Art Monthly Event

Panel discussion devised by Chris McCormack for Art Monthly and the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art.

Stella Nyanzi (Scholar and Human Rights Activist)
Sria Chatterjee (Contributing Editor, British Art Studies)
Ariane Sutthavong (Independent Curator)
Isobel Harbison (Lecturer, Goldsmiths, University of London)

How might the tension between individual body control and collective health security during this current ‘disruption’ of the pandemic be constructed through a timeline of conflicting modernities and vaccination? Further, considering the global as one continually remade by colonial forces and extraction, how might histories of pandemics chart our understanding of the way state-craft narratives have made visible the infected, the sick or dangerous body through border control. How might these broader forces be manifested at a cultural and art institutional level, and how might art confront these forces of ‘progression’ or continue to trade in these values?

Art Criticism and the Pandemic II continues and reshapes the discussions had at two events in 2020 which considered how the structures of a globalised art world had been interrupted or changed and whether, in the context of renewed activism, the art world is addressing problems of inequity and injustice in its own order. These ideas remain urgent as the art world negotiates the legacies and ramifications of making, thinking, and writing about art in the context of a global pandemic. Two live research lunch events across two days will provide spaces for testing out ideas voiced by a panel of speakers, followed by discussion and questions from attendees.

Zoom webinar