In conjunction with the exhibition
OURS: Democracy in the Age of Branding,
the Vera List Center for Art and Politics is presenting the following programs, all admission free.
For further information, visit
www.branding-democracy.org.
Aperture Foundation at The New School: Confounding Expectations, Photography in Context
Framing the Presidency
The New School, Tishman Auditorium, Alvin Johnson/J. M. Kaplan Hall
66 West 12th Street, New York City
Aperture Foundation, the Photography Department of Parsons The New School for Design, and the Vera List Center for Art and Politics present “Framing the Presidency,” a panel exploring the collision of photography, mass media, and politics in the 2008 presidential campaign. The speakers share their experiences and discuss the role of photography in constructing our image of the presidency.
Panelists:
Tim Davis, photographer
Robert Hariman, Chair of Communication Studies, Northwestern University
Todd Heisler, Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist
David Scull, New York Times campaign picture editor and photographer
Presented with generous support from the Kettering Family Foundation and the Henry Nias Foundation. The program is made possible, in part, by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.
The John McDonald Moore Memorial Lecture
Boris Groys on Democracy
Monday, November 17, 2008 – 6:30 to 8:00 p.m.
The New School, Wollman Hall
65 West 11th Street (enter at 66 West 12th Street), 5th floor, New York City
The fourth John McDonald Moore Memorial Lecture is delivered by philosopher Boris Groys who will speak on design and branding, and how nature and God have been replaced by design and conspiracy theories.
Named after one of the university’s most influential art history teachers, the lectures in the past have been delivered by Michael Brenson, Linda Nochlin and Stephanie Barron. John McDonald Moore taught art history and criticism at The New School from 1968 until his death in 1999.
Panel and charrette
Dress Code
Wednesday, November 19, 2008 – 6:30 to 8:00 p.m.
Parsons The New School for Design
Maria and Stephen Kellen Gallery, Sheila C. Johnson Design Center, 2 West 13th Street, New York City
Speakers:
Shelley Fox, Donna Karan Professor of Fashion Design, Parsons
Peter W. Merlin, aerospace archeologist and collector of military patches
Trevor Paglen, experimental geographer, University of California at Berkeley
Hailing from the world of fashion, national security, and art respectively, Shelley Fox, Peter Merlin, and Trevor Paglen discuss visual literacy in relation to dress codes, and look at collective identity constructed—and dissected—by open and closed systems of visual codes such as military insignia and designer logos.
Their conversation is preceded from 3:00 to 6:00 p.m. by a charrette, a solution-driven workshop staged in the gallery on a platform designed for this purpose by Liam Gillick. In the charrette, students from various departments at Parsons and the public mine visual codes and brand reinforcement in the context of the military complex, taking as point of departure Paglen’s project on iconography associated with the “black world” of classified military culture. Participants work in teams to develop and craft onto T-shirts coded messages, examining the shifts in power when an outsider becomes an insider, for instance when a consumer is initiated into an elite and “knowing” subculture.
Both the charrette and panel are open to the public and take place in the Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Gallery of the Sheila C. Johnson Design Center at Parsons The New School for Design. They are being presented as part of the exhibition OURS: Democracy in the Age of Branding, on view at the Sheila C. Johnson Design Center from October 16, 2008, to February 1, 2009. The exhibition and related programs are made possible, in part, by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.
For further information, please visit www.branding-democracy.org.
