The Multiplication of Perspectives

The Multiplication of Perspectives offers a variety of lenses through which to consider circulation, entanglement, and disconnection in the museum today, focusing on some of the promises and pitfalls of a “global” approach to art and its histories. A series of dialogues, forums, keynote presentations, and screenings juxtapose particular histories and practices within a common thematic or methodological framework, as participants contribute nuance and a multiplicity of perspectives to issues that preoccupy us today.

Marking the 10th year of MoMA’s global research program, Contemporary and Modern Art Perspectives (C-MAP), The Multiplication of Perspectives is an extension of research related to art histories in Africa, Asia, Central and Eastern Europe, and Latin America and the Caribbean, while also introducing threads of inquiry that point toward new directions for further engagement.

Admission is free but RSVP is required. Seating will be offered on a first-come, first-served basis.

For questions about the event, please email contact_c-map [​at​] moma.org.

All sessions, unless otherwise noted below, will take place in The Celeste Bartos Theater at 4 West 54 Street (between Fifth and Sixth avenues), New York, NY 10019

Friday, April 26

6pm
Introduction
Jay Levenson, Director, International Program, MoMA

Keynote
Zdenka Badovinac, Director, Moderna Galerija, Ljubljana, Slovenia
Introduced by Meghan Forbes, C-MAP Fellow for Central and Eastern Europe

Saturday, April 27

10:30am
Registration

10:45am
Introduction
Roxana Marcoci, Senior Curator, Department of Photography, MoMA

11am–12pm
Borders dialogue
Departing from the body as a physical and abstract concept to address processes of circulation and control
Max Jorge Hinderer Cruz, Director, National Museum of Art, La Paz, Bolivia
Achille Mbembe, Professor, Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
Introduced and moderated by Iberia Pérez González, C-MAP Fellow for Latin America and the Caribbean, MoMA

12:15–1:30pm
The Planetary forum
Considering the world as an interconnected space as a result of histories of colonialism, capitalism, and the Anthropocene
Dipesh Chakrabarty, Professor of History, South Asian Languages and Civilizations, Department of History, The University of Chicago
Jumana Manna, artist
Joseph P. Masco, Professor of Anthropology and of the Social Sciences, Department of Anthropology, The University of Chicago
Ann Laura Stoler, Professor of Anthropology and Historical Studies, The New School for Social Research, New York
Introduced and moderated by Sarah Lookofsky, Associate Director, International Program, MoMA

1:30–2:30pm
Break

2:30–3:15pm
Keynote
Dipesh Chakrabarty, Professor of History, South Asian Languages and Civilizations, Department of History, The University of Chicago
Introduced by Inés Katzenstein, Curator of Latin American Art and Director of the Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Research Institute for the Study of Art from Latin America

3:30–4:45pm
Crossings in New York forum
New York as a site of intersections of artists from around the world who have passed through or settled in the city
Omar Berrada, writer, curator, and Director, Dar al-Ma’mûn library and artists residency, Marrakech, Morocco
Max Jorge Hinderer Cruz, Director, National Museum of Art, La Paz, Bolivia
Mohammad Omer Khalil, artist
Zoran Popović, artist
Introduced and moderated by Prajna Desai, C-MAP Fellow for Asia, MoMA

5–6:30pm
Screening
Struggle in New York, by Jasna and Zoran Popović
Introduced by Ana Janevski, Curator, Department of Media and Performance, MoMA
Q&A with Zoran and Una Popović

7pm
Reception
The Agnes Gund Garden Lobby

Sunday, April 28

9:30am
Registration

9:45am
Introduction
Stuart Comer, Chief Curator, Department of Media and Performance, MoMA

10–11am
Returns dialogue
Contemporary questions of restitution of cultural property taken during periods of colonial expansion
Kader Attia, artist
Souleymane Bachir Diagne, Professor, Department of Philosophy, Columbia University, New York
Introduced and moderated by Sean Anderson, Associate Curator, Department of Architecture and Design, MoMA

11:15am–12:15pm
Circulation dialogue
Examining historical cases of the migration of images and knowledge across cultures and temporalities
Cécile Fromont, Associate Professor, Department of the History of Art, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut
Anooradha Iyer Siddiqi, Assistant Professor, Department of Architecture, Barnard College, Columbia University, New York
Introduced and moderated by Prajna Desai, C-MAP Fellow for Asia, MoMA

12:15–1:15pm
Break

1:15–2:30pm
Incommensurability forum
Interrogating tensions between a global approach and site-specific study to make space for the untranslatable
Natalia Brizuela, Associate Professor, Department of Spanish and Portuguese, University of California, Berkeley
Victoria Collis-Buthelezi, Lecturer, Department of English, University of Cape Town, South Africa
Timea Junghaus, Executive Director, European Roma Institute for Arts and Culture, Berlin, Germany
Harsha Ram, Associate Professor, Slavic Languages and Literatures and Comparative Literature, University of California, Berkeley
Introduced and moderated by Meghan Forbes, C-MAP Fellow for Central and Eastern Europe, MoMA

2:45–4pm
Screening
A Magical Substance Flows into Me, by Jumana Manna
Introduced by Stuart Comer, Chief Curator, Department of Media and Performance, MoMA

4:15–5pm
Closing keynote
Achille Mbembe, Professor, Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
Introduced by Iberia Pérez González, C-MAP Fellow for Latin America and the Caribbean, MoMA

Founded in 2009, C-MAP emerged from a long history of international outreach at the Museum. The initiative is currently organized into four research groups that respectively focus on modern and contemporary art produced in Africa, Asia, Central and Eastern Europe, and Latin America and the Caribbean. The C-MAP group members include senior and junior staff from across the Museum’s departments. Each group invites eminent scholars, artists, and curators to lead regular seminars at the Museum according to a geographically focused curriculum and conducts research trips to build local contacts and firsthand knowledge. A website, post, devoted to art and the history of modernism in a global context, makes C-MAP research available to a broader public. As a result of these combined efforts, C-MAP’s goal is to nourish a nuanced understanding of the histories and legacies of modernism throughout the Museum’s programs and exhibitions.