CSCA - Centre for the Study of Contemporary Art UCL

The Centre for the Study of Contemporary Art UCL hosts conferences, artist talks, screenings and other events open to the public.

The Centre seeks to generate debate concerning those pressing questions facing the contemporary condition of art, as well as providing a valuable space in which to work through the complex trajectories of contemporary art's long history. Engaging with the work being done by postgraduate students and staff in the department, the Centre provides a place to think, theorise and historicise contemporar

y art, exploring what it has become in light of the complex global, historical, social and political aspects of its current expanded field. The Centre's programme of events reflects the interests of its participants. These include the relation of contemporary art to neoliberalism, new forms of community, collectivity, and social engagement, as well as to new technologies, globalization and environmentalism; postcolonial studies; art and feminism; documentary practices; photography and film throughout the twentieth century; historical and contemporary exhibition strategies; new curatorial practices, and the relationship between critical writing and contemporary art. The Centre has organised major conferences and workshops addressing issues including: the self-destructive tendencies in Latin American art; the Occupy movement; ecology and art; performance and labour; Hanne Darboven and her legacies; IRWIN and self-historicising strategies in Eastern European art; contemporary art and immaterial labour; the legacies of feminism, psychoanalysis and postcolonialism; art and globalisation; thing theory and materiality; Eva Hesse's relationship to European models of experimental art practice; Ida Applebroog; contemporary South African Photography; Arte Povera, subjectivity and ‘sexuate subjects’. We are presently hosting a series of keyword lectures in collaboration with Tate Liverpool and Iniva, inspired by Raymond William's influential book 'Keywords: a Vocabulary of Culture and Society', 1976, and including talks by Linda Bellos, Douglas Crimp, Leo Bersani and Geeta Kapur. We have invited artists to give workshops or present their recent projects, including Allan Sekula; Phil Collins; the Otolith Group; Renzo Martens, and Walid Raad. We have collaborated with institutions including the Whitechapel, Camden Arts Centre, Iniva, Gasworks, the Tate, Nottingham Contemporary and the V&A.

30/04/2021

This Tuesday CSCA will host a conversation on Zoom between Nell Andrew and Talia Quartz to mark the publication of Andrew's new book 'Moving Modernism: The Urge to Abstraction in Painting, Dance, Cinema' -- please join us, registration is free via the link in the comments.

Artists on Artists Lecture Series - Elaine Reichek on Louise Bourgeois

29/04/2021

Elaine Reichek on Louise Bourgeois for Dia Art Foundation's series 'Artists on Artists' lecture series in 2008. Reichek will be giving the keynote lecture at the CSCA conference 'Citations' this June.

Artists on Artists Lecture Series - Elaine Reichek on Louise Bourgeois Artists on Artists Lecture SeriesElaine Reichek on Louise BourgeoisMarch 3, 2008

02/03/2021

EXTENDED DEADLINE -- You now have till 8 March to send your abstract for this conference. Confirmed date is now 6 June and the keynote speaker will be Elaine Reichek (!)

CFP: Citations: An enquiry into literature in art

A virtual conference hosted by CSCA scheduled for June 2021. Proposals for papers welcome, deadline 26 February. Email abstracts to [email protected] and [email protected]

19/01/2021

06/01/2021

Please join us for a roundtable discussion of the posthumous collection of Allan Sekula, Art Isn’t Fair, eds. Sally Stein and Ina Steiner (London: MACK Books, 2020). Co-hosted by the CSCA, the event will include an introduction by the Sally Stein and Ina Steiner to this new collection of Allan Sekula’s (1951-2013) textual, photographic and filmic essays and short presentations by Makeda Djata Best, David Campany, Chantal Pontbriand, Stephanie Schwartz and Billy Woodberry.

15/01/2020

The programme for our upcoming conference 'Pedagogic Relations: Art and Art History' has just been published.

Further details including booking information can be found on the event page:

https://www.facebook.com/events/447809146120469/

16/09/2019

CALL FOR PAPERS! PLEASE SHARE

Pedagogic Relations: Art and Art History
UCL, February 2020

This conference will look at how the relationship between teacher and student plays out in the making of art and its histories. Within this pedagogic dynamic, what is replicated and what is changed? Where are the points of departure and do they always lead to progress? And, in the transmission of knowledge, what is lost and what is gained? In accounting for the teacher-studentrelationship in the production and dissemination of art and art history, this conference will track art’s often overlooked intellectual histories, providing an occasion to chart new routes into existing research.Proposals are invited from all periods and geographies within the history of art. The sites of learning can range across institutional frameworks such as art schools, universities and museums, as well as informal and horizontal pedagogic structures such as reading groups, writing partnerships, and collaborative practices.

Please submit abstracts (350 words) and short biographies to [email protected] [email protected] 30 October.

Art, Autonomy and Politics: perspectives on brazilian art

16/06/2019

This Wednesday. June 19. Please share!

Art, Autonomy and Politics: perspectives on brazilian art A panel discussion with Sergio Martins (PUC-RIO History Department), Pedro Duarte de Andrade (PUC-RIO, Philosophy Department) and Luiz Camillo Osório (PUC-RIO, Philosophy Department). Chaired by Briony Fer (UCL, History of Art).

03/04/2019

Nikos Stangos Annual Lecture - Martha Rosler UCL History of Art presents: Nikos Stangos Annual Lecture 2019 Martha Rosler, 1st May 2019 6pm. Darwin Building, B40 Lecture Theatre, Gower Street. London, WC1E 6BT

28/02/2019

If you missed our Anni Albers and the Modernist Textile conference - good news! You can now catch up online!👂🗣️ Listen here: https://soundcloud.com/ucl-arts-social-science/sets/anni-albers-and-the-modernist-textile-1

Anni Albers and the Modernist Textile ANNI ALBERS AND THE MODERNIST TEXTILE 26-27 January 2019 University College London www.annialbersmodernisttextile.com DAY 1 1. Briony Fer, Introduction 2. Grant Watson, Bauhaus Imaginista: Learning F