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Gradual Contemporary: Rachel Haidu

  • Metcalf Auditorium, RISD Museum 20 North Main Street Providence, RI, 02903 United States (map)

THE TRAGICOMIC SELF: AMY SILLMAN AND PHILIP GUSTON
RACHEL HAIDU

Both Amy Sillman and Philip Guston make painting, in their different historical moments (respectively, the present and the 1960s-70s), into a tragicomic enterprise. This talk examines the role that shape plays in that enterprise, when it is seen not as a formal or compositional element but as key to both the tragic aspect of a painting’s historical reflection and its comic operations—its funniness. Tragicomic shape is the means that painting has at its disposal for exploring selfhood, a concept that Haidu develops in relation to not only painting but also video and dance in her new book.

Rachel Haidu is Associate Professor in the Department of Art and Art History and the Graduate Program in Visual and Cultural Studies at the University of Rochester. She is the author of The Absence of Work: Marcel Broodthaers, 1964-1976 (October Books: MIT Press, 2013).

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April 9

Gradual Contemporary: Ara H. Merjian

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April 25

Gradual Contemporary: Claire Bishop