International conference / live stream
December 3–4, 2020, 3pm
The international conference is part of the Igor Zabel Award for Culture and Theory 2020 programme
December 3–4, 3–5pm / live stream from Moderna Galerija, Ljubljana
live stream via e-flux
live stream via Igor Zabel Award 2020 website
Register to view the livestream. Registration isn’t mandatory.
The international conference reconsiders the universal during the era of global capitalism and pandemic, and aims to rethink our common future and the presence of art in the (entire) world that is (not yet) our world. Speakers: T. J. Demos, Boris Groys, Ade Darmawan/ruangrupa, Apolonija Šušteršič, Alberto Toscano, and Alenka Zupančič. Moderated by Dražen Dragojević
Programme
Day 1: December 3, 3–5pm
How art today imagines universalism and represents all-encompassing force such as the force of global capitalism?
3–3:15pm
Introduction by the organizers, Zdenka Badovinac, Moderna galerija and Urška Jurman, Igor Zabel Association for Culture and Theory
3:15–3:35pm
Alenka Zupančič: “The Art of Surprise”
Is art “of this world” or “not of this world”? The presentation will propose that art is at its strongest when it opens a perspective onto the world in an indirect way, from the new and surprising reality that art itself creates.
3:35–3:55pm
Boris Groys: “The Universal Subject of Care”
In contemporary society, there exists a universal mode of work—it is the care work. The securing of human lives is regarded by our civilization as its supreme goal. However, our culture is also permanently producing extensions of our material bodies: books, photographs, documents, videos, websites, etc. that are kept for some time after our deaths. The universal subject is itself a subject of care.
3:55–4:15pm
Alberto Toscano: “Quantities of the Past—Photography in the Aftermath of Capital”
The presentation will deal with the relation between photowork, landscape, and logistics, and will consider environmental devastation and its nexus with racial capitalism in light of arguments about “dead labour” presented by Fredric Jameson in his 2011 book Representing Capital.
4:15–5pm
Discussion
Day 2, December 4, 3–5pm
On the relation between the particular, the concrete, and the universal in the field of contemporary art.
3–3:15pm
Introduction by the moderator Dražen Dragojević
3:15–3:35pm
Apolonija Šušteršič: “Becoming Local”
The presentation will focus on the contradiction between the particular and the universal based on Šušterčič’s position as an artist who works with local people and environments from a non-local perspective.
3:35–3:55pm
Ade Darmawan/ruangrupa
ruangrupa is a Jakarta-based collective that supports the idea of art within the urban context to provide critical observations and views on Indonesian urban contemporary issues. Currently, the collective is curating documenta 15 in Kassel.
3:55–4:15pm
T. J. Demos: “Radical Futurisms—Worlds after the End of the World”
The presentation will offer a work-in-progress overview of Demos’s current book project, which investigates radical visions of justice-to-come in contemporary art and visual culture—including examples drawn from Indigenous futurisms, Afrofuturisms, and multispecies and post-capitalist speculative imagination.
4:15–5pm
Discussion
More about the conference and lecturers.
The award ceremony and accompanying conference are organized by: Igor Zabel Association and Moderna galerija, Ljubljana with the support of ERSTE Foundation.
