Modern Salon: 1

For the final session of Modern Salon.1, we will look to Nicolas Bourriaud’s curatorial treatise Postproduction to have a conversation at play with a momentum established at the turn of the century.

Bourriaud proposes that “in this new form of culture, which one might call a culture of use or a culture of activity, the artwork functions as the temporary terminal of a network of interconnected elements, like a narrative that extends and reinterprets preceding narratives.”

The text includes sections titled “Playing the World: Reprogramming Social Forms,” “Deejaying and Contemporary Art,” “Liam Gillick,” “Hacking, Work, and Free Time,” and “Eclecticism and Postproduction,” among others.

As we anticipate the arrival of Bourriaud for a lecture at the Modern on October 15, 2015, we hope to make use of appropriation, surveillance, pointing vs. touching, curation, and other topics that have been entertained and contested during the first season of Modern Salon.

If interested, follow the procedure highlighted below to apply for thisfourth  session of Modern Salon: 1. To assure an intimate and meaningful exchange, each session is limited, so RSVP soon. Education staff will respond via e-mail with arrangements for receiving or locating the reading materials, access to the galleries, and other details concerning the session. Questions and concerns should be sent to the education department here with SALON QUESTION in the subject line.

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In support of the Modern’s role to promote life-long learning, Modern Salon is a gathering of interested parties to entertain curiosities and probe ideas surrounding a chosen topic. This new program strives to connect our community to ideas hosted by the Modern through exhibitions, acquisitions, and other generators of thought and discourse. The question is whether conversation, collective investigation, enthusiastic speculation, and celebratory realization shared within the context of a “salon” still has a place in our technological age of solitude, mediated thought, and virtual experience. If not, we will look for other means of connection, but if so, this program will thrive. We are eager to test the waters with our first Modern Salon.

Modern Salon meets on the last Thursday of each month, April through August 2015, from 3 to 5 pm.

These monthly salons are free to the public with the exception of occasional reading material costs. Participants should register each month by sending an e-mail to the education department here with SALON in the subject line. The week following each meeting, registration opens for the coming month’s Salon. Topics and readings will be announced on this page.  This allows approximately three weeks for interested parties to complete and collect thoughts about the reading for the next Salon. These gatherings are not accumulative and, therefore, participation can be occasional and sporadic according to interests and availability. Space is however limited, so early RSVPs are recommended and should be honored by attendance.

Topics and readings will be determined and announced as the program proceeds.

To assure an intimate and meaningful exchange, each session is limited, so RSVP soon. Education staff will respond via e-mail with arrangements for receiving or locating the reading materials, access to the galleries, and other details concerning the session. Questions and concerns should be sent to the education department here with SALON QUESTION in the subject line.

Left: Russell Lee, Jim Norris and wife, homesteaders, Pie Town, New Mexico, 1940. Color slide. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540
Right: Debbie Grossman, Jean Norris and Wife Virginia Norris, Homesteaders and Town Founders, 2009–10. Pigment print. Image, 10 x 13 ¾ inches. Collection of the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Museum purchase, The Friends of Art Endowment Fund