In the late 20th century, the dematerialization of art was believed to be a consequence of the emergence of Conceptual Art, an art movement originated in New York City, London and Australia. Based on this assumption, international artists subscribed to a history of conceptualism written from a centralist perspective. This changed after Global Conceptualism: Points of Origin 1950s-1980s, an exhibition at Queens Museum of Art which took place in 1999. The exhibition evidenced that conceptualist practices were born in many different places, and that Conceptualism arose variously across every continent in parallel.

20 years later, the legacy of Global Conceptualism continues devising new questions about how Conceptualism and global narratives were perceived then and now.

Join It Started Everywhere!, a conversation between Global Conceptualism’s project directors Luis Camnitzer and Rachel Weiss, and former Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral C-MAP Fellow at The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) Magdalena Moskalewicz. Moderated by art historian Daniel Quiles, the guest will review the exhibition from a historical perspective. At the same time, we will question how curators and museums conceive global scale projects in the 21st century as a consequence of the precedent established by this historical show.

Organized by Constanza Mendoza, MA student in the Arts Administration & Policy program, and Carlos Salazar-Lermont, Dual MA student in the Arts Administration & Policy program and the Art History, Theory & Criticism program.

This event is possible thanks to the support of SAIC’s Arts Administration & Policy Department, Art History Department, Exhibitions Department, Dean of Faculty, Dean of Graduate Studies, Visual and Critical Studies Department, INTERLINK, Multicultural Affairs, The Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion for Academic Affairs, and Student Museums Coalition.

*** Free event.

Luis Camnitzer is a Uruguayan who lives in U.S.A. since 1964. He is a Professor Emeritus of Art, State University of New York, College at Old Westbury. He received a Guggenheim fellowship for printmaking in 1961 and for visual arts in 1982. In 2011 he was awarded the Frank Jewitt Mather Award of the College Art Association. In 2012 he received the Skowhegan Medal and the USA Ford Fellow award. He represented Uruguay in the Venice Biennial 1988. He participated in the Whitney 2000 and the Documenta 11. In 2018-19 he had a retrospective exhibition in the Museo Reina Sofía, in Madrid. He was the Pedagogical Curator of the 6th Bienal de Mercosur in 2007. His work is in the collections of over forty museums. He is the author of: New Art of Cuba, University of Texas Press, 1994/2004; Arte y Enseñanza: La ética del poder, Casa de América, Madrid, 2000, Didactics of Liberation: Conceptualist Art in Latin America, University of Texas Press, 2007, and On Art, Artists, Latin America and Other Utopias, University of Texas Press, 2010.

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Tags: Chicago, Constanza Mendoza, Daniel Quiles, It Started Everywhere!, Loop, Luis Camnitzer, Maclean Ballroom, Rachel Weiss, School of the Art Institute of Chicago