Press Release

Frieze Talks 2008: Details Announced

Boris Groys, Carsten Höller, Yoko Ono and Cosey Fanni Tutti are all part of the international line-up of artists, philosophers, writers and cultural commentators making up Frieze Talks 2008.
Frieze Talks, a daily programme of keynote lectures, panel debates and discussions taking place in the Auditorium at Frieze Art Fair, is presented by Frieze Foundation in collaboration with frieze magazine. 
Panel discussions led by Jennifer Allen, Stuart Comer, Carol Yinghua Lu and Simon Reynolds will focus on subjects that include the state of alternative culture, the challenges and possibilities facing the art system in China, and ideas surrounding time and memory in recent art and exhibitions.
Conversations with Marc Camille Chaimowicz and Alasdair Gray and a presentation by Delhi-based Raqs Media Collective will be followed by keynote lectures from philosopher Boris Groys and influential artists and commentators Fritz Haeg, Yoko Ono and Judith Williamson.
Jennifer Higgie, Co-Editor of frieze magazine said, “We are excited about the richly diverse, international programme of speakers we have put together for the 2008 Frieze Talks. From artists and novelists to philosophers, architects, musicians, critics and curators, this year’s participants will be discussing, illustrating, performing and arguing some of the myriad issues swirling around the world of art and visual culture today.”
Thursday 16 October
12pm The China Experience

Carol Yinghua Lu (Writer, Curator and Contributing Editor, frieze) will bring together three key players in Chinese contemporary art to discuss the impact of the country’s political, financial and creative conditions on its artists, critics, curators and gallerists.  With so much attention focused on China, the panel examines the structures of its art scene and looks at how it compares to Western models.
Weng Ling (Curator and Founder of the Beijing Center for the Arts)
Zheng Shengtian (Yishu, Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art)
Karen Smith (Writer, Curator and Chinese Contemporary Art Specialist)
3pm A Personal Grammar of Means

Artist Marc Camille Chaimowicz in conversation with writer and art historian Roger Cook.

5pm The Aesthetic Responsibility

Writer, curator and philosopher Boris Groys will give a keynote lecture on how design today functions as a leading medium of self-revelation and self-positioning in public space.  Arguing that design has acquired a new ethical dimension, he contends that where there was once religion, there is now design.

Friday 17 October
12pm It’s About Time

This discussion chaired by Jennifer Allen (Writer and Critic) will explore the recent emphasis on temporality in art exhibitions. While considering historical and philosophical precedents, the panel will explore how and why time has become a tool for curators, and will question the political implications of such an approach.
Philippe Parreno (Artist)
Carsten Höller (Artist)
Elena Filipovic (Writer and Independent Curator)
Peter Osborne (Professor and Director of the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy, Middlesex University, London)

3pm The First Pictures I Enjoyed

Writer and artist Alasdair Gray in conversation with novelist and artist Tom McCarthy.

5pm PASSAGES OF LIGHT

Artist Yoko Ono will present a keynote lecture, demonstrating the continued importance of the performative practices and engagement with audiences that she has pursued since the 1960s.
Saturday 18 October
12pm In Memory of the Image

This panel chaired by Stuart Comer (Curator: Film, Tate Modern) will look at the proliferation, immediacy and increasing mobility of images. If we have reached the demise of representation, how do we talk about the image? What are the implications for rethinking terms such as documentary, form and abstraction?
George Baker (Associate Professor of Art History at the University of California, Los Angeles and editor at October)
Morgan Fisher (Artist and Filmmaker)
Hito Steyerl (Filmmaker and Author)
3pm Transhumance

Raqs Media Collective will perform a selection of reports and conversations gathered from their nomadic practices as artists, curators and theorists.

5pm Something for Everyone

Artist, writer, architect, educator, ecologist and radical gardener Fritz Haeg will give a keynote talk exploring populist projects, insular bohemia, activist art, passive entertainment, networked communication, broadcast media, social strategies of isolation, and potential roles for today’s artist in a fractured society.
Sunday 19 October
12pm Is the Underground Over?

A conversation chaired by music critic Simon Reynolds will examine how the notion of subculture has become outmoded through the overexposure afforded by the internet and the media’s rapid assimilation of the marginal.  This panel also surveys the past, present and future of unpopular culture and explores the possibility of alternatives to ‘alternative’.
Cosey Fanni Tutti (Artist)
Penny Martin (Rootstein Hopkins Chair of Fashion Imagery, London College of Fashion)
Claire Titley (Music Promoter, ‘Upset the Rhythm’) 

4pm The Culture of Denial
Influential writer, broadcaster and lecturer Judith Williamson will give a keynote lecture on the skewed relationship between what we know and what we do, examining how the gulf between knowledge and behaviour shapes contemporary culture. 
For further information on the speakers, please visit http://www.friezefoundation.org/talks.

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Opening dates and hours:
Thursday 16 October 11am – 7pm
Friday 17 October 11am – 7pm
Saturday 18 October 11am – 7pm
Sunday 19 October 11am – 6pm

Preview: Wednesday 15 October

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