Location: Seminar Room 1, Department of Art History, University of Vienna
University Campus, Hof 9, Garnisongasse 13 1090 Vienna
Conceptualized and organized by Noit Banai and Gregor Pirgie
This international conference emerges from two premises, namely that the writing of Contemporary Art History in a global context is based on developing specific methodologies, theories, and histories that simultaneously continue and disrupt certain genealogies and paradigms emerging from multiple modernisms; and that art historians located in the city of Vienna can play a significant role in this endeavor through their particular positionality. With this double starting point, we wish to focus on the measures through which the multiple histories of contemporary artistic production can be written and consider our own entanglements in their formulation.
To open these pathways, we build upon the five years of dialogue, exchange, and collaboration with diverse protagonists in the field of contemporary art, initiated during Noit Banai’s position as Professor of Contemporary Art at the University of Vienna. Recognizing the importance of connecting theory and praxis, we wish to extend our conversations and analyses with individuals who participated in site visits that occurred in the context of excursions in the city of Vienna and beyond. Between 2014 and 2019, beginning with the imperative to “meet our neighbors,” we consider contemporary artistic practices, forms and techniques of production and reception, and role of institutions in the Austrian region of Vorarlberg and the proximate St. Gallen, extend our foray into Graz, and continue to Ljubljana, Zagreb, Rijeka, Sarajavo, Srebrenica, Banja Luka, Mostar, Novi Sad, Belgrade, and Pristina.
Image:© Jennifer Eckert
