6:45 - 7:15 PM
Art and Activism in the 1960's and Beyond
Linda Shearer
(keynote)
My talk will start with the year 1968 when I graduated from college and when the international art world witnessed unprecedented activism on the part of artists to achieve economic and political agency. Young and idealistic, I was deeply affected by the Vietnam War, by the untimely deaths of Martin Luther King, jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, by the powerful message of the Black Panthers, by the growing divide between traditional corporate structures and alternative progressive approaches, by the heightened spiritual awareness derived in part from the new drug culture, along with the music that came to represent my generation. For art and culture, the year 1968 would set the stage for the decades to come. While the impact on curatorial practice was not necessarily immediate, the impact on artists was. Artists in the past, namely the Russian Constructivists, the Dadaists, Futurists and Surrealists, among others, were known for the integration of politics and other non-artistic concerns as part of their art work. Starting in 1968, many artists mobilized to protest the actions of their own governments, generating an urgency and a split between the community of artists and that of museum trustees, collectors, art patrons who represented the forces behind the United States involvement in Vietnam and Cambodia, as well as Latin America. As a young museum worker at the time, my presentation will weave my personal experience with the larger issues and concerns of a significant number of artists and their demonstrations. In looking back at this history, I hope to shed light on the ongoing power dynamics that continue for artists to this day.
Recently retired from the directorship of Project Row Houses, Linda Shearer has been working in museums in the United States for over 40 years, and her focus has been contemporary art. She arrived in Houston in 2007 to be the interim director at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston. Prior to that, Linda served as director of the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati, Ohio, and from 1989 to 2004, at the Williams College Museum of Art. With a degree from Sarah Lawrence College, she worked at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum for 11 years before becoming director in 1980 at one of the earliest alternative spaces in the country -- Artists Space, also in New York. Linda served as curator in the Painting and Sculpture Department at the Museum of Modern Art from 1985 to 1989 and was responsible for the Project series there. Artists have always been at the heart of Linda's curatorial/directorial practice and she has always held firmly to the idea that art can be an agent for social change. Her time at Project Row Houses coincided with a sea change in the art world when new value was attached to art and artists whose work within a community can be that catalyst for change.
Arte y activismo en los sesentas y más allá
Linda Shearer
(conferencia magistral)
Mi presentación comienza en el año 1968 cuando me gradué de la universidad y cuando el mundo del arte internacional presenció un activismo sin precedentes por parte de los artistas con el objetivo de lograr agencia económica y política. Joven e idealista, me sentí profundamente afectado por la Guerra de Vietnam, por las muertes prematuras de Martin Luther King, Jr., y Robert F. Kennedy, por el poderoso mensaje de las Black Panthers, por la creciente división entre las estructuras corporativas tradicionales y las aproximaciones progresistas alternativas, por el agudo despertar espiritual derivado en parte de por la nueva cultura de la droga, junto con la música que vino a representar a mi generación. Para el arte y la cultura, el año de 1968 establecería la plataforma para las siguientes décadas. Mientras que el impacto en la práctica curatorial no fue necesariamente inmediato, sí lo fue en los artistas. En el pasado, los artistas, especialmente los constructivistas rusos, los dadaístas, futuristas y surrealistas, entre otros, fueron conocidos por la integración de la política y otras preocupaciones no artísticas como parte de sus obras de arte. Este impulso fue retomado comenzando en 1968, cuándo muchos artistas se movilizaron para protestar las acciones de sus gobiernos, generando una urgencia y un quiebre entre la comunidad de artistas y la de los administradores de los museos, coleccionistas y mecenas de arte quienes representaban las fuerzas detrás de la participación de los Estados Unidos en Vietnam y Cambodia, así como en Latinoamérica. Como un empleado joven de museo durante ese tiempo, mi presentación entrelazará mi experiencia personal con los problemas y preocupaciones más abarcadoras de un número significativo de artistas y sus demostraciones. Retrocediendo en la historia, espero dilucidar las dinámicas de poder que continúan vigentes para los artistas hasta hoy en día.