Panel Discussion What role do artists play in reimagining the construction of our public space?

An in-person conversation between artists Mischa Kuball and Juan Obando, moderated by Devin Morris of The Teacher’s Lounge. 

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Building on our last conversation in partnership with Now + There on global monuments, this panel asks what role artists play in reimagining the construction of our public spaces? Exploring how artists can intervene with monuments and create new modes of commemoration and community, artists Mischa Kuball and Juan Obando will share their respective practices. Inspired by localized collective action in communities worldwide, they will discuss current and upcoming projects that consider the afterlife of a monument as well as alternative approaches to visualizing site-specific trauma.  After brief presentations from the artists, Devin Morris from the Teacher's Lounge will moderate a discussion about reimagining the future of monuments.

We are looking forward to welcoming you at the Goethe-Institut Boston for an in-person event, but if you find you cannot make it, you are invited to watch the live-stream at youtube.com/GoetheInstitutBoston. 


Photo: Daniel Biskup Mischa Kuball’s “public preposition” is a group of works, interventions, projects, and performances made over a period of several decades. What they have in common is that they appeal to a public sphere and implicitly question in what locations and under what circumstances what we mean by “public” is constituted and how it should be understood. Many of these interventions and projects were temporary in nature and only exist in photo documentation form. Others were deliberately conceived as more ephemeral, with a limited visibility even in terms of their local appearance. In this sense, “public preposition” points to a fundamental contradiction of the public sphere: on the one hand, it sees itself as unlimited, but on the other the audience of an intervention or event and its viewers and participants is objectively limited. For this reason, to introduce “public preposition” in a public lecture of its own, to discuss it must itself be seen as a gesture toward creating a public and including individual projects in a larger context. (Vanessa Joan Mueller, Vienna)


(c) Obando Juan Obando (born April 12, 1980) is a Colombian artist working between Bogotá, Colombia, and Boston, MA, USA residing in Providence, RI, USA. He holds a BA in Design and Architecture from Universidad de Los Andes (Bogotá, Colombia) and an MFA in Electronic and Time-Based Media Art from Purdue
University (West Lafayette, IN). He is an Associate Professor; Co-Coordinator of
the Low Residency MFA Program at MassArt.

His work focuses on the critical intervention of social systems and the subsequent production of video-performances, post-digital objects and screen-based installations —presenting the screen as a site where ideology confronts aesthetics and new worlds are speculated.

Obando's work has been exhibited in Mexico, France, Colombia, Germany, and the US. Recently solo shows include "Pro Revolution" at Espacio Odeón (Bogotá, Colombia, 2019), "Full Collabs" at Distillery Gallery (Boston, 2018), "Jeep VIP" at Volta Art Fair (New York, 2017), and "Collabs" at MIAMI Prácticas
Contemporáneas (Bogotá, 2017). Selected group exhibitions include Game Changers (MAAM, Boston, 2020), Video Sur (Palais de Tokyo, France, 2018), Rencontres de la Photographie (Arles, France, 2017), and MDE15 (Medellín, Colombia, 2015). He has been a resident artist at Casa Tres Patios (Medellín) in
2012and at SOMA (Mexico City, Mexico) in 2017 and 2018. Obando was also awarded a Rhizome commission from The New Museum for the project “Museum Mixtape” in 2012, a MassArt foundation grant in 2017 and an Art Matters fellowship in 2019.


 

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