“Hotel Theory,” presentation by Sohrab Mohebi

“Hotel Theory,” presentation by Sohrab Mohebi

Hotel Theory (2015). Installation view at REDCAT, Los Angeles. Photo: Rafael Hernandez.
“Hotel Theory,” presentation by Sohrab Mohebi
Date
May 11, 2016

Join us on Wednesday, May 11, at 7:30pm for a presentation by Sohrab Mohebi.

“A basic thing to accept is that the discourse immanently suggests epistemic criteria which in turn inform or generate ideological rather than (by now quasi) ontological commitments.”

—Art and Language, “Exhibition of Lectures,” 1971

“For it is not we who know, but rather a certain state of mind in us that knows.”

—Snejanka Mihaylova, A Prayer, 2015

“Social practice has no sociological content. Consider its history; because of its historical role within bourgeois ideology — the ideology of the ruling class, it can’t provide anyone with an analysis or even a picture of our conditions of exploitation.”

—The Red Krayola, “Don’t talk to Sociologists” (from the album Corrected Slogans), 1976

“In this case, no radical transformation is possible at the level of the speaker OR the listener because the subject is simply not embodied. (bang the floor) She is not present in the exchange! She is a fleshy vessel (bangs chest) in which language, protocol and therefore capital can travel, and she is NOT happy.”

—Cally Spooner, A Lecture on False Tears and Outsourcing, 2015

“… [Thinking], like designer drugs, was becoming ambient. That an atmosphere of meaning could be infinitely more affecting than any particular meaning.”

—Chris Kraus, This is Chance, 2004

“It seems that the disruptions you introduce into many of the discourses you challenge arise from the fact that you have occupied or can occupy these various theoretical positions as speaking subjects.”

—V-Girls, “A Conversation With October,” 1989

“[Anthropology] may profitably, after a troubled sleep, like linguistics, like sociology, like history, like psychology, or even mathematics, wake up to find itself among the arts.”

—David Antin, Is there a Postmodernism?, 1979

“WK. I’m glad you understand that Hotel Theory is not a theory of hotels, but a hotel named Theory, ie, a place where certainty falls apart, or where stupor gets an airing.”

—Wayne Koestenbaum in Conversation with Bruce Hainley, a theory installation by Jackson Pollock Bar, 2015

The presentation discusses the exhibition Hotel Theory that was held at REDCAT, Los Angeles in the fall of 2015. Curated by Sohrab Mohebi in collaboration with Ruth Estevez, the project took a quasi-historical look at the performance of theory in contemporary art presenting over twenty events of various shapes and forms including concerts, philosophical meditations, conversations, readings, lectures and panels. Following a conventional curatorial show and tell, the presentation will butterfly over some of the ideas and projects presented during the exhibition in an attempt to discuss the formal and contextual relations and differences.

If you are a diehard, or even a somewhat dedicated fan of The Red Krayola, please report to the presenter or the organizers, as the event will be hopefully followed by a karaoke of certain songs by the group.

For more information, contact program [​at​] e-flux.com.

Subject
Art Criticism

Sohrab Mohebbi is a writer and curator at SculptureCenter, New York.

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