Tainted Goods: Contemporary Sculpture and the Critique of Display Cultures

Mercer Union is delighted to announce that Dan Adler will be the second guest of our fORUM critical conversation series, a monthly series of talks, lectures, interviews, screenings and performances.

This talk will address large-scale exhibitions by Rachel Harrison, Isa Genzken, and Geoffrey Farmer consisting of sprawling accumulations of objects: some found, some modified, some handcrafted. Adler will explore how these expansive shows incorporate assemblage-based works which subvert display cultures by provoking viewing experiences that are neither seamless nor easily consumed.

Dan Adler is an associate professor of modern and contemporary art at York University in Toronto. He is the author of Hanne Darboven: Cultural History 1880-1983 Afterall Books/MIT Press 2009 and co-editor with Mitchell Frank of German Art History and Scientific Thought: Beyond Formalism Ashgate Press, 2012. A former senior editor of the Bibliography of the History of Art at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles, he regularly contributes reviews to Frieze and C Magazine. He is currently working on a book manuscript on the aesthetics of recent assemblage sculpture. In addition to his formal university studies, he is an alumnus of the Whitney Museums Independent Study Program. His curatorial credits include the exhibitions Francis Bacon and Henry Moore: Terror and Beauty 2014 held at the Art Gallery of Ontario and When Hangover Becomes Form: Rachel Harrison and Scott Lyall 2006, held at the Contemporary Art Gallery in Vancouver and Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions LACE.

Next fORUM: B.W. Powe

Please join us on October 21st at 7PM for a discussion by Professor B.W. Powe on the visionary figures Marshall McLuhan and Northrop Frye. More details to follow.

fORUM is generously supported by the Hal Jackman Foundation.