Lars Bang Larsen | Mediated Entities

Mediated Entities. In and Out of Curating.
Lars Bang Larsen
Co-curator of the 32nd Bienal de São Paulo, Visiting professor at the Haute Ècole d’Art et de Design in Geneva

Mediated Entities: In and out of curating.

Counterintuitive to the idea of critical practice, how can a work of art be “holistic” and at the same time problem-oriented, conflict-aware, self-critical, and engaged in cultural and social struggles? Using the concept of mediation as its point of departure, this lecture develops a critical perspective on curatorial practice and its limits. It discusses research-based exhibitions that Larsen has co-curated on art’s relation to psychedelia, spiritualism, and cybernetics and how this work correlates to the artistic methodologies and curatorial framework found in Incerteza viva / Live Uncertainty, the 32nd Bienal de São Paulo. 

A writer, curator, and art historian, Lars Bang Larsen is professeur invité at the Haute école d’art et de design (HEAD) in Geneva. Together with Gabi Ngcobo, Sofía Olascoaga, Júlia Rebouças, and Jochen Volz, he is co-curator of Incerteza viva, the 32nd Bienal de São Paulo 2016. Previously Lars has co-curated group exhibitions such as Believe Not Every Spirit, But Try the Spirits(MUMA, Melbourne 2015), The Society Without Qualities(Tensta Konsthall, Stockholm 2013), Reflections from Damaged Life (Raven Row, London 2013), and Populism(Stedelijk, Amsterdam and other venues, 2005). His books include Networks (MIT Press/Whitechapel Gallery, 2014) and The Model: A Model for a Qualitative Society(1968) (MACBA, 2010). A selection of his texts, Arte y norma, is forthcoming in Spanish translation from Cruce Casa Editores, 2016.

The respondent for the evening will be Director and Professor of the History, Theory and Criticism program at MIT, Dr. Caroline Jones.

ACT’s Monday night lecture series is conceived by Gediminas Urbonas, ACT director, and coordinated by Elan Rochbert, ACT Communications & Public Programs Coordinator and Lucas Freeman, ACT Writer in Residence, in conversation with ACT graduate students.

Funded in part by the Council for the Arts at MIT