Dallas, TX (October 20, 2016) – The Nasher Sculpture Center announces an open call for graduate papers addressing themes within the work of the 2017 Nasher Prize Laureate, Pierre Huyghe, for the inaugural Nasher Prize Graduate Symposium. The aim of the symposium is to expand scholarship on the field of contemporary sculpture. Known for his multifarious practice encompassing a variety of materials and disciplines, bringing music, cinema, dance, and theater into contact with biology and philosophy, and incorporating time-based elements that vary in intensity—as diverse as fog, ice, rituals, automata, computer programs, video games, animals, and microorganisms—Huyghe has consistently sought new ways to bring together unconventional and heterogeneous materials into a practice exceeding the sum of its many parts.
The 2017 Nasher Prize Graduate Symposium keynote speaker will be Nicolas Bourriaud, renowned art critic, curator, and Director of La Pancée art center, Montpellier, France. Bourriaud is perhaps most well-known for coining the term Relational Aesthetics which is used to describe artistic practice which is interactive, performative, or related to a social context rather than a private space. The work of Pierre Huyghe, because it so often involves the participation of the viewer or living systems, often falls within this rubric.
The annual Nasher Prize Graduate Symposium offers students from any academic discipline a chance to present their scholarly work on the host of questions and topics related to each year’s new laureate, addressing a broad audience of art historians and museum professionals, and to receive feedback from fellow presenters, the keynote speaker, and audience members. Students selected to present papers will also have their work published in the annual Nasher Prize Graduate Symposium compendium, together with the paper delivered by the keynote speaker, Nicolas Bourriaud.
Suggested Topics for the 2017 Nasher Prize Graduate Symposium on Pierre Huyghe
•Time and temporality within sculptural practice
•Post-Structuralist theory and its application to/influence on contemporary art (e.g., Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, and Félix Guattari)
•Video, performativity, and sculpture
•Subjectivity and memory within a work of sculpture
•Relational Aesthetics: interactive and participatory art
•Collaboration, authorship, and artistic “genius”
Submissions may include, but are not limited to:
•excerpt of an MA/MFA paper or thesis
•excerpt of a seminar paper
•excerpt from a dissertation
All proposals must include the following:
•A complete mailing address, e-mail address, phone number, field, and university affiliation of participant
•An abstract of no more than 200 words that includes 3 to 5 keywords for the proposed presentation
Send submissions and questions to [email protected]. Registration information will follow.
For additional information see: http://www.nashersculpturecenter.org/art/nasher-prize/2017-nasher-prize-graduate-symposium
About Keynote Speaker, Nicolas Bourriaud, Director of La Pancée art center, Montpellier, France
Nicolas Bourriaud (born 1965) is a French curator, writer, art critic, and author of theoretical essays on contemporary art. Bourriaud was the Gulbenkian curator of contemporary art at Tate Britain, London, where he curated The Tate Triennial: Altermodern (2009). He co-founded and was co-director of the Palais de Tokyo, Paris, from 1999 to 2006. He founded the contemporary art magazine Documents sur l'art, of which he was director from 1992 to 2000, and worked as a Parisian correspondent for Flash Art from 1987 to 1995. He was director of the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux Arts, in Paris from 2011 to 2015. In 2015, he was appointed director of the future Contemporary Art Center of Montpellier, France, due to open in 2019. His writings have been translated into over 15 languages, and his publications include Radicant (Sternberg Press/Merve Verlag, New York/Berlin, 2009), Postproduction (Lukas & Sternberg, New York, 2002, English edition, Les presses du reel, Dijon, 2004, French edition), Formes de vie. L’art moderne et l’invention de soi (Editions Denoël, Paris, 1999), and Relational Aesthetics (Les presses du réel, 1998, French edition, English edition, 2002).
About the 2017 Nasher Prize Laureate, Pierre Huyghe
Huyghe was born in 1962 in Paris, he lives and works in Chile and New York. He studied at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Paris. In 2013, his retrospective opened at Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, then traveled to Museum Ludwig, Cologne (2014) and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (2014-2015). He has had numerous international solo exhibitions at such venues as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2015); Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid (2010), Tate Modern, London (2006); Dia Center for the Arts, New York (2003); French Pavilion, Venice Biennale (2001); Kunstverein München, Munich (1999); and Secession, Vienna (1999). Huyghe has also participated in a number of group exhibitions such as the 14th Istanbul Biennial (2015); Documenta 13 and 11, Kassel (2012 and 2002); 6th Sydney Biennale (2008); theanyspacewhatever, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2008); Whitney Biennial (2006); and Traffic, CAPC musée d'art contemporain de Bordeaux (1996), curated by Nicolas Bourriaud. He is also a participant in the 32nd Bienal de São Paul (2016). Huyghe has been the recipient of many awards and honors, including the Kurt Schwitters Prize, Hannover (2015); Roswitha Haftmann Prize, Zürich (2013); Contemporary Artist Award; Smithsonian Museum’s Contemporary Artist Award, Washington (2010); Hugo Boss Prize, New York (2002); Special Jury Prize, 49th Venice Biennale (2001); and DAAD Berlin Artists-in-Residence, Berlin (1999-2000). Huyghe’s work is in the collection of many museums such as Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Tate, London; Museum Ludwig, Cologne; and several Foundations like Fondation Louis Vuitton, Fondation Pinault and LUMA Foundation.
About the Nasher Prize
In April 2015, the Nasher Sculpture Center announced the creation of the Nasher Prize, the most significant award in the world dedicated exclusively to contemporary sculpture. It is presented annually to a living artist that has had an extraordinary impact on the understanding of the art form. Each winner is chosen by a jury of renowned museum directors, curators, artists, and art historians who have an expertise in the field, and varying perspectives on the subject, and receives a $100,000 prize, conferred in April of each year. In addition, each winner receives an award object designed by the architect of the Nasher Sculpture Center, Renzo Piano. The Nasher Sculpture Center is one of a few institutions worldwide dedicated exclusively to the exhibition and study of modern and contemporary sculpture. As such, the prize is an apt extension of the museum’s mission and its commitment to advancing developments in the field.
Attendant with the award aspect of the Nasher Prize is a series of public programs called Nasher Prize Dialogues. These panel discussions, lectures, and symposia are intended to foster international awareness of sculpture and of the Nasher Prize, and to stimulate discussion and debate. Nasher Prize Dialogues are held in cities around the world on a yearly basis, offering engagement with various audiences, and providing myriad perspectives and insight into the ever-expanding field of sculpture.
The inaugural winner of the Nasher Prize was Colombian artist, Doris Salcedo.
Sponsors
JPMorgan Chase & Co. is the presenting sponsor of the Nasher Prize. The Nasher Prize presenting sponsor is JPMorgan Chase & Co. Founding Partners of the Nasher Prize are The Eugene McDermott Foundation and Nancy A. Nasher and David J. Haemisegger.
The Dallas Foundation is the Presenting Sponsor of Nasher Prize Celebration Month, with additional support generously provided by The Donna Wilhelm Family Fund. The Heart of Neiman Marcus Foundation is the Arts Youth Education Sponsor of Celebration Month.