Amelia Jones Book Launch
Book launch and brief reading
Wednesday, May 16, 2012 at 6 p.m. at SBC Gallery
Seeing Differently: A History and Theory of Identification and the Visual Arts
(New York and London: Routledge, 2012)
Perform, Repeat, Record: Live Art in History
co-edited by Amelia Jones and Adrian Heathfield
(Bristol: Intellect Press, 2012)
In conjunction with the current exhibition Judging Books by Their Covers, SBC Gallery of Contemporary Art is pleased to host a book launch and brief reading by art historian, Amelia Jones.
Jones, a professor and Grierson Chair in Visual Culture in the Department of Art History and Communication Studies at McGill University, has organized exhibitions and written about contemporary art and on feminist, queer, and anti-racist approaches to visual culture.
Seeing Differently offers a history and theory of ideas about identity in relation to visual arts discourses and practices in Euro-American culture, from early modern beliefs that art is an expression of an individual, the painted image a “world picture” expressing a comprehensive and coherent point of view, to the rise of identity politics after WWII in the art world and beyond.
Bringing together contributors from the study and practice of dance, theatre, performance art and the visual arts, Perform, Repeat, Record addresses the conundrum of how live art is positioned within history. Set apart from other art forms in that it may never be performed in precisely the same way twice, ephemeral artwork exists both at the time of its staging and long after in the memories of its spectators and their testimonies, as well as in material objects, visual media, and text, all of which offer new critical possibilities. Among the artists, theorists, and historians who contributed to this volume are Marina Abramović, Guillermo Gómez-Peña, Rebecca Schneider, Boris Groys, Jane Blocker, Carolee Schneemann, Tehching Hsieh, Orlan, Tilda Swinton, and Jean-Luc Nancy.
SBC Gallery of Contemporary Art wishes to thank the Canada Council for the Arts, the ministère de la Culture, des Communications et de la Condition féminine, the Conseil des arts de Montréal, Routledge - Taylor and Francis Group, Intellect Press and Anna Stein at the McGill University Bookstore.