Part of the Seminar: Art for Collective Use Seminar - Monument, Performance, Ritual, Body
January 2016, Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova, Ljubljana
This lecture argues the conceptual significance of performance, and of a performative model of art, to the revival of the monument in Europe in recent decades. Widrich argues that the centrality of performance to public art in general rests not on its ephemerality or anti-authoritarian rhetoric, but on its power to build interpersonal bonds both personal and social, and on its engagement with urban space. Drawing from art examples in Europe and from theories of the public sphere, Widrich discusses the performative interaction with the urban fabric and its relevance for the development of the contemporary monument, as well as questions of censorship, authority, and the problem of agency in contemporary commemorative practices.
Mechtild Widrich is Assistant Professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and an affiliated researcher at the Eikones Iconic Turn Center at the University of Basel. She holds an M.Phil. in art history from the University of Vienna and a PhD from the History, Theory and Criticism Program, Department of Architecture, MIT.
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Organized by: Igor Zabel Association for Culture and Theory; Department of Art History, Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana; Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova, Ljubljana
Supported by: ERSTE Foundation
