What Is Research in the Visual Arts?: Obsession, Archive, Encounter
Friday, April 27, 2007 - April 28, 2007
This conference, convened by Michael Ann Holly, Mark Ledbury and Marquard Smith, explored fundamental questions, both philosophical and practical, for those who work with visual art. Participants asked, What is research, why and how do we do it, and what place does it have in art making and the understanding of art today? Speakers considered the pleasures, passions, and dangers of research and its attendant obsessions and encounters with incoherence, chaos, and wonder. Art history and visual studies, as well as curatorial activities and fine art practices, engage in many strategies for doing research and working with archives. How does the process of inquiry engender meaning? In what complex ways is research bound up with writing, teaching, curating, and making? Why are we obsessed with the idea of research?
Participants included:
Mieke Bal, University of Amsterdam; Marc Gotlieb, University of Toronto; Serge Guilbaut, University of British Columbia; Michael Ann Holly, The Clark; Chrissie Iles, Whitney Museum of American Art; Akira Lippit, University of Southern California; W. J. T. Mitchell, University of Chicago; Joanne Morra, University of the Arts, London; Sina Najafi, Cabinet magazine; Alex Nemerov, Yale University; Celeste Olalquiaga, independent scholar; Alex Potts, University of Michigan; Marquard Smith, Kingston University, London; Ernst Van Alphen, Leiden University; Reva Wolf, State University of New York, New Paltz
Program:
In order of discussion
What’s a Discipline to Do? Research in/as Art History
Conference Introduction
Marquard Smith
What Is Research in Art History Anyway?
Michael Ann Holly
Our Monstrous Double
Marc Gotlieb
The Turn of the Screw and Art History
Alex Nemerov
Factory of Facts: Research As Obsession with the Scent of History
Serge Guilbaut
Obsessive Archives and Archival Obsessions
Ernst Van Alphen
Order! Taxonomy and Anxiety
Chrissie Iles
The Art Work, the Archive, and the Living Moment
Alex Potts
The Researcher as Collector
Celeste Olalquiaga
Remembering, Repeating, and Working---through Research
Joanne Morra
The Scholar and the Fan
Reva Wolf
Toward a Culture of Curiosity?
Sina Najafi
Image and Archive: The Case of Abu Ghraib
W. J. T. Mitchell
The World Archive and Universal Research
Akira Lippit
Commentary
Mieke Bal
