This two-day conference aims to foster discussion about the relationship between art and power, including reflections on the appropriation of visual and print culture by political regimes; the intersections of so-called high culture and popular culture in dictatorships or periods of political crisis; and the constructions of history in light of current events.

Speakers will include poets, curators, historians of art and propaganda, and contemporary artists. Spain serves as a central point of reference for a number of the presentations, including cases such as the recent exhibition Campo cerrado. Arte y poder en la posguerra española. 1939-1953, a major exhibition about visual culture, architecture, design, and exhibition history under Franco at the Reina Sofia Museum; the efforts to return Guernica to Spain during the dictatorship and Transition; and the appropriation of Picasso to brand Málaga a center for artistic tourism.

In addition, a number of the participants will offer perspectives related to art during political crisis elsewhere, with presentations that focus on cases such as contemporary Venezuela, and the recent exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum We Wanted a Revolution: Black Radical Women 1965-1985.

PROGRAM

Friday, November 17, 2017

5:00 p.m. Welcome

Christine Poggi, Judy and Michael Steinhardt Director, NYU Institute of Fine Arts

5:15 p.m. Introduction

María Dolores Jiménez-Blanco, Associate Professor, Universidad Complutense de Madrid; Fall 2017 King Juan Carlos I of Spain Chair in Spanish Culture, NYU

5:30 p.m. Keynote

Un orden disidente. El regreso de la poesía al sentido de lo común (A Dissident Order. The Return of Poetry to the Common Sense), by Luis García Montero, Poet and Professor of Spanish Literature, Universidad de Granada

6:30 p.m. PANEL 1: Museum Piece? Exhibiting War and Totalitarianisms

We wanted a revolution. Black Radical Women, 1965-85, by Catherine J. Morris, Sackler Senior Curator, Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, Brooklyn Museum

Closed Fields? Museums and Memory, by María Dolores Jiménez-Blanco, Associate Professor, Universidad Complutense de Madrid; Fall 2017 King Juan Carlos I of Spain Chair in Spanish Culture, NYU

At War. Conflict and Representation, by Francesc Torres, artist

Respondent: Miriam M. Basilio, Associate Professor of Art History and Museum Studies, NYU

Reception to follow

Saturday, November 18, 2017

11:00 a.m. Introduction

Miriam Basilio, Associate Professor of Art History and Museum Studies, NYU

11:15 a.m.: PANEL 2: Very Real Fictions: Creation and Political Commentary

Political Regimes of Invisibility. Aesthetics and Censorship in Contemporary Spain, by Germán Labrador, Associate Professor, Department of Spanish and Portuguese, Princeton University

Spanish Dynasties: Portraits, Copies, and Controversy, by Miriam Basilio, Associate Professor of Art History and Museum Studies, NYU

Postcards from Venezuela, by Esperanza Mayobre, artist

Respondent: Carey Kasten, Associate Professor of Spanish, Modern Languages and Literature (LC), Fordham University

12:45 p.m. Lunch Break

3:00 p.m. PANEL 3: Politics, Consumerism, Tourism and Culture: Picasso’s Guernica

Guernica’s arrival to Spain. Memory, Political Commitment and Democracy, by Genoveva Tusell, Professor, Universidad Nacional a Distancia, Madrid

Picasso as backdrop, by Daniel García Andújar, artist

Pic@$$o, by Rogelio López Cuenca, artist

Respondent: Jordana Mendelson, Associate Professor, Department of Spanish and Portuguese Languages and Literatures, NYU

Co-organizers:

María Dolores Jiménez-Blanco, Associate Professor, Universidad Complutense de Madrid; Fall 2017 King Juan Carlos I of Spain Chair in Spanish Culture, NYU

Miriam Basilio, Associate Professor of Art History and Museum Studies, NYU

The symposium will be in English and Spanish. Simultaneous translation will be provided

Sponsored and produced by NYU King Carlos I of Spain Center