A day-long seminar on artistic practices and 'post'-imperialist formations in 1970s Britain. Organised by Kylie Gilchrist and Dr. Luke Skrebowski from the Department of Art History and Cultural Practices, The University of Manchester.
While the histories and ongoing effects of empire have become major areas of art historical focus, the 1970s remains an overlooked decade in this growing field of scholarship. Partly fuelling this oversight is the common narrative of the 1970s as a period marking the end of Britain's empire. This seminar instead asks how the British empire's breakdown abroad spurred imperialism to turn inwards, manifesting domestically in an upsurge in racist discourses and institutionalized practices, deepening conflicts in Northern Ireland, and new state techniques of social control and 'crisis management'. It explores how artistic responses to this context entailed a radical rethinking of art: a repudiation of formalist and object-based practices in favour of conceptually-driven artistic tactics that increasingly engaged social systems as both artistic material and locus of critique. This seminar invites reflection on the ways these new artistic modalities critically engaged the internal recodings of imperialism, seeking to articulate the 1970s as a period of interconnected ‘system shifts’ in Britain's artistic practices, socio-political situation, and geopolitical position.
Date: Wednesday 25 January 2023 - 10am - 5pm
Location: Whitworth Art Gallery Study Centre, Oxford Road, Manchester, M15 6ER
Speakers:
• Dhanveer Singh Brar (University of Leeds) - A Black Cinema of Negation: Further Notes on 'Who Needs A Heart'
• Kylie Gilchrist (University of Manchester) - Forming Relations: Rasheed Araeen and the Politics of Participation
• Adeena Mey (University of the Arts London / Afterall) - The Cybernetisation of the Exhibition
• Lynn MacRitchie - Artists for Democracy: A Tale in Two Parts
• Luke Skrebowski (University of Manchester) - Picturing the Troubles, Picturing the System: Conrad Atkinson in Northern Ireland
• Catherine Spencer (University of St Andrews) - 'We have more information of activity in Buenos Aires than we have of activity in England': Art Systems in London and ‘Latin America’
Moderated by Nikhil Vettukattil
This seminar is generously supported by the Northwest Consortium Doctoral Training Partnership and the University of Manchester.
Image: Rasheed Araeen, Burning Ties Detail, 1976/79. Courtesy Grosvenor Gallery and Rasheed Araeen.
Speakers
Dhanveer Singh Brar
Organisation: University of Leeds
Kylie Gilchrist
Organisation: The University of Manchester
Adeena Mey
Organisation: University of the Arts London / Afterall
Lynn MacRitchie
Organisation: Artists for Democracy: A Tale in Two Parts
Luke Skrebowski
Organisation: The University of Manchester
Catherine Spencer
Organisation: University of St Andrews
