Talk
Julie Poly and Marta Kuzma: In Conversation
The artist Julie Poly will be in conversation with Marta Kuzma, Professor at the Yale School of Art.
This talk is arranged by Fotogalleriet, in collaboration with the Academy of Fine Art and the library at Oslo National Academy of the Arts. The event will take place in correlation with Poly's first solo exhibition in an art institution, '4:59', showing at Fotogalleriet.
Julie Poly (real name Yulia Polyashchenko, b.1986) took her first pictures at the “Kinnyi Market” in Kharkiv. She was primarily interested in raw documentary photography, but in 2013 Poly started to work with fashion, with its penchant for staged pictures. As a result, Poly’s portfolio lists commissions for regional fashion magazines (Vogue, L’Officiel, Harper’s Bazaar) and international art publications such as Dazed & Confused, i-D, NUMERO and Jalouse. In 2021, Julie created the erotic art zine Hrishnytsia, where she researches and gathers Ukrainian artists who explore issues of sexuality, self-discovery, gender, and intimacy within their practice. Until the Russian invasion, the artist worked and lived in Kyiv. Currently, Poly is based in Munich.
Marta Kuzma was appointed tenured professor of art and dean of the Yale School of Art in 2016. In her term as dean from 2016-2021, Professor Kuzma was the first woman to hold that position in the history of the school. In 2022, she authored the book History of An Art School (a Koenig publication designed by Irma Boom).
Marta Kuzma received a B.A. art history and political economics from Barnard College, Columbia University in 1986, and an M.A. in 2002 in aesthetics and art theory from the Centre for Modern European Philosophy, Middlesex University, London. In 2014, she was named rector of the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm, Sweden where she initiated ‘Philosophy in the Context of Art,’ ‘Critical Habitats,’ and the ‘Domain of the Great Bear’ public lecture series. Earlier, she served as director of the Office for Contemporary Art Norway for eight years to establish the OCA Semesterplan as an internationally recognized, research-based program of exhibitions, lectures, seminars, and projects which included On Negritude: The Politics of Art Production in Africa (2012), Whatever Happened to Sex in Scandinavia? (2009), The Grammar of Forms: On Art Criticism, Writing, Publishing and Distribution (2009), Nasreen Mohamedi – The Legacy of Indian Modernism (2009), Film as Critical Practice (2007), ISMS: Recuperating Political Radicality in Contemporary Art (2006). Ms. Kuzma curated OCA’s representation at the Venice Biennale with the projects ‘The Collectors: Elmgreen & Dragset (2009),’ ‘The State of Things’ (2011), ‘Beware of the Holy Whore: Munch and the Dilemma of Emancipation’ (2013). She was the founding director of the Soros Center for Contemporary Art in Kiev, Ukraine; served as artistic director of the Washington Project for the Arts, in Washington, D.C.; and as head of the international exhibitions program at International Center of Photography in New York City. A member of the curatorial team for Documenta 13, Ms. Kuzma has extensive experience curating international exhibitions, research projects, and conferences, edited and authored many publications including the Verksted series and contributed to journals such as Radical Philosophy, Afterall, Artforum. She is a visiting Professor in Art Theory in the Graduate Programme of Visual Arts in the University of Architecture (Iuav) in Venice and at Boconi University in Milan.
The conversation will be introduced by Fotogalleriet’s Artistic Director, Dr Antonio Cataldo.
Thank you to dean at The Academy of Fine Art in Oslo Sarah Lookofsky and to the Oslo National Academy of the Arts library for hosting the event.
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