‘In Between Subjects: A Critical Genealogy of Queer Performance’ by Professor Amelia Jones.
Feminist curator, theorist and historian of art and performance
‘In Between Subjects’ performs a critical genealogy of how “queer” and “performance” have interrelated since the 1950s in art discourse and practice in US and other Anglophone cultures. The paper (and the forthcoming book project which it summarises) argues that an understanding of the historical moments when the two terms and related concepts such as “performativity”, “theatricality”, and “camp” come together is vital to grasping the meanings of contemporary performance art as well as broader cultural concepts of performative or genderfluid subjectivity.
Amelia Jones is the Robert A. Day Professor at the Roski School of Art and Design at University of Southern California. A feminist curator and a theorist and historian of art and performance, her recent publications include ‘Seeing Differently: A History and Theory of Identification and the Visual Arts’ (2012), ‘Perform Repeat Record: Live Art in History’ (2012), co-edited with Adrian Heathfield, the edited volume ‘Sexuality’ (2014), and, co-edited with ‘Erin Silver, Otherwise: Imagining Queer Feminist Art Histories’ (2016). ‘Her exhibition Material Traces: Time and the Gesture in Contemporary Art’ took place in 2013 in Montreal and she programmed the events Trans-Montréal (2015) in that city, followed by a related publication “On Trans/Performance”, a special issue of ‘Performance Research’ (2016). Her ‘Live Artists Live’ performance and conference program took place at USC in 2016. Jones is currently working on a retrospective of the work of Ron Athey and a book tentatively entitled ‘In Between Subjects: A Critical Genealogy of Queer Performance’.
Free. Places limited. RSVP is essential
The lecture is followed by refreshments
The Mayne Centre Lecture is generously supported by Philip Bacon Galleries
Image: Rocio Bolivar, with Thibault Delferière, ‘The Sea Anemone and the Hermit Crab’, February 14, 2015, Human Resources, Los Angeles.