The Seminar consists of two complementary parts: a weekly presentation series that is open to the entire Cooper community and its guests and an intimate meeting between the seminar’s students, the course’s faculty and the invited speakers. The weekly lecture presentations by artists, theorists, activists, designers, writers, curators, and many others involved in art, politics, and culture—create an open forum for the presentation of difficult concepts and forms and a framework to unpack the philosophical, critical, historical, and political factors that condition the context for our work.
This site contains the schedule, lecture descriptions and bios for all the lecture presentations for the semester as well as supplemental information for Cooper students who want learn more about a speaker and discover how these discussions contribute to practice.
The lectures and seminar are organized and led by Doug Ashford and Saskia Bos.
The Spring 2009 Inter-Disciplinary Seminar is part of the Robert Lehman Visiting Artist Program at The Cooper Union. We are grateful for major funding support from the Robert Lehman Foundation, Inc.
Allan Sekula in conversation with Monika Szewczyk will be discussing the 1974 photo-text work, This Ain’t China: A Photonovel.
On the occasion of his solo exhibition at the e-flux space on Essex Street, New York – where This Ain’t China: A Photonovel (1974) is presented with a new, site-specific window piece – Allan Sekula will discuss the trajectory of his work’s recurring passages through China, as a state and a state of mind.