The density and interconnectedness of the international art community is generating new mappings of influence and dialogue. This occurs increasingly as artists and institutions choose partners around shared ideas or histories, at times without regard to geographic proximity. These new shifting and emergent “cultural cartographies,” to borrow a term from curator Yuko Hasegawa, make institutional claims of “being international” seem to be oversimplifications of more complex sets of alliances and interests. This panel will explore possibilities for activating the term “regionalism,” as a way to strategically limit thinking around specific localities and empower particular perspectives or new “centers” of artistic activity organized around decentralized areas. Panelists will discuss recent collaborations, from exhibitions to research partnerships, that relate, or counter, this notion of “strategic regionalism.”

Panelists: Anne Ellegood, Senior Curator, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Annie Fletcher, Curator, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, the Netherlands; Hyunjin Kim, Chief Curator, Ilmin Museum of Art, Seoul; Tobias Ostrander, Chief Curator, Miami Art Museum. Moderated by Lauren Cornell, Curator, 2015 Triennial, Digital Projects, and Museum as Hub, New Museum.

A livestream of the conference will be available here.

MUSEUM AS HUB CONFERENCE

On April 12 and 13, the Museum as Hub will host its Annual Conference. Marking the sixth anniversary of the Hub initiative, this conference aims, in part, to consider strategies for the next phase of the project, while also reflecting more broadly on the rapidly shifting global context it inhabits. The conference will dedicate itself to a number of questions pertaining to the notion of “institutions” as such, exploring ways and means by which art organizations assume shape via programming, alliances with other institutions, and dedication to specific content or context. Developed with Museum as Hub partners, this two-day conference held in the New Museum Theater convenes an international group of curators, artists, and scholars to examine themes including: the concept of regionalism; the “question of feelings” in relation to curatorial practice; and the imperfect institutionalization of the “discursive object” within the museum.

As both a physical site and a growing network, the Museum as Hub facilitates artistic and intellectual exchange through forms of exhibition, residency, public programming, editorial and digital projects, and other projects. Museum as Hub activities are inspired, in part, by a group of international partner institutions who collaborate to produce shared research and programming. Current Hub partners are art space pool in Seoul, Beirut in Cairo, de_sitio in Mexico City, Inhotim in Brumadinho, Brazil, Miami Art Museum, Townhouse Gallery in Cairo, and the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven.