Life and Art after the Ruins

Speaker: Amir Parsa
Discussants: Girish Shahane and Beth Citron
In collaboration with Galerie Mirchandani + Steinruecke, Mumbai

February 6 and 7, 2009 | 6.30 pm
Little Theatre, National Centre for the Performing Arts, Mumbai

1. Tradition and Innovation in Art

Covering important moments. artworks and ideas, this lecture explores notions related to traditions and innovation in art, and how artists of the Modern era broke with artistic norms through several prisms. We’ll touch on innovative gestures and creations related to materials and techniques, processes and products, concepts and ideas, aesthetics and philosophies. Works from across various mediums and time periods will be covered, from Seurat through Picasso and Duchamp, all the way to contemporary work from around the globe.

2. There will always be an avant-garde in art (Or, will there. or…)

Questions associated with the avant-garde – the possibilities of its existence, the relevance of its actions – remain at the forefront of exchanges between theorists. artists. writers and critics. This lecture will look at the various ways avant-garde movements have been conceived, and how they have intervened in the aesthetic and political realms, and how new types of movements could be ignited and unleashed. The theories, histories and legacies of past movements will be investigated, as will the relationships of the avant-garde to canon-formation, to market and commercial forces, and to philosophical ideas such as truth and beauty.

Amir Parsa is an educator, art theorist, poet, and has developed and implemented programs for diverse audiences at MoMA. He has lectured on a wide range of topics in modern and contemporary art at MoMA (The Metropolitan Museum of Art) and other museums and institutions across North America. His literary output — in English, French and Persian — has been internationally acclaimed and read, performed, presented and debated in Paris and New York, in galleries and museums, in streets and on rooftops, at festivals and gatherings, in hiding and in broad daylight.