Events

Focusing on Europe, where anti-racist initiatives and practices are still little established within universities and cultural institutions, this lecture series discusses how art history can assume a more self-critical stance to actively counter racism in all its forms. In what ways can anti-racist and decolonial efforts be fostered through art historical research and teaching, as well as the contextualisation of artworks or collections? What are necessary interventions or existing best practices within the discipline of art history in order to critically engage with racist representations or historical attributions? To what extent can the use of appropriate language prevent the entrenchment of stereotypes and prejudices? And how can debates on inclusion and diversity be sustainably incorporated within academia, museums and art schools? These and other questions will be addressed in the course of the lecture series by art historians, curators, art critics and art educators.

Fall semester 2024
Thursdays, 18:15–20:00
RAA-G-15, Rämistrasse 59, 8001 Zurich & online

Dates: 

03.10.2024

«Is Art History Racist?»
Anne Lafont (Professor in art history and créolités, École des hautes études en sciences sociales, Paris) [English]

10.10.2024

«Working Towards a Critical Race Art History Association for Critical Race Art History (ACRAH)» Jacqueline Francis (Dean, Humanities & Sciences Division, California College of the Arts, San Francisco) & Camara Dia Holloway (Project Manager, Romare Bearden Digital Catalogue Raisonné, Wildenstein Plattner Institute, New York) [English]*Online

31.10. 2024

«'Gastarbeiter' aus der Türkei und die Immobilität der weissen Kunstgeschichte Westdeutschlands» Gürsoy Doğtaş (Art historian and curator, fellow 2024/25 in Curatorial Studies, Städelschule und Goethe University, Frankfurt a.M.) [German]

07.11.2024

«Cause and Effect: On the Audience of Andrea Fraser at Luma Westbau»
Brit Barton (artist and art writer, Zürich/ Chicago) [English]

21.11.2024

«Antirassistische Strategien in Museen und kulturellen Institutionen»
Roundtable with Tasnim Baghdadi (Co-director Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zurich), Eric Otieno Sumba (Writer and Research, Editor at Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin), Marilyn Umurungi (Cultural researcher, co-curator Swiss National Museum, Zurich) [German] *Cabaret Voltaire Spiegelgasse 1, 8001 Zürich

05.12.2024

«Documenting Colonial Toxicity»
Samia Henni (Assistant Professor of History and Theory of Architecture and Director of Graduate Studies, McGill University, Montreal) [English] * Online

12.12.2024

«Invisible Man. Race und Fototheorie»
Christopher Nixon (Philosopher and comparatist, Hamburg) [German]

The reading group meets at Cabaret Voltaire (Spiegelgasse 1, 8001 Zurich) at 7 pm. The discussions take place in English and/or German, depending on participants’ needs. The reading group is open to anyone interested—no previous knowledge required. You can also join for just one of the sessions. Let us know of any access needs you may have, and we will give our best to accommodate them. To participate, simply write us an email. The texts will be shared with all participants a couple of weeks before each meeting.

Current Meetings (Fall/Winter 2023)

Tuesday, October 31, 7pm

• Nora A. Taylor, “Why Have There Been No Great Vietnamese Artists?” (2005) online

Tuesday, November 28, 7pm

• José Esteban Muñoz, “Performing Disidentifications,” introduction to Disidentifications: Queers of Color and the Performance of Politics (1999)

Followed by a screening of Marlon Riggs, Tongues Untied (1989, 55 minutes)

Tuesday, December 19

• Rasheed Araeen, “The Success and the Failure of Black Art ,” Third Text 18, no. 2, 2004
• Optional further reading: Courtney J. Martin, “Rasheed Araeen, Live Art, and Radical Politics in Britain,” Getty Research Journal, no. 2, 2010

Previous Meetings (Fall/Winter 2022)

September 27, 2022 – The Gaze

• Homi Bhabha, “Black Male: Representations of Masculinity in Contemporary American Art,” in: Artforum 33, no. 6, February 1995
• Kobena Mercer, “Looking for Trouble,” in: Transition, no. 51, 1991
• McKenzie Wark, “The Cis Gaze and Its Others (for Shola),” in: e-flux journal, #117, April 2021

October 25, 2022 – Colonial Switzerland

• Rohit Jain, “How to Be Affected in Postcolonial Public Spaces? Ethnographic Remarks on a Multifocal World in the Making...,” in: On Curating, no. 35, December 2017, Decolonizing Art Institutions
• Patricia Purtschert and Harald Fischer-Tiné, “Introduction,” in: Colonial Switzerland: Rethinking Colonialism from the Margins, London 2015

November 22, 2022 – Othering

• Renée Green, “I Won’t Play Other to Your Same” (1990) and “Trading on the Margin” (1991), in: Renée Green, Other Planes of There: Selected Writings, Durham 2014
• To prepare for the session, we recommend a visit of Renée Green’s current exhibition at the Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst in Zurich.

December 13, 2022 – Open Letters

• Black Artists and Cultural Workers in Switzerland, “Open Letter to Swiss Cultural Institutions, Museums, Art Spaces, Galleries and Artist-Run Spaces” (June 9, 2020) and “To All Art Spaces in Switzerland” (June 9, 2021)
• Students of Freie Universität Berlin, “Decolonial Visions: For the Appointment of a W3 University Professorship for Art and Visual Cultures of Africa at the Institute of Art History of Freie Universität Berlin” (November 16, 2022)
• Lumbung Community, “We Are Angry, We Are Sad, We Are Tired, We Are United” (September 10, 2022) 

June 23, 2022, 21:00–22:30
Screening: An Experience Like That
A screening of video works by Howardena Pindell, Black Audio Film Collective, Aykan Safoglu and Ivy Monteiro
Cabaret Voltaire, Spiegelgasse 1, 8001 Zurich

December 3, 2021, 17:00–18:30
Lecture by Denise Murrell: “Posing Modernity in Retrospect: Implications for Critical Art Histories”
moderated and introduced by CARAH
Online (zoom)

November 12, 2021, 18:00–19:30
Artist Talk with James Bantone
moderated by Mohamed Almusibli
Online (zoom)

April 23 and 30, 2021
Antiracism in art historical research and teaching
hosted by Anja Glover