Group Exhibition
Absolute Democracy, < rotor > association for contemporary art, Graz, Austria
ABSOLUTE DEMOCRACY
September 30 — December 21, 2012
Participating Artists: Julieta Aranda & Anton Vidokle; Petra Bauer; Lenin Brea & Nuria Vila; Miklós Erhardt & Claudio Feliziani; Isabelle Fremeaux, John Jordan & Kypros Kyprianou; Mariam Ghani; Carles Guerra; Vladan Jeremić & Rena Rädle; Nicoline van Harskamp; Jim Hubbard; Fernando Solanas; Nikolay Oleynikov; and Ultra-red.
Curated by: Carlos Motta & Oliver Ressler
The concept Absolute Democracy was originally used by the philosopher Baruch Spinoza, and meanwhile updated by the influential capitalism critics Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt, stands for a vision: for the vision of a republic founded on a broad collaboration of its citizens and on the development of common goods. It is an idea that propagates the redistribution of wealth and power and the possibility of new, more equitable systems of rule. It denounces the effects of capitalism and thus challenges a normative understanding of class, race, gender and sexuality. Against this background, “Absolute Democracy” takes a critical look at the concept of democracy, spotlighting the problem of its social, political and economic consequences and offering alternative interpretations of historiography.
http://rotor.mur.at/frameset_aktuell-eng.html
Opening Reception: Saturday, September 29, 2012, 12 noon
Opening speech by Gerald Raunig
< rotor >
Volksgartenstraße 6a
8020 Graz, Austria
This exhibition is part of steirischer herbst
Conference
Absolute Democracy, steirischer herbst, Graz, Austria —September 26, 7pm
ABSOLUTE DEMOCRACY
A conference organized by Carlos Motta (CO/USA) and Oliver Ressler (A) for steirischer herbst, 2012 — September 26, 2012 — 7pm
Participants: Manuela Bojadzijev, Janna Graham & Dont Rhine/Ultra-red (D/UK/US), Mariam Ghani (US), Nicoline van Harskamp (NL), Jennifer Gonzalez (US), Isabelle Fremeaux & John Jordan (F/UK), Miguel López (PE), Sofía Olascoaga (MX), Nikolay Oleinikov (RU), and Marco Scotini (I).
The idea of an “absolute democracy“ suggests the need for the redistribution of wealth and power and the radical transformation of systems of rule. It denounces the effects of capitalism and in that way challenges normative understandings of class, race, gender and sexuality. “Absolute Democracy“ convenes an international group of cultural producers to discuss the construction of a plural, heterogeneous, inclusive and “absolute“ democracy. The conference is composed of two sessions: “Forms of Democracy: Activism, Art and Cultural Production“, which features presentations by artists and theoreticians that question past and existing forms of democratic participation, revise historical accounts and interpret forms of artistic production and documentation; and “Thinking Politics Freed From the State“, a session devoted to presentations that imagine new democratic models independent from the State and that envision new understandings of governability and of self-determination.
Session 1: Forms of Democracy: Activism, Art and Cultural Production
Introduction/Moderation: Carlos Motta (CO/US)
Manuela Bojadzijev, Janna Graham & Dont Rhine from Ultra-red (D/UK/US)
Mariam Ghani (US)
Jennifer Gonzalez (US)
Miguel López (PE)
Nikolay Oleinikov (RU)
Session 2: Thinking Politics Freed From the State
Introduction/Moderation: Oliver Ressler (A)
Nicoline van Harskamp (NL)
Isabelle Fremeaux & John Jordan (F/UK)
Sofía Olascoaga (MX)
Marco Scotini (I)
Group Exhibition
Contested Territories, Dorsky Gallery Curatorial Programs, Long Island City
Award
Carlos Motta Awarded Kindle Project's 2012 Makers Muse Award
• JIBZ CAMERON • MIRANDA JULY • JOSH MACPHEE • CARLOS MOTTA •NOVA RUTH • MARJANE SATRAPI • FARDIN WAEZI •
It’s almost fall again, and with the season comes year four of the Makers Muse Award. We’ve spent the last year trawling the Internet, our cinemas, galleries, memory-banks, and libraries for the inventive and bizarre. While some have captivated us for years, others are new fascinations; this year’s recipients epitomize the awesome and the valorous.
Through the use of video, graphic novels, performance, writing, installation, web projects, design, archiving, music, and photography, the 2012 awardees all have a profoundly interdisciplinary edge to them. Tackling issues from justice to sexuality, uprisings to economy, these individuals will surely galvanize and provoke you.
Coming from the US, Afghanistan, Iran, and Indonesia we present to you the 2012 Makers Muse Award recipients.
http://www.kindleproject.org/blog/2012/08/30/announcement-of-2012-makers-muse-recipients/
Artist Talk
Algunos apuntes sobre las políticas del afecto queer, Lugar a dudas, Cali, August 9
Book Launch
Nosotros que sentimos diferente, Universidad Jorge Tadeo Lozano, Bogotá, August 9
Lecture and Screening
Carlos Motta "We Who Feel Differently at Gallery 400, University of Illinois at Chicago, July 17
Symposium
Digital Art & Democracy at University of California Santa Cruz, June 1
Solo Exhibition
Museum as Hub: Carlos Motta: We Who Feel Differently, May 16- September 9, 2012, New Museum
“Museum as Hub: Carlos Motta: We Who Feel Differently” is a multipart project that explores the idea of sexual and gender “difference” after four decades of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Intersex, Queer, and Questioning politics. The exhibition draws from Motta’s database documentary wewhofeeldifferently.info that consists of a website, publication, online journal, and discursive events. Conceived as a platform to engage critical issues of contemporary queer culture, “We Who Feel Differently” features a video installation based on fifty interviews with LGBTIQQ academics, activists, artists, politicians, researchers, and radicals from Colombia, Norway, South Korea, and the United States, exploring notions of equality, difference, citizenship, and democracy. The interviews address the history and development of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Intersex, Queer, and Questioning movements and experiences, proposing the notion of difference as a profound strategy for alliance building, solidarity, and self-determination.
We Who Feel Differently: Thursday Night Programs
5th Floor - Museum as Hub
Free
During the run of the exhibition, Motta invites local queer artists, activists, and academics to hold public events on select Thursday evenings in the Museum as Hub. Events include a conversation about transgender issues in contemporary art, a lecture on queer and feminist theologies, a workshop on HIV/AIDS activism today, a “cruising” walk, a presentation of a book about queer responses to gay inclusion in the military, and a collective reading of queer texts, all of which address critical issues of contemporary queer culture in the United States.
May 31: “Todd Shalom and Juan Betancurth: Sketchy Walk”
June 7: “Jeannine Tang and Reina Gossett with Eric Stanley and Chris Vargas: Love Revolution, Not State Collusion”
June 21: “Against Equality: Don’t Ask to Fight Their Wars”
July 12: “Jared Gilbert: Liberation Theologies for Secular Society”
July 19: “QUEEROCRACY: 30 Years In, 30 Years Out: AIDS Activism Today”
August 23: Other Arrangements: An Evening of Screenings Selected by Frédéric Moffet
September 6: “Carlos Motta and friends: Collective Reading”
About Museum as Hub
The Museum as Hub is a laboratory for art and ideas that supports activities and experimentation; explores artistic, curatorial, and institutional practice; and serves as an important resource for the public to learn about contemporary art from around the world. Both a network of relationships and an actual physical site located in the fifth-floor New Museum Education Center, Museum as Hub is conceived as a flexible, social space designed to engage audiences through multimedia workstations, exhibition areas, screenings, symposia, and events.
Symposium
We Who Feel Differently: A Symposium, May 4-5
New Museum, New York
We Who Feel Differently: A Symposium asks both what is at stake and what is made possible by embracing difference as a queer strategy within contemporary art, politics, and society. The two-day symposium was conceived by Performance Artist and Scholar Raegan Truax and Artist Carlos Motta and will be moderated by Ann Pellegrini, Director of the Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality at New York University.
SYMPOSIUM SCHEDULE
FRIDAY MAY 4, 4pm-8pm
We Who Feel Differently: A Symposium begins Friday afternoon with a keynote lecture by Norwegian Trans Activist, Sexologist and Professor, Esben Esther Pirelli Benestad. Pirelli Benestad’s talk will be followed by a panel discussion organized with a lens toward gender and specifically in conversation with trans and intersex experiences, histories and movements. Performances by queer artists, including Malik Gaines, will follow the Friday panel.
4:00 – Welcome - Raegan Truax, Performance Artist and Scholar
4:15 – We Who Feel Differently: The Project - Carlos Motta, Artist
4:35 – We Who Feel Differently: The Symposium, Opening Remarks - Ann Pellegrini
5:00 – Keynote Lecture - Esben Esther Pirelli Benestad, Trans Activist and Professor of Sexology, University of Agder, Norway
5:45 – Panel: Genderfull Lives, Genderfull Politics
- Reina Gossett, Community Organizer
- Tiger Howard Devore, Psychologist and Certified Sex Therapist
- Julian Carter, Associate Professor of Critical Studies, California College of the Arts
6:45 – Break
7:00 – Performance: Malik Gaines
7:45 – Closing Remarks - Ann Pellegrini and Raegan Truax
SATURDAY MAY 5, 12-4PM
On Saturday, the keynote lecture will be given José Esteban Muñoz, author of Cruising Utopia: The Politics and Performance of Queer Futurity (NYU Press, 2009) and Disidentifications: Queers of Color and the Performance of Politics (University of Minnesota Press, 1999). Muñoz’s talk will be followed by a panel discussion that will engage questions of queer memory, art and politics. A moderated roundtable discussion between all of the symposium panelists, speakers, and attendees will conclude the event.
12:00 - Welcome and Opening Remarks - Carlos Motta & Raegan Truax
12:10 - Moderator Remarks - Ann Pellegrini
12:15 - Keynote Lecture - José Esteban Muñoz, Professor of Performance Studies, NYU
1:00 - Panel: Queering Difference: Memory, Art, and Politics
- Heather Love, Author of Feeling Backwards: Loss and the Politics of Queer History
- Mathias Danbolt, Editor of Trikster - Nordic Queer Journal
- Emily Roysdon, Artist
- E. Patrick Johnson, Carlos Montezuma Professor of Performance Studies and African
American Studies, Northwestern University
2:30 – Moderated Roundtable, Symposium Presenters and Panelists
3:15 – Final Moderator Remarks, Ann Pellegrini
4:00 – Reception
