Join UNSW Art & Design Research Forum and UNSW GALLERIES for a LECTURE
BY INTERNATIONALLY RENOWNED DUTCH ARTIST, JONAS STAAL. This LECTURE
COINCIDES WITH THE RELEASE OF STAAL'S NEW BOOK _Propaganda Art in the
21st Century _(The MIT Press, 2019). The artist's visit to UNSW Art &
Design is developed in partnership with Curatorial Practice at Monash
University and the Melbourne Law School.
Drinks with the artist from 530pm with the lecture commencing at 6pm.
LECTURE
In this lecture Staal further examines forms of 'emancipatory
propaganda art' that do not aim at manipulating masses into Us versus
Them dichotomies, but instead 'propagate' the complexities and
ambiguities involved in building new planetary communities. These
creative practices range from choreographies in popular mass movements
to the artists at the frontline of the Rojava revolution in
North-Syria.
BOOK
For a long time, propaganda was considered a term only used in
dictatorships. But with the advent of terms such as 'fake news',
'alternative facts' and the so-called 'post-truth' era, it becomes
clear that in supposed democratic regimes the term remains applicable
as well. In his book Propaganda Art in the 21st Century (The MIT
Press, 2019), artist Jonas Staal traces the role of art in modern and
contemporary democracy, from the use of modernist art by the CIA to
propagate against the doctrine of socialist realism in the Soviet
Union during the Cold War, to the work of filmmaker and Trump
ideologue Steve Bannon in establishing alt-right biospheres in the
present.
BIOGRAPHY
Jonas Staal is a visual artist whose work deals with the relation
between art, propaganda, and democracy. He is the founder of the
artistic and political organization New World Summit (2012–ongoing)
and the campaign New Unions (2016–ongoing). With BAK, basis voor
actuele kunst, Utrecht, he cofounded the New World Academy
(2013–16), with Florian Malzacher he is currently directing the
utopian training camp Training for the Future (2018–ongoing) and
with Laure Prouvost he is co-administrator of the Obscure Union
(2017-ongoing). Staal’s work has been shown, among others, at the
7th Berlin Biennale, the 31st São Paulo Biennale, the Moderna Museet
in Stockholm, and the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. His exhibition
projects include Art of the Stateless State (Moderna Galerija,
Ljubljana, 2015), After Europe (State of Concept, Athens, 2016), The
Scottish-European Parliament (CCA Glasgow, 2018), and Museum as
Parliament (with the Democratic Federation of North Syria, Van
Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, 2018-19). His most recent book is Propaganda
Art in the 21st Century (MIT Press, 2019). Staal completed his PhD
research on propaganda art at the PhDArts program of Leiden
University, and he is a member of The Royal Netherlands Academy of
Arts and Sciences in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Image: Jonas Staal, 'Steve Bannon: A Propaganda Retrospective, Study'
2018 (detail). Remco van Bladel and Jonas Staal. Produced by Het
Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam.
art
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27/02/2020 Last update