The New School
John L. Tishman Auditorium
63 5th Ave
New York City

Thursday & Friday, October 4 & 5, 2018

Join us for the inaugural Vera List Center Forum, an annual, international convening of key participants in the field of art and politics.

At the Vera List Center Forum 2018 on October 4 and 5, we will introduce the center’s new 2018-2020 Focus Theme, “If Art is Politics,” through a conversation with curators, artists and scholars; we will announce the recipient and the finalists of the Jane Lombard Prize for Art and Social Justice; you will meet the 2018-2020 Vera List Center Fellows and hear artist, curator and scholar Jolene Rickard (Tuscarora) deliver a keynote on art as political practice.These interdisciplinary explorations chart the investigations and proposed affinities for the two-year focus, launching the Vera List Center’s distinct curricular investigations that will be developed throughout the coming year.

“If Art Is Politics” considers how, at this moment of political reckoning with democratic institutions and alternatives to traditional party politics, art operates as a political practice. Can art be politically viable, and how does it acquire political agency? How does art shift and affect the sites, practices and participants of political processes in ways that traditional forms of political involvement might not? Does art allow for the embrace of a set of shared values that transcend party politics?

“If Art Is Politics” will continue to be the Focus Theme through 2020, and inform distinct strands of investigation and a constellation of research clusters. As a space of belonging for geographically, culturally and socially diverse constituencies, we explore new inclusive politics that transcend conventional political systems. The second year we will take stock of this preliminary work and consider how the Vera List Center, with its public seminars, fellowships, teaching, prize initiatives, exhibitions and publications, attends to this critical provocation.

Thursday, October 4, 2018
John L. Tishman Auditorium
63 5th Ave
6:30-7:00pm     2018-2020 Vera List Center Biennial Focus and Fellows Announcement
7:00-8:00pm     2018-2020 Vera List Center Prize Recipient Announcement and Conversation with the Prize                         Jury: Koyo Kouoh (chair), Richard Hill, Carin Kuoni, Nontobeko Ntombela, Uzma Rizvi and Maya                         Wiley.
8:00-8:30pm    Keynote Jolene Rickard, (Tuscarora), artist, curator and Associate Professor of Visual Art and                         Cornell University.

Friday October 5, 2018
Kellen Auditorium
66 5th Ave
6:30-8:00pm     2018-2020 Vera List Center Fellows; Dean Erdmann & Helene Kazan

Participants include:

• Richard William Hill, Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Studies at Emily Carr University of Art, Canada
• Koyo Kouoh, founding artistic director of RAW Material Company, a center for art, knowledge and society, Dakar, Senegal
• Carin Kuoni, Director and Chief Curator, Vera List Center for Art and Politics
• Nontobeko Ntombela, curator and lecturer, Johannesburg, South Africa
• Jolene Rickard, (Tuscarora), artist, curator and Associate Professor of Visual Art and Cornell University
• Uzma Z. Rizvi, Associate Professor of Anthropology and Urban Studies at the Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, and a Visiting Researcher at the American University of Sharjah, UAE
• Maya Wiley, Senior Vice President for Social Justice and the Henry Cohen Professor of Urban Policy and Management, The New School

Hyperallergic is the exclusive media sponsor for the Vera List Center Forum 2018.

For more information available via Vera List Center