The MAC’s inaugural symposium for arts practitioners, students and artists will explore current conditions related to contemporary painting practice.
There are markedly pluralistic approaches to how painting can be thought of today; new attitudes towards figuration and abstraction work alongside ever increasing methods of ‘expanded’ practice and new technological media.
Narrative concerns, history, socio-political stances, literary sources and, not least, a continued relationship to photography and digital media, all continue to play a part in informing some of the significant tendencies within painting today. Parallel to this (sometimes even converging on the above) are approaches which have moved beyond the easily recognised definitions of picture depth, surface and frame, to interrogate the object status and site-specific possibilities of painting.
If it is true to say that the ‘post-medium condition’ of art, as posited by Rosalind Krauss, has carried painting along with it, are there still definable and valid places where painting continues to exist on its own terms? If so, what are the contexts and situations that justify this?
The symposium will platform presentations by contemporary artists and art writers, with the intention of generating discussion amongst those interested in the places of painting today.
The symposium will take place against the backdrop of the MAC’s current exhibitions by painters Richard Gorman and Susan Connolly.
Symposium Convenor:
Dougal McKenzie, Lecturer in Painting at the Belfast School of Art, University of Ulster.
Guest speakers will include Susan Connolly, Kevin Henderson, Ian Massey, Linder Sterling, Alison Pilkington and Victoria Morton.
