CAA News Today

The editorial board of Art Journal seeks interested CAA members to join us at the 2009 Annual Conference in Los Angeles for a roundtable discussion on art and transnationalism.

Art in the twentieth century has been deeply shaped by exile, travel, and diaspora. Since about 1990, “globalization” has been driven by the trajectory of global finance and transnational capitalism, which in turn have intensified transnational circulation and art practice. Seen through this lens, the contemporary artist is a producer of commodified sameness, and even an unwitting vector for capitalist penetration into the peripheries. But transnational practice and exchange may also foster new imaginaries and solidarities at variance with capitalism. Can such practices transform the local by enabling a more direct social address? Postcolonial theory and globalization studies are enabling new ways of writing histories of modernisms as crossnational cultural forms. Thinking through transnationalism may productively reconfigure the disjunctive relationship between a local or national art history and a “global” art history of the modern and contemporary era.

Led by Art Journal editorial-board member Iftikhar Dadi, the roundtable discussion will be recorded and may provide material for publication in a future issue. The discussion will take place on Thursday, February 26, 2:00–4:00 PM, at a conference location to be announced.

Participation is by invitation. Please send a brief email describing your interest in the topic and how you foresee contributing to the discussion to mid1@cornell.edu. Invitations to participate will be sent around February 1. Deadline: January 20, 2009.