Events: Workshops
Each month during the academic year, the Center sponsors workshops enabling faculty and graduate students from a wide range of disciplines to discuss work in progress, and to explore the possibilities of interdisciplinary research partnerships. Modest resources are available to invite distinguished academic and non-academic speakers, and to disseminate findings.
Dates, times and locations are listed below. For more information, including information about access for people with disabilities, please contact Katie Claussen at claussen@uchicago.edu or 773/702-4407. Refreshments will be served.
Spring Quarter 2006
ART IN COMMON: A CONSTRUCTION OF MEANINGS
A presentation by Luis Herrera, founding member of the Al Zur-ich* project
and the Tranvia Cera artist collective; Quito , Ecuador
This presentation will be given in Spanish, with English translation.
*Al Zur-ich )is a play on words – meaning “south of the city” in Spanish slang, but also bringing to mind Zurich, an orderly, cosmopolitan and financially powerful Swiss city whose image suggests a stark contrast with Quito’s southern sector.
Friday, May 19, 2006
12:00 – 1:30 p.m. , Lecture Hall, Harris School of Public Policy Studies
1155 E. 60 th Street
Al Zur-ich engages both schooled and unschooled artists in creation and experimentation in neighborhoods far from the seat of Quito ’s economic, political and cultural power. By inserting art into neglected urban spaces, this initiative has generated exciting new visual alternatives and has revitalized Quito ’s once narrowly-defined art scene. Inhabitants of some of the city’s poorest neighborhoods have embraced this form of cultural production, becoming the movement’s principal actors. In 2005, Al Zur-ich had its most successful exhibition to date. For nearly five months, a selected group of artists worked in diverse sectors of South Quito , producing pieces that were fully integrated into, and inspired by, the local neighborhoods. The founders of Al Zur-ich consider these pieces to be “total art,” as they resulted from interaction between the creators, the community, and the urban space.
About Tranvia Cera
Al Zur-ich began several years ago as a project of Tranvia Cera, an artists’ collective born in the School of Plastic Arts at Central University during the 1990s, in response to the increased isolation of Quito’s art scene in the elite and economically privileged northern sector since the 1980s. Tranvia Cero (Streetcar Zero) seeks to provoke a return to a “point zero” for art. Their goal has been to open new possibilities for art, and to create a new urban social space in which the urban dweller is the protagonist. It supports urban expression from the inside, providing a form of art that reveals and reflects the social problems that institutionalized art often avoids.
Read Luis Herrera’s paper in Spanish
Read Luis Herrera’s paper in English
Autumn Quarter 2005
LAUGHING THROUGH THE ARMORY SHOW
and
BLACKS AND WHITES IN THE AMERICAN ART WORLD:
DOES CLASS MATTER?
A "Focus on New Scholars" Workshop featuring dissertation research presented by J. Stan Barrett, Ph.D., English Language and Literature, and Stephanie Williams, Ph.D, Sociology
Friday, November 4, 2005
12:15 p.m., Room 140C, The Harris School of Public Policy Studies, 1155 E. 60th Street
The nation's first major exhibition of modern and avant-garde art, The 1913 Armory Show in New York incited curiosity, criticism and controversy among the American press and public. Barrett examines how the show's organizers capitalized on promotional and press techniques pioneered by P.T. Barnum to generate a media circus and sensationalized public and critical response to the show.
Drawing on her interviews with black and whites visiting the Philadelphia Art Museum, Williams examines issues affecting audience development among black Americans at major mainstream art museums, attempts by major art museums over the last 20 years to diversify their exhibitions, and comparisons of demographics and cultural participation habits among black and white museum visitors.
Read Barrett's working paper, Laughing through the Armory Show
Read Williams' working paper, Blacks and Whites in the American Art World: Does Class Matter?
About J. Stan Barrett: Barrett, who holds a Ph.D. in English language and literature from the University of Michigan, has completed his dissertation Imagining Audiences: American Modernism in the Age of Publicity and is writing on 1930s American poetry, focusing on conceptions of audience in the work of George Oppen and Louis Zukofsky. His essay on Wallace Stevens and radio will appear in the forthcoming Broadcasting Modernism ( University of Florida Press).
About Stephanie Williams: Williams, a Hyde Park native who holds a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Pennsylvania , completed her post-doctoral work at Harvards W.E.B. DuBois Institute for African and African-American Research. A research consultant for Nielsen Media Research and research assistant with the Cultural Policy Center , Williams has studied African American participation in the fine arts as an outgrowth of her desire to learn more about black people and her interest in understanding the differences among those who do and do not take part in the art world.
CHANGING ARTS AUDIENCES: CAPITALIZING ON OMNIVOROUSNESS
A presentation and discussion with
Richard A. Peterson, Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Vanderbilt University
Friday, October 14, 2005
12:15 p.m., Room 140C, The Harris School of Public Policy Studies, 1155 E. 60th Street
Baby Boomers are “cultural omnivores,” according to sociologist Richard A. Peterson. To them, serious art means the Beatles and B.B. King as much it does Beethoven and Bizet. With more choices and less time, they enjoy opera and classical music as occasional options amid a wide range of what they consider culture. They don’t associate supporting the fine arts with gaining elite status, a motivator that drove previous generations to the opera and symphony halls.
Peterson, a nationally known pioneer in cultural sociology, will discuss why fine arts organizations must understand how to reach beyond the traditional “highbrow univore” who disdains mass popular culture and market to the cultural omnivore. Following Peterson’s presentation, Betty G. Farrell, Professorial Lecturer, Division of the Social Sciences, and Associate Director of the Master of Arts Program in the Social Sciences, The University of Chicago, will serve as respondent.
Read Peterson’s working paper
About Richard Peterson: Author of numerous books and articles on the production and consumption of culture, cultural policy, and popular music, Peterson is founding chair of the Culture Section of the American Sociological Association. A pioneering contributor to the sociology of music, he has produced a body of work on cultural omnivorousness, a concept he introduced in his 1992 study with Albert Simkus, How Musical Tastes Mark Occupational Status Groups.
Past Workshops
2004 - 2005 Workshops
2003 - 2004 Workshops
2002 - 2003 Workshops
2001 - 2002 Workshops
2000 - 2001 Workshops
1999 - 2000 Workshops
The Arts and Humanities in Public Life Series
Working Conferences
The Downtown Forum Series
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