ARTIST TALK 6 | CONOR McGRADY
THE ARTIST, THE STATE AND THE COLLECTIVE IMAGINARY
SATURDAY 13 APRIL 2013 | 4pm
A recording of the talk is available hereTHE ARTIST, THE STATE AND THE COLLECTIVE IMAGINARY
SATURDAY 13 APRIL 2013 | 4pm
Image: Knut Egil, The Coronation of artist Martin Holmefjord as Viceroy of the Micronation "Fusa" 2003
ARTIST TALK 6 | CONOR McGRADY
THE ARTIST, THE STATE AND THE COLLECTIVE IMAGINARY
SATURDAY April 13th 2013 at 4pm in 126 Gallery, Flood Street, Galway.
Introduced by Megs Morley.
126 is delighted to present 'The Artist, The State and the Collective Imaginary",
a talk by artist Conor McGrady. All welcome.
a talk by artist Conor McGrady. All welcome.
From the Temporary Autonomous Zone to the Commune, Squat or Micronation,
the desire for alternative communities has long existed in opposition to the
collective imaginaries offered by the modern nation state. Artists have often
been key in shaping the utopian flows of desire that drive the formation of such
communities. In an era characterized by globalization, neo-liberalism and crisis,
what role do artists or artists’ collectives play in the formation of alternative
social structures? If cultural producers do play a role in such formations, how
do they relate to existing societal mechanisms or to the broader public? If
society on a macro and micro level embodies contradiction, conflict and tension,
can cultural/aesthetic projects that utilize the form and language of social
structures pose as viable alternatives to the dominant paradigm, and if so, what
can such projects offer that traditional forms of activism or social/political
engagement cannot? Conor McGrady, will address the relationship between art
and ideology/representation and action and examine the role played by artists in
the formation of utopian or alternative communities.
A discussion will be facilitated by Megs Morley after the talk.
A discussion will be facilitated by Megs Morley after the talk.
Conor McGrady was born in Downpatrick in N. Ireland, and lives and works in
New York City and The Burren, Co. Clare, Ireland. He received a BA Hons from
the University of Northumbria, Newcastle, UK, and an MFA from The School of
the Art Institute of Chicago in 1998. He has exhibited internationally, with one-
person exhibitions in New York, Miami, Atlanta, Chicago and Zagreb. Group
exhibitions include the 2002 Whitney Biennial in New York and the Biennale
of Contemporary Art, D-0 Ark Underground, Sarajevo-Konjic, Bosnia and
Herzegovina. Editor of Curated Spaces the journal Radical History Review, his
writing has appeared in The Brooklyn Rail, Ruminations on Violence (Waveland
Press, 2007) State of Emergence (Plottner Verlag, 2011) and State in Time
(Drustvo NSK Informativni Center, Ljubljana and Dolenjski Muzej, Novo Mesto,
2012).