Events: Panel at CAA

Collecting & Collectivity: Contemporary Art at the Interstices of Acquisition and Community is a panel co-chaired by Professors Noah Simblist and Charissa Terranova at the 96th Annual Conference of the College Art Association in Dallas, Texas February 20-23, 2008.

Dr. Catherine Caesar of the University of Dallas will present “The Display of Knowledge: Martha Rosler’s Library.” This paper investigates “reading rooms” by focusing on the recent exhibition of Marth Rosler’s Library. Dr. Marian Mazzone of The College of Charleston will present “Kabakov & Koons: the Artist in the Collective.” Dr. Mazzone juxtaposes these two vastly different artists in order to parse the actions and ideas that underpin “collecting” and “collectivity.” Dr. Pamela Smart of Binghamton University will present “Collecting as a Vocation: the Aesthetic Project of Dominique and John de Menil.” Instead of artists, Dr. Smart focuses on the collectors, the de Menils, and the progressive politics of Catholicism that is at the root of their collecting endeavor. The artist Lynn McCabe will focus on the role of collecting and collectivity in a presentation on her art and curator Allan Schwartzman will discuss his role as curator of the Rachofsky House Collection in Dallas, Texas.

Bios


Lynne McCabe is a Houston based multi-disciplinary artist whose interactive works focus on a process led and collaborative practice, creating work that is the product of social engagement and negotiation. McCabe designs environments whereby she can manipulate socially constructed notions of authority and trust. By referencing cultural indicators of safety, intimacy, and authority McCabe actively and cooperatively investigates the subtle negotiations of power and truth within a social context. The resultant tension and antagonism created - blurring the lines between manipulation and trust, control and intimacy - is where, she feels, the most interesting aspects of her practice lie.

Originally from Scotland, McCabe received her B.A with honors from The Glasgow School of Art in 1999 and held a residency at The School of the Art Institute, Chicago in 1996. She has most recently shown at Project Row Houses and selected exhibitions of her work have been held at The Columbus Theatre, The School of the Art Institute, Chicago (1996); The Daily Record (Scottish newspaper), Glasgow (1997); Glasgow Central Train Station, Glasgow (1999); Lawndale Art Center, Houston (2002); Triangle Project Space, San Antonio (2004) and Diverseworks, Houston (2005).

Allan Schwartzman is currently the curator of the Rachofsky Collection in Dallas who was formerly a curator of the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York. His writings about art have been published in The New Yorker, The New York Times, and Artforum.

Pamela Smart is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Binghamton University in New York who received her PhD from Rice University in 1997. She is interested in the anthropology of artworlds and is currently working on Sacred Modern: The Aesthetic Project of The Menil Collection, which examines the polemics between art museum ethnography and aesthetics in a socio-cultural perspective. She will be presenting a paper based on that research.

Catherine Ceasar received her PhD at Emory University and her dissertation about feminist conceptualism is titled Personae: The feminist conceptual work of Eleanor Antin and Martha Rosler, 1968—1980 (Lucy Lippard). She will be presenting a paper on the Rosler library.

Marian Mazzone teaches art history at the College of Charleston where she is also on the board of directors of the Redux Contemporary Art Center. As a Fulbright scholar, Mazzone has traveled to Ukraine and her focus is on contemporary art in Eastern Europe. She will presenting a paper on Kabakov and Koons.