Overview of all pages with the tags #Art and Culture

The occupation of art's labor

April 1, 2012 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

ON NOVEMBER 28, 2011, Chris Mansour interviewed Julia Bryan-Wilson, Associate Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art at the University of California, Berkeley and the author of Art Workers: Radical Practice in the Vietnam War Era (2009). Mansour and Bryan-Wilson talked about the history of the Art Workers’ Coalition and its political relevance today, in light of the increasing involvement of artists and artistic strategies in the Occupy movement. What follows is an edited transcript. [Read More]

The antinomy of art and politics

A critique of art as "cultural resistance"

August 31, 2011 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

_AT THE 2011 LEFT FORUM, held at Pace University between March 18–21, Platypus hosted a conversation on the theme of Aesthetics in Protests. Panelists Stephen Duncombe (Reclaim the Streets), Marc Herbst (Journal of Aesthetics and Protest), Chris Mansour (Platypus), Laurel Whitney (The Yes Men), were asked to consider: “What are the historical roots that contribute to the use of current aesthetic interventions in political protests? In what ways do they expand or limit the possibilities for protests to transform the social order? [Read More]

Art Art and Politics Left Forum Art and culture

Trotsky's theory of art

July 1, 2011 | The Platypus Affiliated Society • Other languages: Deutsch

At its Third Annual Convention, held at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago between April 29-May 1, Platypus hosted a conversation on “Art, Culture, and Politics: Marxist Approaches.” Platypus members Omair Hussain, Lucy Parker, Pac Pobric, and Bret Schneider sought to address “What might the problems of aesthetics and culture have to do with the political project of the self-education of the Left?” A full audio recording of the event is available by clicking the above link. [Read More]

Art Art and culture Theodor W. Adorno Leon Trotsky

The relevance of critical theory to art today

January 1, 2011 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

ON SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2010, Platypus hosted a panel entitled “The Relevance of Critical Theory to Art Today” moderated by Chris Mansour at The New School for Social Research in New York. The panel consisted of Philosophy Professors J.M. Bernstein (The New School), Lydia Goehr (Columbia University), and Gregg Horowitz (Pratt Institute and Vanderbilt University), and Chris Cutrone (Adjunct Assistant Professor of Art History, Theory and Criticism, School of the Art Institute of Chicago), Member of Platypus. [Read More]

Art Marxism Art and culture Theodor W. Adorno Leon Trotsky Walter Benjamin

Petrified unrest

A review of the Creative Time Summit

November 6, 2010 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

In this situation of “crisis in perception,” it is no longer a question of educating the crude ear to hear music, but of giving it back hearing. It is no longer a question of training the eye to see beauty, but of restoring “perceptibility.” —Susan Buck-Morss1 THOUGH PROMPTING BOOS from the audience at this year’s Creative Time Summit, J. Morgan Puett’s declaration that “capitalism is here to stay” was unintentionally but conclusively affirmed by the content of the event as a whole. [Read More]

Art Hans Haacke Art and culture

I Can't Go On, I'll Go On

A Response to 'Questionnaire on ''The Contemporary''' in 'October' and 'What is Contemporary Art?' in 'e-flux'

October 8, 2010 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

All the things you would do gladly, oh without enthusiasm, but gladly, all the things there seems no reason for your not doing, and that you do not do! Can it be we are not free? It might be worth looking into. —Samuel Beckett, Molloy IN WALTER BENJAMIN’S MAGNUM OPUS, The Arcades Project, capitalist modernity is in several instances depicted as a “hellish” existence.1 He describes this condition as history continuing to truck along in its course, but only doing so regressively. [Read More]

Art Art and Culture

Is the funeral for the wrong corpse?

April 8, 2010 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

_HAL FOSTER IS a prominent critic and art historian who contributes regularly to Artforum, New Left Review*, and The Nation. He is also an editor of October. In the fall of 2009, he sent out a questionnaire to 70 critics and curators, asking them what “contemporary” means today. Foster notes that the term “contemporary” is not new, but that “What is new is the sense that, in its very heterogeneity, much present practice seems to float free of historical determination, conceptual definition, and critical judgment. [Read More]

1917 Art Art and Culture Artforum Artists Contemporary art Guy Debord Hal Foster Modernism Postmodernism Robert Smithson Stalinism Theodor W. Adorno