Wednesday, 9/11, 4-5:30pm, the Singleton Rooom in the Student Union on the
Carnegie Mellon campus in Oakland (Pittsburgh). Free. 7:30pm Atkins will
moderate a Town Meeting re 9/11 in McConomy Hall.

Thursday, 9/12, 7pm, in Timken Lecture Hall on the CCAC
campus (1111 Eighth Street–just off 16th Street and Irwin Street) in San
Francisco. This is located at the base of Potrero Hill. Free. for further
info: 415-551-9251.

THE ARTWORLD, COMMUNITY & ACTIVISM: A MEDITATION INSPIRED BY THE EVENTS OF
SEPTEMBER 11TH

In the wake of September 11th, we are awash in government- and mass media
rhetoric about "patriotism," "sacrifice," and "change." Many of these
representations serve to further the already-defined agenda of those in
power, rather than to promote discussion and democracy. Art's role in
crisis–if it is regarded as relevant at all–is seen as entirely
therapeutic.

Crisis creates pressures to dispense with business-as-usual, sometimes
revealing the real (cultural) fissures of the day. In terms of arts
practice, we might consider such questions as: What does community mean in a
Western culture of increasing transience, materialism and diminishing public
space? Given the apotheosis of the artist as an individual genius for the
past 500 years, is the very idea of post-Renaissance art involving community
a contradiction in terms? Why have exemplars of community-minded, often
public art been excluded from the art-historical canon? (Consider the
performances of Suzanne Lacy, the confrontational AIDS-activist works by the
Gran Fury collective and many others, and even Joseph Beuys's founding of
the Free University in 1972.) What effective community-oriented initiatives
have been created online? What catalytic or symbol-making role can artists
play in times of crisis? How can critical works find their place in an
entertainment-oriented museum culture? And in an increasingly monolithic,
mass-media age how can the arts promote the emergence of diverse and
independent voices?

This illustrated lecture will address these matters, tracing the
post-sixties history of activist art and the emergence of organizations such
as Artists Call Against U.S. Intervention in Central America and Visual
AIDS, as a backdrop for considering both current cultural conditions and
artistic practice. The evolving interpretations–and use and abuse–of
recent representations of September 11th related to its one-year
commemoration will also be discussed.

ROBERT ATKINS, a New York-based art historian and writer, is the initiator
of 911