Dario Gamboni’s lecture series

Dario Gamboni’s lecture series to be held in Mumbai on January 23 & 24 2012. [dated January 2012]

Pro Helvetia - Swiss Arts Council and Mohile Parikh Center, NCPA, Mumbai invite you for the Dario Gamboni’s lecture series on modern and contemporary art on Monday, January 23, 2012 at 4:00 pm and Tuesday, January 24, 2012 at 4:00 pm 
Venue: NGMA Auditorium, Mumbai 
Speaker: Dario Gamboni 
Discussant: Shukla Sawant 

Programme Details:

January 23, 2012
RECYCLING NEOLITHIC URNS AND VINYL RECORDS: MATERIAL AND METAMORPHOSIS IN CONTEMPORARY ART 

In the first half of the twentieth century, the “truth to materials aesthetics” defended the notion that the materials of art were agents in the artistic process. Since then, the digital revolution and the delegation of artistic production to “fabricators” seem to have relegated materials to the role of passive, interchangeable instruments or to have let them disappear altogether. Recently, however, artists have given a renewed prominence to unexpected materials such as overpainted prehistoric ceramics and melted vinyl records. This lecture will examine works by these (very diverse) artists, such as Ai Weiwei and Dario Robleto, and compare the new meanings they give to materiality with developments in archaeology, popular music, and genetics. 

January 24, 2012
ART IN A PHYSICAL CONTEXT: CHANGES IN THE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN THE VISUAL ARTS, SPACE, AND TERRITORY 

“Globalization” also means an ever increasing circulation of images and artefacts. Around 1800, keen observers such as Goethe noted that this movement had already begun and that henceforth, works of art would no longer be seen and appreciated primarily in the location for which they had been made. The very idea of art became associated with sitelessness, an independence from place as well as from time and history. Ever since, however, some artists and theoreticians have tried to counter this “dislocation” by creating and praising works meant to be “site-specific”. The history of art has been deeply involved in these contradictory tendencies and it is only recently that a “geography of art” has started to gain a foothold in the English language. 

Dario Gamboni is professor of art history at the University of Geneva since 2004. He was a member of the Institut Universitaire de France, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fellow at CASVA, Washington DC, Meret Oppenheim Prize 2006, Senior Research Fellow at the Henry Moore Institute, and Clark Fellow at the Clark Art Institute, Williamstown. He was also a guest professor at the universities of Strasbourg, Frankfurt, Buenos Aires, Freiburg im Breisgau, Mexico, Sao Paulo, and Tokyo. He has (co)curated exhibitions including Iconoclash (ZKM, Karlsruhe, 2002) and Une image peut en cacher une autre (Grand Palais, Paris, 2009). He has published many books and articles including La plume et le pinceau. Odilon Redon et la littérature (Paris 1989), The Destruction of Art: Iconoclasm and Vandalism since the French Revolution (New Haven/London 1997), and Potential Images: Ambiguity and Indeterminacy in Modern Art (London 2002).

Shukla Sawant is a visual artist and currently an Associate Professor of Visual Studies at the School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Her research interests include Contemporary Art and Art in Colonial India. She has been a Commonwealth Scholar at the University of London and studied at the Ecole Des Beaux Arts Paris. Shukla works with photography, installation, and printmaking and her theoretical interests extend to writing on contemporary art. She has lectured extensively in various institutions and has been actively associated with artists’ initiatives. This programme is organised by Mohile Parikh Center, NCPA, Mumbai in collaboration with Pro Helvetia - Swiss Arts Council, New Delhi and supported by Hivos, Deon Foundation, Mondriaan Foundation and Arts Collaboratory. 

Admission free and open to all.