Fri, May 30, 2008
7:30 PM

New Museum theater (directions)

Night School Public Seminar 5: Okwui Enwezor, The Politics of Spectacle

Part of Night School, Museum as Hub
 
Discussions, Film / Video

Screening: The Case of the Grinning Cat, 2004, followed by moderated discussion with Jake Perlin, Assistant Film Curator/BAMCinematek
Director: Chris Marker, Running time: 58 mins

In his newest film, The Case of the Grinning Cat, Chris Marker reflects on French and international politics, art, and culture at the start of the new millennium. In November 2001, the filmmaker became intrigued by the sudden appearance of grinning yellow cats on buildings, Metro walls, and other public surfaces, the appearance of which are a recurring theme throughout the film.

This engaging record of Marker's cinematic peregrinations throughout the city, visually energized by his free-association montage style, chronicles strikes, demonstrations, memorials, election campaigns, celebrity scandals, international political incidents, and a seemingly endless variety of political protests (against the Iraq War, against China's occupation of Tibet, against the government's ban on the wearing of Muslim headscarves). The personalized commentary running throughout The Case of the Grinning Cat offers the simultaneously learned and witty reflections of the filmmaker, now in his early eighties, on both the contemporary and historical implications of these varied events and personalities.

The mysterious grinning yellow cats soon begin to appear amidst the banners and signs in some of the political demonstrations. Eventually, the creator of the grinning cats is revealed to be an art collective known as Mr. Cat, whose members are shown painting a massive representation of their mascot on the plaza in front of the Pompidou Center. The filmmaker's own famous cat caricature soon allies with Mr. Cat, as Marker speculates on the political possibilities of such a feline association.

Night School is an artist's project by Anton Vidokle in the form of a temporary school. A yearlong program of monthly seminars and workshops, Night School draws upon a group of local and international artists, writers, and theorists to conceptualize and conduct the program. This month’s seminar is conceived by Okwui Enwezor.

*This event is free with Museum admission, but tickets are required. Tickets can be reserved online or at the Museum prior to the seminar's start; a limited number of tickets will be available the day of the event.

Sponsors TOP

This discussion is made possible by the Charlotte and Bill Ford Artist Talks Fund.

Night School is a program of the Museum as Hub, which is made possible by the Third Millennium Foundation.

With additional generous support from Metlife Foundation

Additional support is provided by the Asian Cultural Council, National Endowment for the Arts, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, and the New York State Council on the Arts.

Endowment support is provided by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Skadden, Arps Education Programs Fund, and the William Randolph Hearst Endowed Fund for Education Programs at the New Museum.

Profiles TOP

Okwui Enwezor

Okwui Enwezor is Dean of Academic Affairs and Senior Vice President at San Francisco Art Institute. He is Adjunct Curator at International Center of Photography, New York and previously Adjunct Curator of Contemporary Art, at the Art Institute of Chicago. Enwezor is Artistic Director of the 7th Gwangju Biennale, opening September 2008. He was previously Artistic Director of the 2nd International Biennial of Contemporary Art, Seville, Spain (2005-2007); Documenta 11, Kassel, Germany (1998-2002); and the 2nd Johannesburg Biennale (1996-1998). Enwezor has organized numerous exhibitions around the world, including “The Short Century: Independence and Liberation Movements in Africa, 1945-1994”; “In/Sight: African Photographers, 1940-Present”; “Global Conceptualism”; and most recently “Archive Fever: Photography Between History and the Document.”

Enwezor is founder and editor of the critical art journal Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art. As a writer, critic, and editor, Enwezor has been a regular contributor to numerous exhibition catalogues, anthologies, and journals including: Third Text, Documents, Texte zur Kunst, Grand Street, Parkett, Artforum, Frieze, Art Journal, Research In African Literatures, and others. Enwezor has published several books including Reading the Contemporary: African Art, from Theory to the Marketplace co-edited with Olu Oguibe; Mega Exhibitions: Antinomies of a Transnational Global Form and the four-volume publication of Documenta11Platforms: Democracy Unrealized; Experiments with Truth: Transitional Justice and the Processes of Truth and Reconciliation; Creolité and Creolization; Under Seige: Four African Cities, Freetown, Johanneburg, Kinshasa, Lagos. He is co-editor of Modernity and Contemporaneity: Antinomies of Art and Culture after 20th Century, and is currently completing two books: The Postcolonial Constellation: Contemporary Art and the Global Stage and Archaeology of the Present: The Postcolonial Archive, Photography and African Modernity. Enwezor lives and works in New York and San Francisco.


Jacob Perlin

Jacob Perlin is Assistant Film Curator, BAMCinematek, and founder of The Film Desk, a theatrical distribution company (www.thefilmdesk.com). He has presented film programs and lectured at the Human Rights Film Festival in Zagreb, Croatia, and the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid, Spain. Perlin contributes to Film Comment Magazine and has organized film series for Cinema Tropical, French Institute Alliance Francaise and Light Industry in New York.