[Nettime-ro] PAVILION lecture - Lara Taubman

[PAVILION [contemporary art & culture magazine] <info@pavilionmagazine.org>]

PAVILION
Lecture Series (VII)

19 Octombrie 2006, 18.00 hours
American Cultural Center Bucuresti
Str. Jean Louis Calderon, nr.7-9


Lara Taubman, “The Fool”

The Fool is made of two essays and one short fiction story all inspired 
by True North (2005) by Isaac Julien. The first essay examines the 
film's main character Vanessa Myrie, a nomad wandering through the 
blank, icy desert of Antarctica.  Julien uses Myrie to propose new 
ideas on diaspora  using the ocean as frozen desert and site for 
migration offering an alternative to Robert Paul Gilroy's ideas of 
diaspora in the liquid Black Atlantic.   
In a critical reading of Walter Benjamin's essay based on Baudelaire's 
depiction of the ubiquitous but anonymous urban wanderer of 19th 
century Paris, The Flaneur, I propose Myrie as today'sflaneur. This 
flaneur embodies the persona of  Modernist man. The third fictional 
story applies comparisons discussed in the first two essays between 
urban/wilderness, inner/outer world, physical/conceptual explorations, 
etc.  A woman, cheated out of love, searches for her lost identity. 
Through her torn illusions, she obtains a clear view of what and whom 
she will be in the future. Like Vanessa Myrie, she is also an explorer 
seeking identity in the blankness of her own mind where her painful 
loss reflects into her mind that is blankened by grief.
Her presence in The Fool proposes the feminine subject as indispensable 
when discussing the future of diaspora and identity. Benjamin's flaneur 
serves as a reflexive foundation ideal for creating a new person of the 
future as seen in Vanessa Myrie, a figure who proposes how identity in 
diaspora can initiate in the female "everyman" rather than a diaspora 
that is created through reactions to a male dominated patriarchy.
 
Lara Taubman is an art critic and curator based in Phoenix, Arizona. 
She hold a Master of Arts Degree at NYU. She curated recently “Beauty, 
Function & Paradox in Downtown Phoenix” and “A Warlike People: Victims 
or Perpetrators?”. She is permanent contributor of magazines like 
“Sculpture”, “Spot”, “Art Papers,”Java Magazine”, “Shade Magazine”, 
“artUS Magazine” and she is newly appointed correspondent for 
“Artforum.com” and “Artnews” magazines.

Pavilion Lecture Series is produced by PAVILION, contemporary art & 
culture magazine.
www.pavilionmagazine.org

PAVILION is the producer of BUCHAREST BIENNALE.
www.bucharestbiennale.org

Admission free.

Please plan to arrive by earlier in order to allow for security 
checking. Identity documents are required for entry.
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