Agency for Critical Inquiry

An open-invitation platform exploring the connections among contemporary art, curating, and knowledge production.

Organized by James Voorhies

Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts
Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
October 2014–August 2016

Made possible with funding and staff of Harvard University’s Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts with additional support by Harvard and other nearby academic departments; realized within my responsibilities as Director and Curator of the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts

Contributions by Laylah Ali, Bik Van der Pol, Ulla von Brandenburg, Phil Collins, Natalie Czech, Jean-Pascal Flavien Harvard Dance Program, Harvard Department of History of Art + Architecture, Department of Art, Film, and Visual Studies, Harvard Film and Visual Studies, Harvard MetaLAB, Harvard-Radcliffe Dramatic Club, Damon Krukowski, Karel Martens, MIT Program in Art, Culture and Technology, Nandipha Mntambo, Nat. Brut, Pulitzer Arts Foundation, Gloria Sutton, Alexander Wolff, Woodberry Poetry Room

This forum became host to informal discussions, slide shows, readings and performances where students, faculty and the general public performed a kind of study of the intersections of the visual arts with other disciplines. Agency for Critical Inquiry was an open invitation to lead and attend events that delved deeper into ideas introduced by exhibitions, visiting artists or any topic that had our attention as a community at the time. Curatorially, the intent was to bring audiences closer for more informal, frequent, and intimate engagement with art and ideas at the Carpenter Center.

Agency for Critical Inquiry was in some ways responsive to my desire to have a pubic realm for collective learning—with and against art. Below is a list of Agency for Critical Inquiry projects at the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts from 2014 to 2016.

Karel Martens: Open Seminar
Talk
September 8, 2015.
Sert Gallery

A Conversation with Gloria Sutton
Talk and Screening
May 12, 2015
Sert Gallery

Jacques the fatalist and his master
Performance
April 24–26, 2015
Sert Gallery

Dance Dialogues: A Post-Performance Conversation
Talk
April 12, 2015
Harvard Dance Center

Simon Dybbroe Møller: Open Seminar
April 7, 2015
Sert Gallery

Nina Beier: Open Seminar
Talk
April 6, 2015
Sert Gallery

Nat. Brut Issue Five Release
Screening and Talk
March 28, 2015
Sert Gallery

Ubu Roi redux
Performance
March 25, 2015
Level 1

Nandipha Mntambo: The Flight
Performance and Talk
February 26, 2015
Room B-04

Art and Technology: New Perspectives on African Art
Department of Visual and Environmental Studies
October 21, 2014
Room B-04

Writings: Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet
Talk and Book Event
September 19, 2016
CRC/bookshop

Frank O’Hara: Lunch Poems
Book Event and Talk
July 25, 2016
CRC/bookshop

Blueprint for Counter Education
Talk and Book Event
May 10, 2016
CRC/bookshop

Don’t Erase Till Monday
Book Event and Performance
May 7, 2016
CRC/bookshop

Open Seminar: Phil Collins in Context (Part 2)
Open Seminar
April 21, 2016
Sert Gallery

Open Seminar: Phil Collins in Context (Part 1)
Open Seminar
March 24, 2016
Sert Gallery

Natalie Czech: Open Seminar
Talk
November 10, 2015
Sert Gallery

Damon Krukowski
Exhibition, Talk and Performance
October 8–23, 2015
Sert Gallery

Jean-Pascal Flavien: Open Seminar
Talk
November 9, 2015
Sert Gallery

Alexander Wolff: Open Seminar
Talk
September 22, 2015
Sert Gallery

Coinciding with a presentation of Karel Martens’s work in Display Case, the visiting designer offered an open seminar organized with Harvard University studio faculty, September 8, 2015.

On the occasion of the release of an expanded edition of Blueprint for Counter Education, Harvard University professor Jeffrey Schnapp organized a week-long exhibition, a roundtable discussion, and a book presentation bringing together the authors Maurice Stein and Larry Miller in conversation with Schnapp and designer Adam Michaels, May 10, 2016.

Visiting artist Phil Collins worked with student-led Harvard University radio station to make a broadcast project called I Fought the Law: _______________, April 2016.

A conversation between Gloria Sutton and professor Carrie Lambert-Beatty occured on the occasion of the release of Sutton’s book, The Experience Machine: Stan VanDerBeek’s Movie-Drome and Expanded Cinema (MIT Press), May 12, 2015.

Don't Erase Till Monday was a program organized by students and faculty of MIT’s Center for Advanced Visual Studies bringing to the public realm the CAVS’s rich historical archive—directed by professors Bik Van der Pol, May 7, 2016.

Damon Krukowski: NOT TO BE PLAYED was a multifaceted exhibition featuring archival materials, a performance, and a vinyl record publication that combined revived an obscure audio recording made by Ezra Pound at Harvard University in 1939, organized in collaboration with Woodberry Poetry Room, October 8–23, 2015.