Guest Lecture. Conceptual Art and the Postmodern Form: The Case of Collective Actions

University of Illinois at Chicago

Feb. 2024

How to recognize an Artwork in the postmodern era?

Here is a guest lecture I gave for an undergraduate Art History course titled "What Happened After Modern Art." Taught by Artie Foster, the class traces pivotal developments in Art produced in the Euro-American context after the 1960s, from Andy Warhol and Yayoi Kusama to Theaster Gates and Hito Steyerl.

I bring in an example 'out of left field' and introduce the Collective Actions group (est. 1976, Moscow, SU), known for their minimal participatory performances on the outskirts of urban environments. Students and I discuss the organization of one performance work and its reliance on balance, sociality, and self-reflexivity. To better appreciate the stakes of these aesthetic strategies, we compare Collective Actions' performance to the works of Cuban-American feminist artist Ana Mendieta, working in the US in the late 1970s.

Thank you to the brilliant UIC students for making this session so exciting and to Artie Foster for his help throughout.