Recent oppositional movements such as Occupy and Black Lives Matter have demonstrated how acts of cultural-political resistance and commemoration are closely linked to questions of space and public access.
Steffani Jemison will present her videosMeaning of Various Photographs to Tyrand Needham (2010) and Escaped Lunatic (2010-2011), which engage with the urban environment and the performative body moving through space. The screenings will be followed by a discussion withSteffani Jemison, Andrianna Campbell and Wilson Sherwin.
These screenings, discussions and the conference will explore how an image, an art object, and/or performance can not only refer to some past occurrence, but can also perform and project its agency into a world beyond its initial presentation. How does one’s position vis-à-vis such struggles enable or obstruct our ability to see, read, or understand art? How does alterity intersect and illuminate challenges to frameworks of power, or reconfigure our approaches to pictorial, choreographic, and/or physical space? These questions have been at the fore of national and international politics and are relevant to artists across media ranging from painting to performance.
Cosponsored by the PhD Program in Art History, and the James Gallery at the Graduate Center, CUNY.
