MEMORY, NARRATIVE, HISTORY
THE POLITICS OF REPRESENTATION

17 - 18 NOVEMBER 2007

November 17th
10am - (approximately) 4.30pm (including a lunch break and coffee breaks)

November 18th
10am-3.30pm (including a lunch break and coffee breaks)

UNIVERSITY OF BRIGHTON GALLERY
HELD AT REGENCY TOWN HOUSE

Standard periodizations of the history of art distinguish between pre-modern, modern and post-modern. Today such a set of divisions is being challenged by alternative approaches that describe scopic regimes whose styles of representation and genres of art practices render some things visible and others beyond sight. These regimes set the parameters of representation, and are both expressive and determinant of the social and political structures that are their context.

This symposium will pose a series of questions about the role of artistic representation in the contemporary world. To what extent do figuration and narrative constitute necessary means for politically sensitized art practice? If it is the case since Malevich, that art must subvert itself, or must, at least, be hyper-sensitive to its status and limitations- how does that empower it politically? If practitioners, critics and historians have become familiar with the 20th century’s address to these questions, how is it that answers to them might now have been refracted in the 21st century?

The symposium is organized by the University of Brighton Faculty of Arts and Architecture in conjunction with the Haunch of Venison Gallery (London). It is designed to address questions about the direction of contemporary art practice, its responsibilities, its limitations and the relationship of these to curatorial decisions.