Radical [vs?] Institution: Revisiting Archives to Form the Future

What happens to radicalism when it is re-contextualised? Taking the current exhibitions Bernadette Corporation: 2000 Wasted Years and The Independent Group: Parallel of Art and Life as a point of departure, this seminar will question if the relationship of radical collectives and institutional structures in the arts is paradoxical.

Joined by guest speakers Anne Massey and Catherine Moriarty, participants will address exhibitions from the last 50 years that have been considered radical, yet had an intrinsic relationship to established galleries and institutions. The exhibitions that will be addressed are:

Parallel of Art and Life (ICA, 1953)
Black Eyes and Lemonade (Whitechapel Gallery, 1951)
Art for Whom? (Serpentine Gallery, 1978)

Furthermore, it shall look at how by using archive material those institutions have habitually probed or re-staged radical pasts to construct present institutional identities.

With Anne Massey, art historian and co-curator of the current ICA Reading Room archival display Independent Group: Parallel of Art and Life, and Catherine Moriarty, director of the Design Archives at Brighton University and co-curator of the current Whitechapel archive exhibition Black Eyes and Lemonade: Curating Popular Art.

This event is curated and initiated by Student Forum members Amber Turner and Jane Scarth.