Exhibitions and Exhibitionism: Art in Public Spaces

After a commission from the Berkley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Luis Camnitzer created below/here/above/ahead/was in 2022, a piece in which identical notepad papers are arranged and stylized differently and put on a wall. Camnitzer stresses that our perceptions and perspectives, rather than the distinctions we observe in objects, are what determine such disparities. In light of this most recent work, this lecture encourages further reflection on art inhabiting public spaces and its boundaries; it exposes the threats that art poses when it “overstays in our field of vision”, questioning artistic labour and the systems of power that control cultural production. Camnitzer advocates for ephemeral and renewable art because he regards permanent public art as a form of “colonization of the future” and opposes the idea of posterity that inhibits rather than promotes the future.

Luis Camnitzer (b. 1937) is a German-born Uruguayan artist, art educator, art critic, and curator who was at the vanguard of 1960s Conceptualism, delving into topics including the psychological and political aspect of language, social injustice, repression, institutional critique, art and pedagogy. He is Professor Emeritus SUNY Old Westbury and the author of many influential books, including New Art of Cuba (1994), Conceptualism in Latin American Art: Didactics of Liberation (2007), On Art, Artists, Latin America and Other Utopias (2009), which are among the first thorough studies on Latin American art from the Postwar decades. His works are in the most important international Museums' collections, such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, Guggenheim Museum, Tate Modern London, Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris, Cabinet of Drawings and Prints of the Uffizzi, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, Museo de Arte Moderno Buenos Aires and many others.

For participation online, please follow this link: https://eu01web.zoom.us/j/7475586652?pwd=SllJUUZhcHNZM1hvT3Boak5mQjlaQT09

Scientific Organization: Lara Demori

_{Image: Camnitzer, Below/Here/Above/AShead/Was, (2022-2023), adhesive vynil on wall, installation at UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive}