Conversations in Contemporary Art presents Philippe Pirotte

“An exhibition is a space that informs us about ourselves—unawares. It fails to provide solace because things here do not necessarily reveal themselves as truths. It is the space of the mistake, a place where things are allowed to go astray. While organizing exhibitions my interest goes to an artistic consciousness that creates images that are materially compulsory in the present—though suffused with historic resonance and in parley with the information economy’s heightened dematerialization. Such an artistic praxis challenges the reproducibility of the (digital) image, decentralized authorship and the development of attention-as-currency that are all central to this economy. Moreover the actual context with the possibilities and challenges the digital realm  presents, questions pertaining to the physical exhibition space are redefined. In order to interrupt the exhausting demand for “meaning” and the incessant flow of communicative action and exuberant performativity, the exhibition I imagine holds the promise of sovereign indifference to instrumental (practical, functional, political and economic) reason. It aims to formulate an answer to the tyranny of communication in an environment of potentially economic or political instrumentalization and to avoid the trap of a lingering cynicism. As a consequence, the exhibition directs its opposition toward a via negativa of alienation, skepticism, discomfort and loss.” – Philippe Pirotte           

Philippe Pirotte (b. 1972, Belgium) is an art historian, curator, critic, and Director of the Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste Städelschule and of Portikus, leading centres for contemporary art in Germany and beyond. Pirotte was one of the co-founders of the contemporary art centre objectif_exhibitions in Antwerp, Belgium (1999). From 2005 to 2011, he was Director of the internationally-renowned Kunsthalle Bern in Switzerland where he organized solo exhibitions by artists such as Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven, Owen Land, Oscar Tuazon, Jutta Koether, Allan Kaprow, and Corey McCorkle. From 2004 to 2013, Pirotte held the position of Senior Advisor at the Rijksakademie for Visual Arts in Amsterdam. In 2012, he became Adjunct Senior Curator at the UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive. He also served as Advising Program Director for the Sifang Art Museum in Nanjing and is an advisor for the Kadist Art Foundation (Paris/San Francisco). His writing on art appeared in Afterall Magazine, Mousse, Nka Journal of Contemporary African Art, and in various exhibition catalogues.

Admission for all Conversations in Contemporary Art events is FREE and open to the general public. SEATING IS LIMITED and available on a first come, first serve basis.  Doors open at 5:30 p.m. The lecture will be held in English.

Related links:

• Conversations in Contemporary Art – official website
• Concordia University Studio Arts Department