Alexander Alberro / Art and Work in the 21st Century

Co-presented by the Power Institute and the Chau Chak Wing Museum.

What is the relationship between art and work in the 21st century?

The word "work" points in two directions. On the one hand, it refers to the artwork: its historical conditions of possibility, its materiality and visibility, and its financial value. On the other hand, the idea evokes the relationship between art and labour: the power structures that shape creative work and subjectivity, and the individual and collective techniques available to disrupt these structures.

This lecture considers conceptual art's engagement with these aspects of work for art history and asks the question: are artists in the 21st century encountering the same issues?

The event marks the publication of Ian Burn: Collected Writings 1966-1993, a major new volume edited by Ann Stephen and published by the Power Institute.

Alexander Alberro, Virginia Bloedel Wright Professor of Art History at Barnard College / Columbia University, has published widely on modern and contemporary art and theory. He is the author of Abstraction in Reverse: The Reconfigured Spectator in Mid-Twentieth Century Latin American Art (2017) and Conceptual Art and the Politics of Publicity (2003). His Interstices: At Contemporary Art's Boundaries, which focuses on the negotiations at the margins between art frameworks, is forthcoming in 2025. Alberro has also edited many important anthologies, including Working Conditions: The Writings of Hans Haacke (2016); Museum Highlights: The Writings of Andrea Fraser (2005); Conceptual Art and the Politics of Publicity (2003); Recording Conceptual Art (2001); and Conceptual Art: A Critical Anthology (1999).

Image: Ian Burn shaving in Mirror Piece, photographed by Mel Ramsden, 1967.