February 5, 2011
Drawing upon art historian Julian Myers' and exhibiting artist Edgar Arceneaux's ongoing conversation investigating Detroit's history and culture (which borrows part of its title, as well as its method, from Robert Smithson's 1969 essay "Incidents of Mirror-Travel in the Yucutan") this talk promises to present an art historical, theoretical, and artistic investigation into the repercussions in culture of the Detroit civil unrest of 1967. In the view of the artists, this history, of committed urban struggle in the U.S., is today misrepresented, repressed or demonized, not least amongst contemporary conservatives for whom the political movements of the 1960s remain an unforgettable wound. But, as philosopher Slavoj Zizek often asserts, that which does not exist, that which is disavowed or repressed, will often insist, in phantasmatic form. Following this idea, the conversation will track down some of these phantasms, in cultural form: in music, including Etta James, John Lee Hooker, Theo Parrish, Underground Resistance, and the mytho-poetics of the electro group Drexciya; in art, in particular tumultuous installation of Michael Heizer's earthwork Dragged Mass Displacement at Detroit Institute of Arts in 1971; and in the monuments of existing Detroit, especially the site of the afterhours party where the '67 riots began. Along the way the speakers purport to explore the pleasures and politics of "the underground," in all of its valences. The discussion will also include the thoughts and insights of Underground Resistance member Cornelius Harris, aka "The Unknown Writer".
5 окт 2024
