The Power Plant

Let’s Do It Again: Contemporary Art and Re-enactment

Sat Jun 07 2008

6:00 AM – 7:30 AM

In collaboration with

Goethe-Institut, Toronto

This one-day symposium, developed in collaboration with art historian Amish Morrell and in tandem with the exhibition Not Quite How I Remember It, combines perspectives from artists, art historians and critics to consider the generative and critical potential of historical reconstruction and re-enactment. The afternoon is divided into three keynote lectures with breaks between panels and also includes a verbatim performance by Toronto artist Johanna Householder: The Subject of Art 2.0 Alain Badiou/Paul Miller.


Amelia Jones: Live Art in History – Remembering the Ephemeral Body

How are live events written into history (or not)? Exploring questions of documentation, re-enactment, history, and memory, Amelia Jones asks how and why particular bodies of knowledge get represented or remembered. Professor and Pilkington Chair in Art History and Visual Studies at the University of Manchester, Amelia Jones is renowned for her work on the intersections of feminism, performance and contemporary art including Irrational Modernism: A Neurasthenic History of New York Dada (2004) and Self Image: Technology, Representation, and the Contemporary Subject (2006). She is co-editing the book Perform, Repeat, Record: Live Art in History. Jim Drobnick (critic, curator and art historian) responds and moderates questions after the presentation.


Dario Robleto artist talk

San Antonio-based Dario Robleto creates intricate hand-made objects that result from intense periods of research, experimentation and fabrication. Mixing metaphors of DJ'ing, alchemy and the life sciences, his work embodies the generative potential of transformation. He has made solo exhibitions with institutions including the Whitney Museum of American Art at Altria, New York, 2003, and the Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, 2001, and participated in group shows such as Old, Weird America, Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, 2008, and Ahistoric Occasion, MASS MoCA, North Adams, 2006.


Jan Verwoert: Living with Ghosts

Drawing upon Jacques Derrida’s ideas of hauntology, Jan Verwoert explores the move from appropriation to invocation in contemporary art. Verwoert lives in Berlin and is a contributing editor of frieze. He writes for publications including Afterall and Metropolis M and teaches at the Piet Zwart Institute, Rotterdam and at the Royal College of Art in London. His book Bas Jan Ader—In Search of the Miraculous was published in 2006 by Afterall Books/MIT Press.


Helena Reckitt, Senior Curator of Programs at The Power Plant and curator of Not Quite How I Remember It chairs responses from the audience and invited guests like Amish Morrell (art historian and symposium consultant) and Jessica Wyman (curator and critic).