The French Connection : New Perspectives on French Contemporary Art Conference Winstanley Lecture Hall, Trinity College - Cambridge, University of Cambridge
24-26 July 2008
International conference on French contemporary art, The French Connection offers a platform to reflect upon the recent changes in French art as well as an opportunity for its further ’promotion’. This conference will also offer a space for reflection on the idea of ’national art’, a questioning that opens onto a discussion of French identity, cross-cultural artistic practices, and disciplinary change.
Please find below the provisional programme. For more information and to register please visit http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/60
CONFERENCE PROGRAMME
THURSDAY 24TH JULY 19.15 – 20.00 Catherine Millet (critic, Art Press) Three Women Expose : Sex and Desire in the Works of Clarisse Hahn, Catherine Corringer and Isild Le Besco. Chair : Jean Khalfa (University of Cambridge)
20.00 – 21.30 Pas d’histoires : a selection of films by French or Paris-based filmmakers and artists of different generations working with documentary. Curator and Chair : Anne-Sophie Dinant (South London Gallery)

FRIDAY 25TH JULY 9.00 – 9.30 Registration 9.30 – 9.45 Opening and Welcome 9.45 – 10.30 Paul Ardenne (curator, Faculté des Arts (Amiens)) No Specificity Chair : tbc 10.30 – 11.00 Coffee 11.00 – 12.30 Panel 1 : Intersections between contemporary philosophy and art Nigel Saint (University of Leeds) Georges Didi-Huberman’s Fables du lieu : critique and creativityLaura McMahon (University of Cambridge) In Touch : Jean-Luc Nancy and Claire Denis Jérôme Game (American University of Paris) Rancière’s phrase-image and some contemporary French visual art Chair : Ian James (University of Cambridge) 12.30 – 13.30 Lunch 13.30 – 15.15 Panel 2 : New movements in photography Sophie Berrebi (University of Amsterdam) A French Documentary tradition ? Jean-Luc Moulène and surrealist photography Geraldine McIlwaine (University of Sheffield) Valérie Jouve : Sans Titre 9 Céline Robillard (Université Paris-I Panthéon-Sorbonne, curator) Photographie plasticienne contemporaine : la "French Touch" et ses images de crise Amanda Crawley-Jackson (University of Sheffield) "To cross is called ’to burn’" : Yto Barrada and the unevenness of ’liquid modernity’ Chair : Olga Smith (University of Cambridge) 15.15 – 15.45 Coffee 15.45 – 16.30 Pascal Convert in conversation with Nigel Saint 1 16.30 – 17.30 Roundtable Discussion : Recent initiatives in the promotion and display of French art. Participants include : Sophie Claudel (French Embassy London), Suzanne Cotter (Modern Art Oxford), Clare Grafik (The Photographer’s Gallery)

SATURDAY 26TH JULY

9.30 – 10.15 Alain Quemin (Université Paris-Est / Institut Universitaire de France / CNRS (French National Center for Scientific Research)) The International Impact of the French Visual Arts : Is There Such a Thing as "The Death of French Culture" ? Chair : Jennifer Burris (University of Cambridge) 10.15 – 10.45 Coffee 10.45 – 12.15 Panel 3 : Art institutions : national and international changes Antigoni Memou (Courtauld Institute) Photographs of May 1968 in the Contemporary Museum : A Note on Politics and Aesthetics Femke Van Hest (Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (Paris, France) /Erasmus University (Rotterdam, The Netherlands)) The role of nationality at contemporary art biennials : Case study on the participation of French and Dutch artists Vivian Rehberg (Parsons Paris School of Art and Design) Mapping Institutional Critique in Paris Now Chair : Alyce Mahon (University of Cambridge) 12.15 – 13.30 Lunch 13.30 – 15.00 Panel 4 : Towards future models of exhibition and curating Anaïs Bourquin (Université Paris-I Panthéon Sorbonne) Passeurs d’oeuvres : Future Models of Curating in France Brooke McGowan (University of Cambridge) Forcener la forme : l’économie(s) et l’autre(s) de Nicolas Bourriaud Isabelle McNeill (University of Cambridge) Memory, Media and Intersubjectivity in the Recent Work of Agnès Varda Chair : tbc 15.30 Special Event (tba) followed by full-length film screenings