with Stephen Van Trees, Boris Groys, Maria Lind, Doug Ashford, Mary Walling Blackburn, Naeem Mohaiemen, and Emily Segal (K-HOLE)
e-flux
311 E Broadway
New York, NY 10002
www.e-flux.com
The talks will also be broadcast live here.
Stephen Van Trees and Boris Groys on Nikolai Fedorov and Russian Cosmism
Thursday, March 26, 2015, 7:30pm
As the closing event for Specters of Communism: Contemporary Russian Art, e-flux is pleased to host a lecture by translator and FAA aeronautics engineer Stephen Van Trees, followed by a conversation with the curator of Specters of Communism, Boris Groys.
Nikolai Fedorov was a remarkable Russian neo-Christian thinker who developed a metaphysical materialist philosophy in the years preceding the 1917 Russian Revolution. His eccentric form of radical humanism remains little known in the West, though he is absolutely key to understanding Russia’s succeeding philosophical, creative, and engineering endeavors. Van Trees’s talk will introduce Fedorov’s life and important themes in his thought, and discuss the contemporaries he influenced as well as later followers (the Cosmists) who continued his work.
Time to Talk about Art: Maria Lind in conversation with Doug Ashford, Mary Walling Blackburn, Naeem Mohaiemen, and Emily Segal (K-HOLE)
Wednesday and Thursday, April 8–9, 2015, 8pm
Even within small-scale and self-determined art initiatives now, the quest for mere survival often translates into an exclusive focus on infrastructural issues—on resources, funding, and even endless expansion. When do we actually talk about art? About specific art works and projects? About what they do and how they are perceived? As corporate megastructures like the Vuitton Foundation and maxi-bureaucratic approaches within public organisations demand more and more of our attention, we seem to have half-forgotten art itself. Or has art actually become something else altogether in the meantime?
Over two evenings, Maria Lind sits down with Doug Ashford, Mary Walling Blackburn, Naeem Mohaiemen, and Emily Segal (K-HOLE), to talk about individual artworks or projects chosen by the artists in light of these changes. For instance, Naeem Mohaiemen will discuss Jean-Luc Godard’s 1976 film Ici et Ailleurs (Here and Elsewhere).
April 8, 8pm: Doug Ashford and Mary Walling Blackburn
April 9, 8pm: Naeem Mohaiemen and Emily Segal (K-HOLE)
