January 2012 Public Programs Announced For The Guggenheim Museum

An internationally renowned art museum and one of the most significant architectural icons of the 20th century, the Guggenheim Museum is at once a vital cultural center, an educational institution, and the heart of an international network of museums. Visitors can experience special exhibitions of modern and contemporary art, lectures by artists and critics, performances and film screenings, classes for teens and adults, and daily tours of the galleries led by experienced docents. Founded on a collection of early modern masterpieces, the Guggenheim Museum today is an ever-growing institution devoted to the art of the 20th century and beyond.

January 2012 Public Programs at the Guggenheim Museum

ARTIST BOOK SIGNING
Maurizio Cattelan
Mon, Jan 9, 6 pm–7:45 pm
Artist Maurizio Cattelan will sign copies of the Maurizio Cattelan: All exhibition catalogue and the magazine Toilet Paper, featuring images conceived and photographed by the artist and Pierpaolo Ferrari.

Free with museum admission.

24TH ANNUAl HillA REBAY LECTURE
The Artist as Typographer
Wed, Jan 11, 6:30 pm
Recent years have seen a proliferation of younger artists whose work employs typography, printed characters, or even the very institution of printing. We have been accustomed to the predominance of language in art at least since the rise of Conceptual practices in the early 1970s, but the current turn represents something different: it takes up not language per se, but language’s material realization and the particular histories carried within its forms. In this year’s Hilla Rebay Lecture, Tom McDonough, Associate Professor and Chair of Art History at Binghamton University, focuses on artists and collectives—such as Dexter Sinister, Shannon Ebner, Janice Kerbel, and Adam Pendleton—whose work demonstrates how typography has become a central element of aesthetic practice.

The Hilla Rebay Lecture brings distinguished scholars to the Guggenheim Museum to examine significant issues in the theory, criticism, and history of art. This annual program is made possible through the generosity of The Hilla von Rebay Foundation.

Free on day of lecture (no advance ticket registration).

PUBLIC PROGRAM
The Last Word
Sat, Jan 21, 6 pm–1 am
Maurizio Cattelan is retiring from art making with his current retrospective Maurizio Cattelan: All, on view at the Guggenheim Museum through January 22. To mark the end of the exhibition (and the beginning of retirement), twenty or so prominent artists, philosophers, writers, comedians, filmmakers, actors, musicians, and more will come together to contemplate the end. More than just some winter morbidity, this event tackles that most difficult moment: to decide when to stop one thing and begin another or to end it altogether. Less strenuous than a long distance event and much more than a quick sprint, this event will be a meditative seven hour jog around life's central park of pleasures, desires, and regrets. Co-organized by Simon Critchley, Ph.D., Hans Jonas Professor of Philosophy, The New School for Social Research, and Nancy Spector, Deputy Director and Chief Curator, Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, and curator of the exhibition.

This program is pay what you wish.

THE ELAINE TERNER COOPER EDUCATION FUND
CONVERSATIONS WITH CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS
Yael Bartana
Tues, Jan 24, 6:30 pm
Yael Bartana is an Israeli-Dutch artist and filmmaker based in Amsterdam and Tel Aviv. Her works examine and question widely accepted social rituals and structures regarding the cultural identity and historical construction of her native country and the tensions and conflicts that arise as a result. In her distinctive poetic approach, she balances the factual and the fictitious, documentation and propaganda, evoking ironic overtones to undermine certainties, turn symbols on their heads, and open up multiple new meanings. Bartana was a recipient of the Artes Mundi Prize in 2010. Her recent project "...and Europe will be stunned" was featured as the official Polish participation at the 54th International Art Exhibition in Venice in 2011. Following the program, guests are invited to enjoy a private reception.

$10, $7 members, free for students with a valid ID.

Natascha Sadr Haghighian
"when night falls in the forest of static choices"
Tues, Jan 31, 6:30 pm
In a program that combines elements of a performance, a lecture, and an interactive scavenger hunt, Natascha Sadr Haghighian invites museum visitors to initiate a dialogue with special agents from her past projects. The artist will participate in a series of conversations provoked by a selection of objects, allowing the focus and pace of the evening to follow the currents of her audience’s attention. Drawing on a diverse range of mediums, including installation, video, and performance, Sadr Haghighian’s conceptual practice is primarily concerned with the cultural construction of perception and the politics of artistic production. Rather than offering highlights from a conventional curriculum vitae, Sadr Haghighian refers to bioswop.net, a forum that encourages the free exchange and appropriation of biographical information. Following the program, guests are invited to enjoy a private reception.

$10, $7 members, free for students with a valid ID.

Tickets for public programs are available for purchase at guggenheim.org/publicprograms.