{"id":64794,"global_id":"krieger.jhu.edu\/humanities-institute?id=64794","global_id_lineage":["krieger.jhu.edu\/humanities-institute?id=64794"],"author":"397","status":"publish","date":"2025-04-03 16:15:40","date_utc":"2025-04-03 20:15:40","modified":"2025-04-03 16:15:40","modified_utc":"2025-04-03 20:15:40","url":"https:\/\/krieger.jhu.edu\/humanities-institute\/event\/caplan-rosen-lecture-spring-2025-karin-zitzewitz\/","rest_url":"https:\/\/krieger.jhu.edu\/humanities-institute\/wp-json\/tribe\/events\/v1\/events\/64794","title":"Caplan-Rosen Lecture Spring 2025: Karin Zitzewitz","description":"

Asking Historical Questions of Contemporary (Indian) Art<\/strong><\/p>\n

This talk uses Shilpa Gupta\u2019s\u00a0Listening Air\u00a0<\/em>(2019\u20132023) to consider how best to take a squarely art historical perspective on contemporary art. By historical, I mean one driven less by the question,\u00a0what does this work of art mean?<\/em>\u00a0than by the question,\u00a0how did this work of art come to be?<\/em><\/p>\n

Porous and world-hailing, Gupta\u2019s text-driven works openly participate in their conditions of possibility. Indeed, her works necessitate reconsideration of what sorts of materials can and should shape the historical account of their becoming. They allow us to explore the potential for rethinking the subject\u2014<\/em>meaning, the grammatical or agentic \u201cI\u201d\u2014of contemporary art history. For, while contemporary art retains its consistent appeal to \u201cthe now,\u201d it is today rare for art\u2019s form to serve as the subject of its historicity, as it did for much of the 20th<\/sup>\u00a0century. Indeed, an ambivalence about the inability to center formal change as historical change\u2014and a confusion about what might serve as art\u2019s alternative historical agency\u2014underlies a great deal of contemporary art discourse. This paper proposes an alternative approach to this question, one centered on questions of research method.<\/p>\n

Karin Zitzewitz<\/a>\u00a0is a specialist in the modern and contemporary art of South Asia. She is the author of\u00a0Infrastructure and Form: The Global Networks of Indian Contemporary Art, 1991-2008<\/em>\u00a0(2022),\u00a0The Art of Secularism: The Cultural Politics of Modernist Art in Contemporary India<\/em>\u00a0(2014), and\u00a0The Perfect Frame: Presenting Indian Art: Stories and Photographs from the Kekoo Gandhy Collection\u00a0<\/em>(2003). She curated exhibitions by Pakistani artist Naiza Khan (2013) and Indian artist Mithu Sen (2014) for the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University. Her research has been supported by the European Research Council, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the Paul Mellon Centre for British Art, the American Institute for Indian Studies, and the Fulbright program. She is a former Chair of the editorial board of\u00a0Art Journal<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Art Journal OPEN<\/em>.\u00a0 Zitzewitz is Professor and Chair of the Department of Art History and Archaeology at the University of Maryland, College Park.<\/p>\n

\"In
Shilpa Gupta Listening Air, 2019-2023 Mobile microphones fitted with speakers, lights, printed text on metal stands 25 mins audio loop Photo by Ela Bialkowska, OKNO Studio for PinchukArtCentre\/From Ukraine: Dare to Dream\/Venice Biennale 2024<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Location:\u00a0Meyerhoff Auditorium at the Baltimore Museum of Art<\/span><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
10 Art Museum Dr<\/span>
\nBaltimore<\/span>,<\/span>\u00a0Maryland<\/abbr>\u00a021218<\/span><\/span><\/address>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>","excerpt":"","slug":"caplan-rosen-lecture-spring-2025-karin-zitzewitz","image":false,"all_day":false,"start_date":"2025-04-22 17:30:00","start_date_details":{"year":"2025","month":"04","day":"22","hour":"17","minutes":"30","seconds":"00"},"end_date":"2025-04-22 18:30:00","end_date_details":{"year":"2025","month":"04","day":"22","hour":"18","minutes":"30","seconds":"00"},"utc_start_date":"2025-04-22 21:30:00","utc_start_date_details":{"year":"2025","month":"04","day":"22","hour":"21","minutes":"30","seconds":"00"},"utc_end_date":"2025-04-22 22:30:00","utc_end_date_details":{"year":"2025","month":"04","day":"22","hour":"22","minutes":"30","seconds":"00"},"timezone":"America\/New_York","timezone_abbr":"EDT","cost":"","cost_details":{"currency_symbol":"$","currency_code":"USD","currency_position":"prefix","values":[]},"website":"","show_map":true,"show_map_link":true,"hide_from_listings":false,"sticky":false,"featured":false,"categories":[{"name":"History of Art","slug":"history-of-art","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":161,"taxonomy":"tribe_events_cat","description":"","parent":0,"count":4,"filter":"raw","id":161,"urls":{"self":"https:\/\/krieger.jhu.edu\/humanities-institute\/wp-json\/tribe\/events\/v1\/categories\/161","collection":"https:\/\/krieger.jhu.edu\/humanities-institute\/wp-json\/tribe\/events\/v1\/categories"}}],"tags":[],"venue":{"id":64795,"author":"397","status":"publish","date":"2025-04-03 16:15:40","date_utc":"2025-04-03 20:15:40","modified":"2025-04-03 16:15:40","modified_utc":"2025-04-03 20:15:40","url":"https:\/\/krieger.jhu.edu\/humanities-institute\/venue\/bma\/","venue":"BMA","slug":"bma","json_ld":{"@type":"Place","name":"BMA","description":"","url":"https:\/\/krieger.jhu.edu\/humanities-institute\/venue\/bma\/","address":{"@type":"PostalAddress"},"telephone":"","sameAs":""},"show_map":true,"show_map_link":true,"global_id":"krieger.jhu.edu\/humanities-institute?id=64795","global_id_lineage":["krieger.jhu.edu\/humanities-institute?id=64795"]},"organizer":[],"custom_fields":[],"json_ld":{"@context":"http:\/\/schema.org","@type":"Event","name":"Caplan-Rosen Lecture Spring 2025: Karin Zitzewitz","description":"<p>Asking Historical Questions of Contemporary (Indian) Art This talk uses Shilpa Gupta\u2019s\u00a0Listening Air\u00a0(2019\u20132023) to consider how best to take a squarely art historical perspective on contemporary art. By historical, I […]<\/p>\\n","url":"https:\/\/krieger.jhu.edu\/humanities-institute\/event\/caplan-rosen-lecture-spring-2025-karin-zitzewitz\/","eventAttendanceMode":"https:\/\/schema.org\/OfflineEventAttendanceMode","eventStatus":"https:\/\/schema.org\/EventScheduled","startDate":"2025-04-22T17:30:00-04:00","endDate":"2025-04-22T18:30:00-04:00","location":{"@type":"Place","name":"BMA","description":"","url":"https:\/\/krieger.jhu.edu\/humanities-institute\/venue\/bma\/","address":{"@type":"PostalAddress"},"telephone":"","sameAs":""},"performer":"Organization"},"is_virtual":false,"virtual_url":null,"virtual_video_source":""}