From the streets of Chile and Iran to museums grappling with restitution across Europe and the United States: over the past decade, protest and activism have reshaped the visual arts. What does it mean for artists to respond to social movements rather than simply reflect them? How are museums confronting the colonial histories embedded in their collections? And what have we learned, a decade on, about art's role in politics, memory, and resistance?
A globally oriented and locally rooted anthology, Politics of Visual Arts in a Changing World, edited by Vishakha Desai, brings together artists, scholars, activists, and museum professionals to take up these questions, tracing how artists have acted as catalysts for change and how institutions are reckoning with their pasts across protest art, museum ethics, restitution, and institutional transformation.
To mark the book's publication, The Committee on Global Thought is convening its contributors for a program across two conversations: Art, Artists, and Social Change features Angela N. Carroll, Terri Gordon-Zolov, Erin L. Thompson, and Betti-Sue Hertz; Museums: Restitution and its Implications brings together Jessica de Alba-Ulloa and Louisa Onuoha, with video contributions from Yudhishthir Raj Isar and Lotte Arndt; the program closes by audience Q&A.
Please RSVP, as seating is limited.