51吃瓜网

The Department of Art History and Communication Studies welcomes , Associate Professor, Department of Art History, University of Minnesota, to speak at our annual lecture series (follow this link for a complete list of this year's speakers).

Title: "Of Empty Stages and Imperfectly Deferred Memories: Matthew Buckingham鈥檚 Historiographic Method"

Abstract: Using Joseph Roach鈥檚 assertion that 鈥渢he most persistent mode of forgetting is memory imperfectly deferred,鈥� this paper (which is drawn from a larger book project called History as Prosthesis: Contemporary Art and Historical Method) considers the historiographic strategies employed by contemporary artist and filmmaker Matthew Buckingham in his film Amos Fortune Road (1996). Buckingham鈥檚 film tries to understand the historical depiction of Amos Fortune, an African man enslaved in 18th century America who late in life created a successful business as a tanner and purchased his own freedom as well as the freedom of at least two other slaves. The film examines the relation between the archival record (which consists of a number of receipts, wills, inventories, and contracts) and the fictional accounts of Fortune鈥檚 life. Rather than attempting to sort out the truth of Fortune鈥檚 past, to find the single accurate account, Buckingham shows how fact and fiction are mutually productive sorts of history, and how a space opens up within forgetting鈥攖he space of imperfect deferment鈥攊n which memory is performed. The paper argues that he accomplishes this by playing with inter-titles, overlaying factual and fictional information, bringing photography as a privileged discourse of truth into doubt, playing with temporality, and by contemplating the futures that are imagined in the past.

Biography: Dr. Jane Blocker is a specialist in contemporary art and critical theory. She offers courses such as Art Since 1945, Contemporary Art, Alternative Media: Video, Performance, and Digital Art, as well as courses on gender and sexuality, and 20th century theory and criticism.鈥ㄢ�℉er research has focused primarily on performance art as it developed concurrently with postmodern, feminist, and constructionist theories. Her first book, Where is Ana Mendieta? Identity, Performativity and Exile (Duke University Press, 1999), considers the artist's work in relation to the performative production of identity. What the Body Cost: Desire, History, and Performance. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2004), her second book, critically examines the historiography of mid-twentieth century performance. Her current book, called Seeing Witness: Essays on Contemporary Art and Testimony, examines the witness as a privileged subject position by analyzing installations, performances, photographs, and films by such artists as Alfredo Jaar, James Luna, Eduardo Kac, Christine Borland, Felix Gonzales-Torres, and Ann Hamilton.