Activating the Spectator by Reshaping the Aesthetic Field: Op, Kinetic, and Participatory Art in Latin America, 1959–1965

As part of this fall's "In Conversation" series, join us for a live online lecture by Alexander Alberro, Virginia Bloedel Wright Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art History at Barnard College, in which he will explore the development of research-based artistic practices that fused art with mathematics, science, and technology in the late 1950s and early 1960s in Latin America. The stated goal of many Op and kinetic artists working during those years was to demystify the creative process in favor of an objective investigation of visual phenomena. Alberro will address how and why these experiments evolved into a greater concern with the participation of the art spectator.

This lecture is presented in conjunction with the exhibition Multiplied: Edition MAT and the Transformable Work of Art, 1959–1965.

Meredith Malone, associate curator at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, and Ignacio M. Sanchez Prado, Jarvis Thurston and Mona Van Duyn Professor in the Humanities, Department of Romance Languages and Literatures and the Latin American Studies Program at Washington University in St. Louis, will serve as respondents.

Questions are encouraged and will be answered live.

This program is free, but registration is required.