Episode 28: Paul O’Neill (Part 2)
We are hosting Paul O’Neill. We closed our last episode at a crucial and rather existential moment. This second part of our conversation extends to our small group of audience members. You will hear Paul responding to questions on the educational turn, auto-theory, and variations on how to work with artists.
“It’s very important to still have imaginary spaces that are actualized, such as what happens when we realize an exhibition, or when we teach a class, or when we publish a book. These spaces are where ideas can be mobilized.”
Ahali Conversations are often recorded with an intimate group of audience members, so if you’d like to be in the loop, and join live sessions, please feel free to get in touch.
Episode Notes & Links
This episode includes questions by Alessandra Saviotti, Ula Soley, Enrico Arduini, and Furkan İnan.
Paul O’Neill is a curator, artist, writer, and educator. He is currently the artistic director of Publics, in Helsinki, Finland.
Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) is an artistic and cultural center based in London. https://www.ica.art/
Mick Wilson is an artist, educator and researcher based in Gothenburg and Dublin.
Adrian Rifkin is a professor of art writing at Goldsmiths, University of London. http://gai-savoir.net/
Dr. Andrea Phillips is BALTIC Professor and Director of BxNU Research Institute, Northumbria University & BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art.
Richard Birkett was a curator at the ICA, London; and at the Artists Space in New York. He is currently a curator at the Yale Union art center in Portland, Oregon.
Dave Beech is an artist and writer. https://www.davebeech.co.uk/
Sarah Pierce is an artist based in Dublin.
Nought to Sixty was a program of exhibitions and events, curated by Richard Birkett at the ICA, in 2008. Over the course of six months, the program was presenting solo projects by sixty emerging British- and Irish-based artists. https://archive.ica.art/nought-sixty-artists-index/
The Copenhagen Free University is an artist-run institution, dedicated to the production of critical consciousness and poetic language. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copenhagen_Free_University
unitednationsplaza is a project by Anton Vidokle in collaboration with Boris Groys, Jalal Toufic, Liam Gillick, Martha Rosler, Natascha Sadr Haghighian, Nikolaus Hirsch, Tirdad Zolghadr, and Walid Raad It operated as a temporary, experimental school in Berlin, following the cancellation of Manifesta 6 on Cyprus, in 2006. The project traveled to Mexico City (2008) and to New York City under the name Night School (2008-2009) at the New Museum. Its program was organized around a number of public seminars, most of which are available in the online archive. https://www.unitednationsplaza.org/
The text Paul was referring to –Introduction to The Paraeducation Department– written by Annie Fletcher and Sarah Pierce is in the anthology Curating and the Educational Turn edited by Paul O’Neill and Mick Wilson: https://betonsalon.net/PDF/essai.pdf
Kate Zambreno is an American novelist, essayist, critic, and professor.
Roland Barthes (1915 – 1980) was a French literary theorist, essayist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_Barthes
Octavia Butler (1947 – 2006) was an American science fiction author. Her writings have finally attracted well-deserved attention in the past years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octavia_E._Butler
Maryam Jafri is a Copenhagen-based American artist. The artist’s book Independence Days presents an expanded version of her photo installation and includes texts by Ariella Aïsha Azoulay, Paul O’Neill, Nina Tabassomi. https://www.maryamjafri.net/
Lygia Pimentel Lins (1920 – 1988), better known as Lygia Clark, was a Brazilian artist and co-founder of Neo-Concrete movement. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lygia_Clark
P! is a multidisciplinary gallery and project space formerly in New York, currently based in Berlin. http://p-exclamation.com/
Taken place in P!, in 2016, We are the (Epi)center was a group exhibition organized with the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, featuring: Can Altay, David Blamey, Katarina Burin, Jasmina Cibic, Céline Condorelli, Marjolijn Dijkman, Chris Kraus, Gareth Long, Ronan McCrea, Harold Offeh, William McKeown, Eduardo Padilha, Sarah Pierce, Richard Venlet, Grace Weir, and many others.
PARSE is an international artistic research publishing and biennial conference platform based in the Faculty of Fine, Applied and Performing Arts at University of Gothenburg. This is the visual essay Paul was referring to: https://parsejournal.com/article/before-and-after/
Autotheory refers to a critical approach in which the author uses personal experiences as the major creative force and the body as the source of knowledge.
Sigmund Freud (1856 – 1939) is an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis. Jacques Marie Émile Lacan (1901-1981) is a French psychoanalyst and interpreter of Sigmund Freud’s studies. Their contributions to the psychoanalytic theory have been influential on the literary theory in terms of deciphering a work based on the psychological condition its author is in, or conversely, portraying such condition through unconscious revelations of the author within the work.
Maggie Nelson is an American writer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maggie_Nelson
Semiotext(e) is an independent press, publishing works of theory, fiction, madness, economics, satire, sexuality, science fiction, activism, and confession. http://www.semiotextes.com/
McKenzie Wark is an Australian-born writer and professor of Media and Culture at Hudson University.
Raymond Williams (1921 – 1988) was a Welsh socialist writer, academic, novelist, and critic. In his essay Dominant, Residual, and Emergent, he characterizes the grounded parts of cultural groups and their operating methods. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Williams
Stephen Wright is a writer and gardener. Listen to Episode 1 to get to know him better. https://www.ahali.space/episodes/episode-1-stephen-wright
Tania Bruguera is an artist and activist. https://www.taniabruguera.com/
Dr. Gregory Sholette is a New York-based artist, writer, teacher, and activist.
NTS is a global radio station and media platform founded in 2011 by Femi Adeyemi. https://www.nts.live/
Bjork is an Icelandic singer, songwriter, composer, record producer, and actress. https://bjork.com/
Annie Fletcher is the Director of the Irish Museum of Modern Art.
Leninism is a political ideology developed by Russian Marxist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin that proposes the establishment of communism through dictatorship of the proletariat.
Stalinism is a totalitarian extension of Leninism and a period of governing by Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union from 1927 to 1953.
COALESCE is an ongoing exhibition project by Paul O’Neill which takes place at different locations with different artists and shapes around the idea of cohabitation.
This season of Ahali Conversations is supported by the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts. The Graham provides project-based grants to foster the development and exchange of diverse and challenging ideas about architecture and its role in the arts, culture, and society.
This episode was also supported by a Moon & Stars Project Grant from the American Turkish Society.
This episode was recorded on Zoom on May 10th, 2022.
Interview by Can Altay. Produced by Aslı Altay & Sarp Renk Özer. Music by Grup Ses.