University. Among his books in English translation are: The End of the History of Art? (1987); The Image and its Public in the Middle Ages (New York, 1990); Likeness and Presence. A History of the Image Before the Era of Art (Chicago, 1994); The Germans and their Art. A Difficult Heritage (New Haven, 2000); The Invisible Masterpiece (London, 2001); Art History after Modernism (London, 2003); Duchamp’s Perspective: Duchamp. Sugimoto. Jeff Wall (Cologne, 2009) and Bodies and Pictures. Toward an Anthropology of Images (forthcoming).

Iwona Blazwick is director of the Whitechapel Gallery in London, leading its expansion and reopening in 2009. As head of exhibitions and displays at Tate Modern, London, director of exhibitions at London’s ICA, and an independent curator in Europe and Japan, she has organized and commissioned numerous exhibitions of modern and contemporary art. She also developed the Contemporary Artists Monographs and Themes and Movements series at Phaidon Press and is the series editor of the Documents of Contemporary Art series published by Whitechapel/MIT Press.

This evening is made possible with the support of the Goethe Institute Amsterdam.

About Facing Forward: Art & Theory from a Future Perspective

The Facing Forward series consists of seven lecture and debate evenings addressing urgent themes that together envision possible futures for contemporary art and theory, offering innovative models and strategies for today’s artistic practices.

The complete program is as follows:

#1 FUTURE TECH - December 7‚ 2011, 8 pm

Speakers: Manuel DeLanda & Amber Case

#2 FUTURE IMAGE - December 14, 2011, 8 pm

Speakers: James Elkins & Jalal Toufic

#3 FUTURE HISTORY - January 13, 2012, 8 pm

Speakers: Amelia Jones & David Summers

#4 FUTURE FREEDOM – February 9, 2012, 8 pm

Speakers: Paul Chan & Hito Steyerl

#5 FUTURE MUSEUM - March 8, 2012, 8 pm

Speakers: Hans Belting & Iwona Blazwick

#6 FUTURE CITY - March 2012, 8 pm

Speakers: Rem Koolhaas (among others)

#7 FUTURE’S FUTURE - April 2012, 8 pm

Speakers: To be announced

Practical information:

Language: All lecture evenings will be held in English.

Location: Oude Lutherse Kerk, Spui 411 (corner Spui), Amsterdam.

Editorial board:

Jelle Bouwhuis (SMBA), Ann Demeester (de Appel arts centre), Hendrik Folkerts (Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam), Christoph Lindner (ASCA, University of Amsterdam), Domeniek Ruyters (Metropolis M), Margriet Schavemaker (Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam), and Tim Voss (W139).

For the full program, more information on the topics, speakers, and ticket sales, as well as information regarding the workshops, please visit our website www.facingforward.nl. Also follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

PARTNERS:

De Appel arts center

Metropolis M

W139

Stedelijk Museum

University of Amsterdam

SMBA

MEDIA PARTNER:

De Groene Amsterdammer

SUPPORTED BY:

Sns Reaal

Amsterdam Fonds voor de Kunst

Mondriaan Stichting