Dada
The theme designated for the Program in Media and Modernity for the academic year 2005-06 is Dada.
Brigid Doherty and Hal Foster will team-teach the Media and Modernity core seminar MOD 500, titled
"Dada: Art or Anti-Art? Aesthetics, Ethics, and Politics in the Face of Catastrophe."
This seminar concerns the art and literature produced between 1916 and 1924 in the several centers
of Dada activity (Zurich, Berlin, Cologne, Hanover, Paris, and New York). Scheduled to coincide with
an important Dada exhibition at the National Gallery of Art in Washington (February-May, 2006),
and at the Museum of Modern Art in New York (June-September 2006), the seminar focuses on Dada's
various confrontations with modernity, and on its place in the history of modernism.
Events include a trip to see a preview of the Dada exhibition the day before its opening at the National
Gallery in Washington, DC, and the participation of all seminar members in a scholars' Study Day
at the National Gallery.
In addition, the Program in Media and Modernity will continue with projects from last year's
designated theme of the little magazines, polemical books, films and exhibitions of the 1960s and 70s.
Events include a seminar by Denise Scott Brown on "Little Magazines in Architecture," and one by
Gianni Pettena on "Radical Architecture in the Italian Magazines of the 1970s.
An exhibition titled "Little Magazines in Architecture: 196x-197x" will open in the
Storefront for Art and Architecture in New York in November 2006 and in the Canadian Center
for Architecture in Montreal in February 2007.
Other events include a symposium on Dan Graham titled "Dan Graham: From Suburbia to Surveillance,"
featuring a talk by the artist, a presentation by Beatriz Colomina, and the screening of a video.