Buy your ticket here.

Cassils’ art is radical and incendiary. They are not afraid of violence but incorporate it in their work in a very literal way, not to glorify but rather to oppose violence. Queer opposition. Cassils is certainly not the only artist that uses this method, rooted in late 20th century art practices, in their work. Incendiary art might just be a new art category if it were up to Cassils and the speakers they collected with MU for the symposium held during their solo exhibition. Each one of them will give examples of what, in their eyes, could be Incendiary art and will take a closer look at the radical and queer aspects of Cassils’ work.

Dominic Johnson is an authority in the field of drama and performance. He is a Senior Lecturer in the School of English and Drama, at Queen Mary, University of London and the author of Glorious Catastrophe: Jack Smith, Performance and Visual Culture (2012); Theatre & the Visual (2012); and The Art of Living: An Oral History of Performance Art (2015). He is the editor of four books, including most recently Pleading in the Blood: The Art and Performances of Ron Athey (2013) and Critical Live Art: Contemporary Histories of Performance in the UK (2012).

Julia Steinmetzʉ۬is a Performance Studies scholar and visual artist based in New York City. She has collaborated with Cassils on art-making and critical projects since the turn of the millennium. Steinmetz's current research is focused on transformational aesthetics and the ways in which art interfaces with the unconscious.

Del LaGrace Volcano is a transpionier and photographer. As a gender variant visual artist I access 'technologies of gender' in order to amplify rather than erase the hermaphroditic traces of my body. I name myself. A gender abolitionist. A part time gender terrorist. An intentional mutation and intersex by design, (as opposed to diagnosis), in order to distinguish my journey from the thousands of intersex individuals who have had their 'ambiguous' bodies mutilated and disfigured in a misguided attempt at 'normalization'. I believe in crossing the line as many times as it takes to build a bridge we can all walk across.

Jack Halberstam is Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity, Gender Studies and Comparative Literature at the University of Southern California. Halberstam is the author of five books including: Skin Shows: othic Horror and the Technology of Monsters (Duke UP, 1995), Female Masculinity (Duke UP, 1998), In A Queer Time and Place (NYU Press, 2005), The Queer Art of Failure (Duke UP, 2011) and Gaga Feminism: Sex, Gender, and the End of Normal(Beacon Press, 2012) and has written articles that have appeared in numerous journals, magazines and collections. Halberstam is currently working on several projects including a book on Fascism and (homo)sexuality.

Halberstam has co-edited a number of anthologies including Posthuman Bodies with Ira Livingston (Indiana University Press, 1995) and a special issue of Social Text with Jose Munoz and David Eng titled “What’s Queer About Queer Studies Now?” Jack is a popular speaker and gives lectures around the country and internationally every year. Lecture topics include: queer failure, sex and media, subcultures, visual culture, gender variance, popular film, animation.

Eliza Steinbock (US/NL) will be today’s moderator. She is an Assistant Professor and Postdoctoral Researcher at Leiden University Center for the Arts in Society and at the Department of Film and Literary Studies. Their current project funded by the NWO is "Vital Art: Transgender Portraiture as Visual Activism". More information on Eliza's scholarship and cultural projects can be found at www.elizasteinbock.com.

Where MU, Eindhoven, The Netherlands
When June 17th at 15.30 h.



Program

15.30 doors open for conference

16.00 introductie of the three speakers (Dominic Johnson, Julia Steunmetz and Del LaGrace Volcano) and a tour through the exhibition led by Cassils.

18.30 - 19.30 pause for dinner (guests can grab at a bite at Strijp S)

19.30 doors open

20.00 keynote by Jack Halberstam, booklaunch by Cassils and panel discussion with all of the speakers.

22.00 drinks after

Part of the symposion will be the publication of the first book about Cassils’ body of work. This international book will be published by MU and captures their work in two essays, one by arthistorian David J. Getsy and the other by Julia Steinmetz.


You can buy tickets at MU or online on Eventbrite.