Events

This fall and winter, Cabaret Voltaire and CARAH – Collective for Anti-Racist Art History cordially invite you to a reading group. Together we’re going to read and discuss texts on (anti-)racism in art history and related topics.

The reading group meets at Cabaret Voltaire (Spiegelgasse 1, 8001 Zurich) at 6 pm. Depending on the composition of the group, the discussions will take place in German and/or English. The reading group is open to anyone interested. To participate, all you need to do is register via email. The texts will be sent to all participants after registration.

September 27, 2022 – The Gaze

• Homi Bhabha, “Black Male: Representations of Masculinity in Contemporary American Art,” in: Artforum 33, no. 6, February 1995
• Kobena Mercer, “Looking for Trouble,” in: Transition, no. 51, 1991
• McKenzie Wark, “The Cis Gaze and Its Others (for Shola),” in: e-flux journal, #117, April 2021

October 25, 2022 – Colonial Switzerland

• Rohit Jain, “How to Be Affected in Postcolonial Public Spaces? Ethnographic Remarks on a Multifocal World in the Making...,” in: On Curating, no. 35, December 2017, Decolonizing Art Institutions
• Patricia Purtschert and Harald Fischer-Tiné, “Introduction,” in: Colonial Switzerland: Rethinking Colonialism from the Margins, London 2015

November 22, 2022 – Othering

• Renée Green, “I Won’t Play Other to Your Same” (1990) and “Trading on the Margin” (1991), in: Renée Green, Other Planes of There: Selected Writings, Durham 2014
• To prepare for the session, we recommend a visit of Renée Green’s current exhibition at the Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst in Zurich.

December 13, 2022 – Open Letters

• Black Artists and Cultural Workers in Switzerland, “Open Letter to Swiss Cultural Institutions, Museums, Art Spaces, Galleries and Artist-Run Spaces” (June 9, 2020) and “To All Art Spaces in Switzerland” (June 9, 2021)
• Students of Freie Universität Berlin, “Decolonial Visions: For the Appointment of a W3 University Professorship for Art and Visual Cultures of Africa at the Institute of Art History of Freie Universität Berlin” (November 16, 2022)
• Lumbung Community, “We Are Angry, We Are Sad, We Are Tired, We Are United” (September 10, 2022) 

June 23, 2022, 21:00–22:30
Screening: An Experience Like That
A screening of video works by Howardena Pindell, Black Audio Film Collective, Aykan Safoglu and Ivy Monteiro
Cabaret Voltaire, Spiegelgasse 1, 8001 Zurich

December 3, 2021, 17:00–18:30
Lecture by Denise Murrell: “Posing Modernity in Retrospect: Implications for Critical Art Histories”
moderated and introduced by CARAH
Online (zoom)

November 12, 2021, 18:00–19:30
Artist Talk with James Bantone
moderated by Mohamed Almusibli
Online (zoom)

April 23 and 30, 2021
Antiracism in art historical research and teaching
hosted by Anja Glover