Sculptured Surfaces, Bodily Interfaces. The Long 1980s

Numerous works of art from recent years have questioned the human subject and ideas around body and gender. But already in the long 1980s, artists reflected and reacted in their expanded sculptural practices to narratives of body and identity and their correlation with technological developments.

With contributions from international guests, the academic workshop focuses on the late 1970s to early 1990s, when the consequences and influences of information technologies on the subject became a tangible reality. “Sculptured Surfaces, Bodily Interfaces: The Long 1980s” explores the interconnections of body and sculpture in technological, social, and political contexts, especially with regard to their topicality.

The workshop is conceived by Antje Krause-Wahl and Franziska Linhardt. It takes place at Museum Brandhorst and in cooperation with the Goethe University Frankfurt am Main. Here you will find detailed information as well as the abstracts and CVs of the international speakers of the workshop.

PROGRAM

10:00 AM

Welcome

Patrizia Dander, Museum Brandhorst

Introduction: Technology and Materiality: Bodies in 1980s Exhibitions

Antje Krause-Wahl, Franziska Linhardt & Tizian Holzbach

10:45 – 11:30 AM

Anything but a Robot: Technological Disfigurations of Sculpture

Simon Baier, University of Basel

11:45 – 12:30 PM

Posthuman Self-Creations: Charles Ray’s Hyperrealistic Male Bodies as Biotechnological Reembodiments

Maike Wagner, Ruhr-University Bochum

12:30 AM – 1:15 PM

What is the Matter? Robert Longo’s Sculptural Practice in the 1980s

Clara J. Lauffer, Goethe University Frankfurt am Main

2:30 – 3:15 PM

Projected Passion, Dismembered Emotion: The Subversion of Expression in the Work of Tony Oursler and Bruce Nauman

Eva Ehninger, Humboldt University of Berlin

3:15 – 4:00 PM

A Fragmented Mirror: Renegotiations of Media Realities and the Production of Subjectivity in Theo Eshetu’s “Till Death Us Do Part” (1982–1987)

Lukas Heger, Goethe-Institut Munich

4:30 – 5:15 PM

Total Recall: Mediated Bodies in Video Installations by Gretchen Bender and Judith Barry

Kassandra Nakas, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich

5:15 – 6:00 PM

Mike Kelley’s American Uncanny 

Piper Marshall, Columbia University, New York and Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut

7:00 – 7:45 PM

Deviant Scale

Jenni Sorkin, University of California, Santa Barbara