Published: April 5, 2025; Aithor: Julia Sonrisa
Address: 133 West, 21st Street, #room 101c, New York, NY 10011, United States
Phone: +1 (212) 592-2274
Web: https://sva.edu/academics/graduate/ma-curatorial-practiceWhat does it mean to live under a canopy of thousands of partially interconnected engineered satellites circulating above us? Freedom is an outdated word that was used to describe a feeling of non-oppression, of movement, of choice, of potentiality to act, of self-determination. Freedom of individual choice, however, is no longer freedom in the era of predictive statistics of the algorithm that engineers attention toward personalized choices (the invisible prisons of our cell phones that produce chronic distraction); and freedom of expression is no longer freedom in the era of mass narcissism that relentlessly requires us to produce creative and expressive tangible and intangible goods. In this process, the urgency to see other forms and safeguard artistic freedom becomes ever more necessary. Artistic freedom could then be the Angel of History — an intellectual, imaginative, tender horizon that produces online and offline, singular and collective consciousness and moves freely. While crossing through ruins of expression, artistic freedom produces worlds. Here lies the supreme and welcome outdatedness of the theme of freedom, its libations, the possibility to reinvent its protocols. Satellites, like stars, like exhibitions, are the stuff of angels and engineers. The angel-engineers, with their hierarchy systems, can be ambivalent artistic figures of chimeric dystopian and utopian futures.
Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, former director of the Castello di Rivoli Museum of Contemporary Art and artistic director of many biennials and international exhibitions, including the Sydney and Istanbul biennials and DOCUMENTA 13, is considered one of the world’s most influential curators. We are honored to have her deliver our Distinguished Global Curator Lecture.
This event will be held in person at the School of Visual Arts, 133 West 21st Street, room 101C, in Manhattan. The room is on the ground floor of the building. Registration is important as your name will be checked when you enter the building. The event is free and open to the public. Attendees can also join via Zoom. The link will be sent one day before the event and again on the day of the event.
If you plan to attend the event in person, RSVP to macp [at] sva.edu to reserve your spot.
Time: 6:30-8:30 pm EST
Free!
Detailed information and discussion of the event.