|
Patterns
in disarray will gather artists, curators, researchers, art critics
and students at the Paço das Artes, São Paulo, Brazil, in early August
2005 to discuss the state of contemporary art through an inspection of
the art system and current art making strategies.
This
conference promotes the dynamic debate and sharing between agents of
the Brazilian and the international art scene with a twofold objective:
on one hand, it shall entice a discussion on contemporary cultural
politics and procedures, reflected on curatorial practices, the role of
institutions, the art market, mega-exhibitions, independent actions,
theoretical discourses, criticism and mass-media.
On the other
hand, the conference intends to bring to the fore the poetic and formal
aspects of artistic languages, which are informed by a plethora of
elements such as: art and politics, the recurrence of art historical
themes and self-reference, and the articulation of the critical
thinking produced within the art system itself. The formal aspects of
artistic languages point to new possibilities by making use of
appropriation, media hybridism, and language crossroads.
Such
a dynamic and unsteady ground provokes debates over the relationship
between art and science, the expansion and reinvention of photography,
the merging of languages such as cinema, video and digital media, as
well as the intertwining of the many dimensions that define
representational space. All these aspects reveal the complexity of
artistic subjectivity in our times.
Both the poetical and the
political aspects of art production emanate from a many-sided,
interdisciplinary, diffuse thought. After the seventies and eighties,
art production experienced an aesthetic and socio-cultural
re-orientation. Besides drawing, painting, sculpture and installation,
artists appropriated the digital and other technological media. Time
and space in the art universe have been constantly re-dimensioned.
What is the thought guiding contemporary artistic production?
The
notion of patters in disarray suggests a paradox. While we could
assume the exhaustion of the models or patterns of Modernism,
contemporary art draws on a surplus of art-historical references.
Moreover, there are no new models or patterns to be employed. Or are
there?
Is it possible to believe that art is still capable of
breaking paradigms? Or that art is still capable of being prospective?
Should we await upcoming ruptures? Considering the power media-produced
images, such as the massive repetition of the twin towers crashing on
September 11th or the fragmented records of the recent tsunamis, how
should art proceed?
Giving
the strength of communication industry and the dual basis of the art
production (art system, art making), how is contemporary art doing?
|
