[artinfo] Art and Politics The Imagination of Opposition in Europe

[The Art Projects Network]

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE

Dublin European Institute
With the Slovenian Embassy in Dublin

Art and Politics The Imagination of Opposition in Europe
University College Dublin
April 29 – 30, 2004

How does 'art' intersect 'politics' either when all art is politics or when
politics forcibly subsumes art to its will?  In the modernist tradition, art
and politics are autonomous fields. In totalitarian societies, everything is
politics, with all differentiation disappearing along with the limits
between public and private spheres. In post-imperial societies it is seen as
evident that art was rarely independent, playing as it did its own part in
the imperialist politics of cultural hegemony and giving rise to various
kinds of post-imperial cultural headaches. In post-socialist societies, it
becomes clear that, with everything being political, art can produce a
politics of its own, making the invisible aesthetic process that makes the
cultural hegemony of the socialist regime visible.

In the case of Slovenia, Neue Slowenische Kunst, as a collective project
starting from 1980 on, is the most outstanding case of the art of the
Eighties. It is an important starting point for analyses of how art and
artists react and interact with different political hegemonies – underlying
shared and differentiated experiences in both contemporary and historical
Europe.
An international panel of artists, art historians, critics, academics and
arts professionals will compare and contrast European experiences based upon
the themes above.

While the programme is being finalised, panellists thus far confirmed
include: Judith Devlin, ,Bojana Kunst, Marina Grzinic Mauhler, Paula Murphy,
Misko Suvakovic and Alexei Monroe.
____________
Noel Kelly
Partner - Programs & Projects The Art Projects Network
http://www.artprojectsnetwork.net