ARTMargins

Contemporary art across the evolving global peripheries

Category: Volume 9 Issue 2

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Free Content © 2020 ARTMargins and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

 by Terry Smith ·

An Introduction to Nicos Hadjinicolaou’s “Art Centers and Peripheral Art” (1982)

Change in the history of art has many causes, but one often overlooked by art historical institutions is the complex, unequal set of relationships that subsist between art centers and peripheries. These take many forms, from powerful penetration of peripheral art by the subjects, styles and modes of the relevant center, through accommodation to this penetration to various degrees and kinds of resistance to it. Mapping these relationships should be a major task for art historians, especially those committed to tracing the reception of works of art and the dissemination of ideas about art. This lecture, delivered by Nicos Hadjinicolaou … Read more

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 by Michaëla de Lacaze Mohrmann ·

Marta Minujín’s Destructive Intervention

On June 6, 1963, after living in Paris for several months, Argentine artist Marta Minujín performed her first happening, The Destruction, at the Impasse Ronsin, the now legendary abode of many modern and neo-avant-garde artists. This article examines how The Destruction responded to the mediatization of Nouveau Réalisme’s performances, especially Niki de Saint Phalle’s Tirs, by entering a Duchampian discourse through its destabilization of authorship, originality, and authenticity—concepts central to Modernism and the anchoring of art’s market value. In addition, The Destruction used Brechtian strategies and routinized actions to undercut the ritualism, immediacy, and collaboration fundamental to the emancipatory promise

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Free Content © 2020 ARTMargins and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

 by Vadim Zakharov ·

Icons of Hell 7 Dictators, 700 Portraits, 7 Pages

Without an encounter with the unknown, creativity is impossible. In this encounter, there is no possibility for understanding anything, neither in terms of culture nor psychology. This is no dead end. Quite on the contrary: by finding your way out of the dead end, you can attain total freedom. Encounters with the unknown are extremely rare. The unknown is something you need to search out, overcoming the stereotypes of your thinking, the attitudes of your life and the dummies of your emotions. Our (creative) paths need to strike up against the unknown, no matter how thoroughly we build them and

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 by Sophia Powers ·

Agitated Together Again: The Laboratoire Agit’art at Dak’art’s 13th Biennale

One of the most remarkable exhibitions in the 13th Dak’art Biennale, “The Bell of the Ants,” was not part of the official program, but rather an independent show mounted by the long-time Dakar-based collective “Laboratoire Agit’Art.” This essay offers a historically-grounded analysis of the relationship between the exhibition and the biennial at large, exploring tensions between the global and local aspirations and modern and contemporary formulations it embodies.

ARTMargins, Volume 9, Issue 2, Page 98-111, June 2020.

Print Content / Volume 9 Issue 2

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Free Content © 2020 ARTMargins and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

 by Nicos Hadjinicolaou ·

Art Centers and Peripheral Art [A Lecture at the University of Hamburg, October 15, 1982]

Change in the history of art has many causes, but one often overlooked by art historical institutions is the complex, unequal set of relationships that subsist between art centers and peripheries. These take many forms, from powerful penetration of peripheral art by the subjects, styles and modes of the relevant center, through accommodation to this penetration to various degrees and kinds of resistance to it. Mapping these relationships should be a major task for art historians, especially those committed to tracing the reception of works of art and the dissemination of ideas about art. This lecture, delivered by Nicos Hadjinicolaou

… Read more

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Subscription Required © 2020 ARTMargins and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

 by Brynn Hatton ·

On Impossibility: Finding Vietnam in a Jordanian-Soviet Film Archive

In 2014, an abandoned collection of over 900 16mm and 35mm film canisters was uncovered in a storage locker in Amman, Jordan. Initial findings show that the films were likely exported from Russia to Jordan between the late 1960s and early 1990s as part of a Soviet cultural exchange program, and among them are are a number of propaganda films made to highlight relations between Vietnam, Russia, and concurrent political struggles in the Arab Middle East. Work on the archive continues despite recent restrictions on researcher access levied by state custodians. This essay positions the entire archive as an aggregate … Read more

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 by Roger Nelson ·

Curating as (Expanded) Art History in Southeast Asia: Recent Independent Projects in Ho Chi Minh City, Luang Prabang, and Phnom Penh

A small yet influential strain of independent contemporary curatorial practice has emerged in Southeast Asia, which is performing (expanded) art historical functions. This mode of independent curating now constitutes an important base for exciting new research—making use of diverse archives as well as other methodologies—to study the often little-known histories of the region’s modern arts, including its architecture, cinema, and photography. That such research is taking place in the context of independent contemporary curatorial practice is significant because it locates modern art history largely outside of large and state-funded institutions, including museums and universities, thus enabling the development and proliferation … Read more