March 23, 2016, 7:30pm
Please join us on Wednesday, March 23, at 7:30pm for a conversation between Luis Camnitzer, Liam Gillick, and K8 Hardy, prompted by Camnitzer’s text in e-flux journal issue 71, “The Cracked Ming Cup.”
From Camnitzer’s essay:
“In 1963, the Uruguayan writer and journalist Eduardo Galeano went to China to interview the last emperor, Pu Yi. He and I were both working for Marcha, a Uruguayan weekly, at the time. Upon his return he commented about finding centuries-old Ming cups treated as useless garbage because they were cracked and had lost their functionality.
I thought about how the relationship between value and labor might act as a filter for posterity. Both functionality and exchange-value affect legacy, determining what remains for future generations to encounter and what does not. Though a trivial insight, it hit me only then that the objects we use to understand different cultures are simply those that have been allowed to survive long enough to become symbols representing a set of relations we then define as culture.”
The conversation will be moderated by e-flux journal editor Stephen Squibb, and also celebrates the launch of the March issue of the journal.
On Tuesday, March 29 at 7:30pm, please join us at e-flux for a talk by Boris Groys on “The Truth of Art,” expanding on his text by the same title in the March issue of e-flux journal:
“If artists want to change the world the following question arises: In what way is art able to influence the world in which we live? There are basically two possible answers to this question. The first answer: art can capture the imagination and change the consciousness of people. If the consciousness of people changes, then the changed people will also change the world in which they live. Here art is understood as a kind of language that allows artists to send a message. And this message is supposed to enter the souls of the recipients, change their sensibility, their attitudes, their ethics. It is, let’s say, an idealistic understanding of art—similar to our understanding of religion and its impact on the world.”
We look forward to seeing you on East Broadway. For those who are unable to join in person, both talks will be live streamed here.
For more information, please contact program [at] e-flux.com.