The Museum of Modern Art seeks submissions for the Second Annual Graduate Symposium in Modern and Contemporary Art, “World Art—Art World: Changing Perspectives on Modern and Contemporary Art.”<p>

The keynote address will be presented on Friday evening, April 28, 2006 by Professor Wu Hung from the University of Chicago. Professor Wu is the Harrie H. Vanderstappen Distinguished Service Professor of Art History, East Asian Languages and Civilizations; Director, Center for the Art of East Asia; and Consulting Curator, Smart Museum of Art.

In the past few decades, the art world has seen unprecedented growth and globalization. These developments are apparent in a number of areas: new and larger museums and cultural institutions; a thriving market of galleries, art fairs, and biennials around the world; new press outlets for the dissemination of art criticism, marketing and education through traditional and new media; increased attention, research, and art that addresses non-Western subjects; and the professionalization of artists, museum administrators and curators through emerging MA, MFA, and PhD programs. How do critics and scholars comprehend the significance of both local and international artistic activity? What traditional and new tools for analysis do they use? Art historian James Elkins has recently written that the prospect of world art history raises questions about the discipline’s limits and future. Indeed, Western art history’s traditional methods, assumptions, and parameters of research have been under debate for at least the last four decades. This symposium seeks papers that draw on a variety of disciplines and approaches to address histories of world art and emerging trends in the contemporary art world, while focusing on specific works or projects.

International graduate students are encouraged to submit papers that examine, for example:

· How existing and new narratives can effectively address the complexity of global artistic practices today as well as revitalize thought about historical art
· Different criteria and methodological traditions (social history, visual culture, psychoanalysis, Marxism, cultural studies, etc.) employed to judge vastly disparate visual forms and cultural traditions
· Current themes in art: collaboration, commodity culture, empire, globalism, memory and monuments, site-specificity, surveillance, terrorism, and trauma, among other subjects
· New understandings of modern and contemporary art derived from research that analyzes art criticism, historiography, identity, institutions, and markets
· The impact of gender, colonialism, social issues, and politics on artistic production and scholarship

Eligibility is limited to graduate students who hold at least an MA in art history or other related disciplines. PhD candidates who have completed their MA requirements, PhD’s, and recent postdoctorates (within the last two years) are also encouraged to apply.
Please include the following in your application:

· Curriculum vitae of no more than two pages
· An abstract (maximum length 500 words)
· Final paper (maximum length 10 pages), written in English
(The abstract and the paper should be written in eleven-point font, double-spaced, with margins no smaller than one inch.)
· The name of a faculty advisor who will review the final paper and provide support in preparing the presentation.

Submissions should be postmarked by January 13, 2006, and sent to:

Graduate Symposium Committee
Department of Education
The Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53 Street
New York, NY 10019

Telephone: (212) 708-9727
Fax: (212) 333-1118
E-mail: Amy_Horschak@moma.org

The Museum of Modern Art will cover the cost of transportation, accommodations, and expenses for the selected participants. Speakers will be notified of acceptance by early March 2006.