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Rethinking Art History Through Disability

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Goltzius
Hendrick Goltzius, The Artist's Right Hand, 1588, engraving, Haarlem, Teylers Museum

Thanks to the achievement of political and cultural activism, the term “disability” has gained more and more attention in society over the last decades. Nevertheless, the definition of disability as a social and cultural construct remains problematic. The human body represents a constant subject of artistic representation across all epochs and cultures as well as the fundamental medium of art production and reception. The arousing debates around the politics and the social condition of the body with functional diversity underscore the importance of rethinking the body and its historically constructed unity also inside the art historical research. How can disability studies help us to rethink the body across art history? What kind of social challenges do bodies with functional diversity put on artistic institutions, such as galleries and museums? How does the depiction of functional diversity stimulate artistic creativity and questions normative definitions of art?

Representing Disability

A first aspect of the project focuses on the “visibility” of functional diversity as well as of disability as a social condition. The research examines means and forms through which functional diversity visually manifests itself, for instance how artists have made the diversity of their body into the subject of their work or what kind of traces this diversity leaves in their works. By concentrating on its representation across different times and cultures, the project also asks about the visibility of disability as a cultural construct. It explores the rise and circulation of stereotypes and measures the impact that the visual representation of functional diversity has had on its historical and social perception. The goal is to develop adequate methodologies, concepts and vocabulary that can help to thematise disability within the art historical research.

Representation

Functional Diversity as a Challenge to the Understanding of Art

Traditional art historical narratives tend to underscore the celebration of the artist’s mental and physical skills as the conceptual basis of historical definitions of art. In the early modern artistic vocabulary, the ability to perform the act of creation finds a reflection in categories such as Kunst-Könnendestrezzabravura etc. intended as expressions of the uninterrupted unity of the idealized body. And yet many premodern artists seem to have engaged with the depiction of functional diversity as a mean to question not only aesthetic ideals, genre conventions, or the normative construction of the pictorial space, but also to rethink the work of the artists themselves. The project aims to examine visual means, techniques and materials used by artists to represent bodies with functional diversities and their epistemological and aesthetic access to the world as a powerful mean to test both the possibilities and the limits of art.

Art

The Access to Art and the Politics of Inclusivity

Ensuring an equal access to art represents a fundamental goal for most artistic institutions. The project addresses the rethinking of space policies and communicative practices through the inclusion of different notions of body in museums and other artistic institutions. It examines the reception of the most recent discourses around disability, accessibility and their function as a stimulus for creativity in design and architecture as well as in the shaping of exhibition spaces.  A further important aspect is represented by the role of mechanical and digital technology in opening new dimensions and possibilities for engaging with art. This enquiry should underline the importance of accessibility as a form of political and social inclusion, with particular focus on the art system and its mechanisms.

Museums

Weiterführende Informationen

Creative Access and Digital Innovation

23 January 2024 16:30 – 18:30 CET (online)

The event features four professionals and experts in the fields of accessibility and emerging digital innovations: Kamran Behrouz (Visual artist), Saverio Cantoni (Artist, Berlin), Georgina Kleege (University of California, Berkeley) and Nina Mühlemann (Artist, Bern Academy of the Arts). The event explores the role of new digital technologies from an artistic and academic perspective, delving into issues related to digital knowledge and spatial fruition. Guests and the participating group will have the opportunity to discuss and initiate a discussion on the points of convergence between art, scientific research and digital innovation with a view to new strategies for accessibility and inclusion. 

The online panel discussion is curated by Virginia Marano, a Fondazione Giorgio Cini fellow in the PNRR–PEBA project for the Removal of Physical, Cognitive and Sensory Barriers in Cultural Sites (EU-funded grant – NextGenerationEU).

The event will be held in English and will have live American sign language (ASL) interpretation by First Choice Interpreting Service.

For more information on accessibility and to register, please visit this link

Image credit: Liza Sylvestre, Captioned-Channel Surfing (still), 2016.

[Image description: Movie still, close-up of a white man and woman wearing summer clothes in a
rural setting looking excited in a phone booth. A caption reads “They are so young and excited and
happy."]

THE POLITICS OF (SELF) CARE

A Symposium on Disability Justice and Collective Action as Self-Care 

18 November 2023 15:00 – 21:00 

Caring Space at Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst
Limmatstrasse 270
CH-8005 Zurich

The symposium “The Politics of (Self) Care” takes place on the occasion of the exhibition Interdependencies: Perspectives on Care and Resilience at Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst. It addresses how social injustice and problems that exist in most of our societies can be made visible through art.
A great awareness in the politics of care has emerged against the backdrop of the global pandemic, but also in the wake of global protest movements that have drawn attention to structural forms of oppression in social systems and called for intersectional perspectives. The increasing recognition of disability and chronic illness in the arts has led to a long-overdue response to ableism in the art world and to the exploration of concepts of accessibility and disability justice. There is also cause for concern that these issues will quickly fade from the spotlight as the neoliberal machinery turns its attention to new topics once the pandemic becomes less of a priority for those privileged to ignore it.
While self-care is sometimes criticized as part of the capitalist wellness industry, disability justice thinkers remind us that it has a very different meaning from that perspective. The act of caring can thus become a critique of systems of domination and exploitation. The symposium points to the structural problems of health care in various societies that contribute more to the exclusion of those affected than to their inclusion. Similar effects also occur at the social level and in coexistence, as people can be excluded by ethical actions. In contrast, the symposium presents approaches that create connections between affected people, such as “care webs” that build their structures of care for themselves and their community. These are activist structures and communities that advocate for their rights. Based on these considerations, the symposium explores how established narratives can be addressed and rewritten through acts of care.

Image credit: Mae Howard, (Im)Mobility Appendage, performed in collaboration with Mistrix Sunmi on April 10, 2022.

[Polaroid image of Mae wearing all white, kneeling at a prayer bench. Their hands are clasped together and their head is bowed down. Mistrix Sunmi, wearing all black, can be seen from behind, piercing a needle through Mae’s back.]

POSTPONED: CRIP TIME

—new date to be announced soon—
8 March – 30 June 2024
Kunsthaus Zurich, Moser Building, Grosser Vortragssaal Heimplatz, 8001 Zurich

“Crip time is flex time not just expanded but exploded; it demands a reimagining of our perceptions of what can and should occur within a given time frame. It also underscores that our expectations of ‘how long things take’ are predicated on very specific minds and bodies. Rather than coercing disabled bodies and minds to conform to the dictates of the clock, crip time bends the clock to accommodate disabled bodies and minds.”
—Alison Kafer, Feminist, Queer, Crip (Indiana University Press, 2013)

In this panel discussion, conceived as a response to the topic of the current exhibition Time at Kunsthaus Zurich, Kamran Behrouz (artist and researcher), Chris Heer (jurist and inclusion expert, City of Zurich) and Charlotte Matter (“Rethinking Art History through Disability” research group, UZH) will exchange and reflect on different notions of temporalities informed by disability, chronic illness, notions of care and accessibility. The discussion will be moderated by Cathérine Hug (Kunsthaus curator of the exhibitions Take Care in 2022 and Time in 2023).

Initially planned for October 18, the panel has been postponed due to illness. A new date will soon be announced. Please reach out via email to register and get free access.

Image credit: Still from Carolyn Lazard, Crip Time, 2018, 10 minutes, color, sound.

BLIND FIELD SHUTTLE WITH CARMEN PAPALIA

Performances OCTOBER 7, 2023 05:30 PM – 06:30 PM, Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst.

Blind Field Shuttle is a non-visual walking tour in which participants line up behind the artist, link arms, and agree to shut their eyes for a roughly hour-long walk. Papalia describes the experience as an opportunity for the participant to unlearn visual primacy and use their non-visual senses as a primary way of knowing the world. The project grew out of the artist’s choice to describe himself as a “non-visual learner” and exists as one in a series of related works that highlights the unseen bodies of knowledge in non-visual spaces. The walk is organised by the research project "Rethinking Art History through Disability," at the University of Zurich in collaboration with the Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zurich. 

Carmen Papalia is a non-visual social practice artist with chronic and episodic pain. He uses organizing strategies and improvisation to address his access to public spaces, art institutions and visual culture. His work, which takes forms ranging from collaborative performance to public intervention, is a response to the harms of the Medical Model of Disability. Papalia has exhibited and performed internationally at venues such as the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art, Tate Liverpool, and the Banff Centre for Arts & Creativity.

Find further information here

Image description: Carmen Papalia leading a walking tour with his cane, guiding people across the street while a security guard observes them. Forming a line behind the artist, participants have their eyes closed and link their arm to the person in front of them.

 sculpture that looks like a pile of yellow violins and speakers installed on the floor of a gallery

Crip*—Cripistemology and the Arts

Liza Sylvestre and Christopher Robert Jones (Artists and writers)

University of Zurich, Rämistrasse 59, 8001 Zurich, Room (RAA-G-15) and online

01.06.2023, 18:15-21:00

Find further information here

Image credit: Christopher Robert Jones, “PureImagination_Sextet,” 2020, OSB, wood glue, twine, USB drive, media players, computer speakers, violin/vocal rendition. Courtesy of the artist.

Two flowers, a daisy and a rose, are in front of a white background. The daisy, facing upward, has a rosette of quite big, thin red petals surrounding a bright yellow centre. The red rose is upside down. Below a big font spells out "Crip #5. Istanbul Biennale 2022. The fermented issue. Magazine"].

Touch Me Not: Poetics and Politics of Intimacy

Screening of Touch Me Not (2018), followed by a roundtable discussion with Adina Pintilie (Filmmaker, visual artist and curator), Christian Bayerlein and Grit Uhlemann (Human rights activists and ambassadors of Awesomeness)

11.05.2023, 18:15-21:00

Zurich University of the Arts ZHdK, Pfingstweidstrasse 96, 8005 Zurich, Room Kino Toni ZT 3.G02 and online

Find further information here

Image credit: Adina Pintilie, You Are Another Me—A Cathedral of the Body, 2022. Multi-channel installation. Romanian Participation at the 59th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia. Exhibition view: Martin Backhaus.

Two flowers, a daisy and a rose, are in front of a white background. The daisy, facing upward, has a rosette of quite big, thin red petals surrounding a bright yellow centre. The red rose is upside down. Below a big font spells out "Crip #5. Istanbul Biennale 2022. The fermented issue. Magazine"].

The Museum through Touch: New Modes of Aesthetic Engagement

Georgina Kleege (Professor Emerita of English at the University of California, Berkeley, and disability studies scholar)

University of Zurich, Rämistrasse 59, 8001 Zurich, Room (RAA-G-15) and online

04.05.2023, 18:15-20:00

Institute of Art History, University of Zurich and Zurich University of the Arts ZHdK

Find further information here

Image credit: Jilian Crochet, Grieving Organism, 2018, silk velvet, sand, faux fur.

Two flowers, a daisy and a rose, are in front of a white background. The daisy, facing upward, has a rosette of quite big, thin red petals surrounding a bright yellow centre. The red rose is upside down. Below a big font spells out "Crip #5. Istanbul Biennale 2022. The fermented issue. Magazine"].

‘Banging your head against a brick wall…’

Art institutional norms and ‘the project’ Crip Magazine

Eva Egermann (Artist, writer and editor of Crip Magazine)

University of Zurich, Rämistrasse 59, 8001 Zurich, Room (RAA-G-15) and online

20.04.2023, 18:15-20:00

Institute of Art History, University of Zurich and Zurich University of the Arts ZHdK

Find further information here

Image credit: Crip Magazine #5, 2022, Coverdesign, [Drawing: Yevhen Holubientsev/ atelienormalno, (Ukraine, March 2022), Design: Lana Grahek, Concept: Eva Egermann, Publishers Issue #5: Eva Egermann in cooperation with 17th Istanbul Biennale 2022].

Movie still, close-up of a white man and woman wearing summer clothes in a rural setting looking excited in a phone booth. A caption reads “They are so young and excited and happy.

Care, Community and Contingencies: Artistic Practices Rooted in Access

Nina Mühlemann (Performance artist, researcher and co-director of Criptonite)

University of Zurich, Rämistrasse 59, 8001 Zurich, Room (RAA-G-15) and online

30.03.2023, 18:15-20:00

Institute of Art History, University of Zurich and Zurich University of the Arts ZHdK

Find further information here

Image credit: A screenshot of the online performance Criptonite: SLOW ANIMALS.

Movie still, close-up of a white man and woman wearing summer clothes in a rural setting looking excited in a phone booth. A caption reads “They are so young and excited and happy.

Nothing About Us Without Us: Disability Arts Now

Emily Watlington (Art critic, curator, and assistant editor at Art in America)

online

16.03.2023, 18:15-20:00

Institute of Art History, University of Zurich and Zurich University of the Arts ZHdK

Find further information here

Image credit: Liza Sylvestre, Captioned-Channel Surfing (still), 2016. Courtesy: the artist.

Panteha Abareshi, A Confused Diagram (in three parts), 2022

Lecture Series: Care, Disability and Art

Institute Colloquium, Spring Semester 2023

Thursday, 18:15-20:00

Institute of Art History, University of Zurich and Zurich University of the Arts ZHdK

Find further information here

Image credit: Adina Pintilie, You Are Another Me—A Cathedral of the Body, 2022. Multi-channel installation. Romanian Participation at the 59th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia. Exhibition view: Martin Backhaus.

Panteha Abareshi, A Confused Diagram (in three parts), 2022

Viertes Netzwerktreffen - Netzwerk Disability Studies UZH

«Learning from Disability in Art History», Virginia Marano, Charlotte Matter and Laura Valterio, 18.01.2023 [online].

Find further information here

Image credit: Park McArthur, Ramps, 2014. Verschiedene gefundene Rampen. Ausstellungsansicht Essex Street, New York.

Panteha Abareshi, A Confused Diagram (in three parts), 2022

Presentation of the Research Project "Rethinking Art History through Disability".

«Rethinking Art History through Disability», Virginia Marano, Charlotte Matter and Laura Valterio Valterio, Vorlesung Kunstgeschichte/n verlernen, umlernen, neulernen, Bauhaus-Universität Weimar [online], 8. December 2022

Image credit: Donald Rodney, In The House of My Father, 1996/1997, Photograph, c-print on paper, mounted on aluminium, Tate Collection.

Panteha Abareshi, A Confused Diagram (in three parts), 2022

Velvet Voice Club 1

Art History Update with Kate Brehme, Charlotte Matter and Eric Otieno Sumba. Moderated by Christian Linclair. 

For the kick-off event of the new series “Velvet Voice Club” in early December 2022, the editors of TEXTE ZUR KUNST invited voices to speak on the various intersections between crip studies, queer feminism, postcolonial studies, and art history. On the occasion of the release of the December issue, "Art History Update," these questions were discussed by curator and arts educator Kate Brehme (Berlin), art historian Charlotte Matter (Zurich), and social theorist and political economist Eric Otieno Sumba (Berlin/Kassel) at Roter Salon, Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz. The complete conversation can now be followed online.

Panteha Abareshi, A Confused Diagram (in three parts), 2022

Bodies of Difference: Disability, Art History, and the Museum (Field Trip to London)

Organized by Dr. Jess Bailey, Virginia Marano, M.A., Dr. Charlotte Matter, Laura Valterio, M.A. 
Tutor: Elena Bally, B.A.

Wellcome Collection and Science Museum, London, 2–5 November 2022.

Image credit: Lower limb prostheses, Roehampton, England, 1966, Science Museum, London.
 

Panteha Abareshi, A Confused Diagram (in three parts), 2022

Video Contribution "Rethinking Art History through Disability," Forum Kunstgeschichte Inklusiv

In order to illustrate the range and potential of an inclusive art history, the forum Kuntgeschichte inklusiv asked their colleagues to present projects and initiatives from the fields of feminism, postcolonialism, queer studies and disability studies. All the contributions by Lee Chichester and Brigitte Sölch, Christopher Nixon, the collective CARAH (Collective for Anti-Racist Art History), Heiner Schulze, the working group "Rethinking Art History through Disability" and Christian Liclair can be found on this Youtube channel.

Panteha Abareshi, A Confused Diagram (in three parts), 2022

Workshop Unlearn the Body

Public events during the workshop Unlearn the Body: New Approaches on Disability and Art History

Criptonite Ableism Bingo with Edwin Ramirez and Nina Mühlemann

2 June 2022, 18:00–19:30
Kunsthaus Zurich
Heimplatz
Moser Building, Auditorium

Lecture by Panteha Abareshi: The Disabled Body as Fundamental Taboo

3 June 2022, 17:00–18:30
University of Zurich
Rämistrasse 59, room RAA-G-15
and online
Virtual sign language interpretation (ASL) will be provided on zoom

Emanuel_Almborg_Talking_Hands_Movie_2016

Public Event: Artist Talk with Emanuel Almborg / Screening of Talking Hands (2016)

Monday, February 21, 2022, 4 pm
Online (zoom)

The screening of Talking Hands/Говорящие руки (48 min, 2016), a film about the 1960s Zagorsk School for deaf-blind children outside Moscow, will be followed by an artist talk with its filmmaker, Emanuel Almborg.

Panteha Abareshi, Unlearn the Body, 2020

Call for Papers: Workshop “Unlearn the Body: New Approaches on Disability and Art History”

June 3—4, 2022
Institute of Art History, University of Zurich, organized by Amanda Cachia (University of California, San Diego) and Virginia Marano, Charlotte Matter and Laura Valterio (University of Zurich)

Deadline for applications: January 21, 2022. Find further information and the call for papers here

Image credit: Panteha Abareshi, Unlearn the Body, 2020. Performance shot on super 8mm color negative

Reading Group: Theorizing Functional Diversity

Our reading group meets regularly to share and discuss relevant readings for the understanding of functional diversity. At the moment all of our meetings are taking place online. Everybody is welcome to join! Please contact us via email for details if you are interested to participate and for any access needs.

Further information and program of previous meetings

Image description: a short curved section of rollercoaster track stands on spindly legs in a self conscious simulacrum of sandy ground in a scratched & vandalised vitrine bigger than a big man. Through a hole in the plexi a thin curvature of steel protrudes like an arm & at the end of this arm is a glove with palm faced upward. In the hand is a very small tree. [@jessedarling, March 1, 2021]

Public event: Artist Talk with Jesse Darling

Monday, November 15, 2021, at 5:30 pm (Zurich time)
Hybrid event
Zurich University of the Arts ZHdK
Toni-Areal, Viaduktraum 2.A05, Floor 2
Pfingstweidstrasse 96, Zurich
and online (zoom): register here
 

Jesse Darling is an artist working in sculpture, installation, video, drawing, text, sound and performance. They live and work in Berlin. Jesse Darling has received commissions from MoMA Warsaw, The Serpentine Gallery and Volksbuhne Berlin among others. Their work is broadly concerned with what it means to be a body in the world, though what that means is both politically charged and culturally determined. Their practice draws on their own experience as well as the narratives of history and counterhistory. Jesse Darling’s recent projects include: Crip Time, group show at MMK Frankfurt (2021), Gravity Road, solo show at Kunstverein Freiburg (2020), 58th Venice Biennale (2019), Crevé, solo show at Triangle France, Marseille (2019), The Ballad of Saint Jerome, solo show for Art Now at Tate Britain, London (2018) and Support Level, solo show at Chapter New York (2018). Further information on www.bravenewwhat.org
 

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untitled, 2021.  [Image description: A polaroid photograph of two men lying on a bed and laughing. One of them, a white naked man, is the artist Robert Andy Coombs. His head is resting on the lap of his friend Marshall, a Black man wearing a shirt with flowers and white trousers, Behind them, a sip-and-puff-device and cables are attached to the headrest. The frame of the polaroid is colored in grades of green to orange.] 

Public event: Artist Talk with Robert Andy Coombs

Monday, October 11, 2021, at 5 pm Zurich time / 11 am EST time.

Online (zoom)

Robert Andy Coombs explores the intersections of disability and sexuality through the photographic lens. In this artist talk, we will discuss the artist’s current exhibition Robert Andy Coombs: Notions of Care at the Frost Art Museum and engage with topics such as caregiving, sexual desire, and the notion of crip time. 

Sohr

Public event: Disability, Art, Agency: Participation and the Revision of the Senses

Research Seminar with Amanda Cachia (CSUSM California State University San Marcos)

Tuesday, June 22, 2021, 5-7 pm (CET) (online)

The talk claims that work by contemporary artists who deploy variable disability topoi (deafness, blindness, sight, mobility) make audiences more sensitive to ways in which bodies take in information and process stimuli.

Reading Group

Monday, June 14, 2021 (4-6 PM)

-"Introduction," from The Matter of Disability: Materiality, Biopolitics, Crip Affect, edited by David T. Mitchell, Susan Antebi, and Sharon L. Snyder,  2019.
-Herbert Bayer, "Aspects of Design of Exhibitions and Museums," Curator: The Museum Journal, Vol. 4, Issue 3, July1961.

Sohr

Public event: Artist Talk with Matthias Sohr

Monday, December 14, 2020, 6 pm

(online)

Matthias Sohr is an artist and historian based in Lausanne. Sohr works with materials and objects made use of in jewellery manufacturing, assistive technologies and electronics industries, among others. In 2018, Sohr founded the exhibition space Bureaucracy Studies in Lausanne.

Medieval sarcophagus

Public event: The Representation of Disability on a Spanish Medieval Sarcophagus

Lecture with Johanna Wirth Calvo (art historian and activist)

Tuesday, December 1, 2020, 6 pm

(online)

The paper focuses on the 13th century sarcophagus of Saint Pedro of Osma in the cathedral of El Burgo de Osma. Besides illustrating hagiographic texts, its pictorial narration depicts the pilgrimage practice that took place around the tomb. Meanwhile, the pictorial rhetoric formulates the possibility of emotional identification through a series of very realistic depicted disabled bodies.

Bronzino's Morgante

Public event: Circling bodies: Bronzino’s "Morgante" as a site of corporal interaction

Lecture with Clim Wijnands (RICH Radboud University Nijmegen)
Monday, November 23, 2020, 5 pm

(online)
 

The paper focuses on Agnolo Bronzino’s life-size portrait of Cosimo I de’ Medici’s court dwarf Morgante painted on both sides of the canvas. Bronzino’s bifrontal object required beholders to engage the painting physically and kinetically by walking around it in circles. We will discuss how this multisensory interaction shaped and was shaped by the perception of Morgante’s non- normative body.