Public Art and Political Elections
Chairs: Marisa Lerer, Manhattan College, [email protected], and Jennifer K. Favorite, CUNY Graduate Center, [email protected]
Abstracts due to chairs on August 6, 2018
The 2016 elections in the U.S., the recent presidential elections in Venezuela and Russia, and the 2018 elections in Brazil have injected questions on electoral integrity into the public conversation. Corrupt voting practices is just one of many problems that highlight the need for election reform. Historically and in our contemporary moment, public art has played a key role in navigating and conveying politically charged messages, as well as in highlighting flaws within political systems. This session aims to explore how public artworks have addressed representations of democracy, political candidates, and the electoral process.
Submissions to this panel should examine specific aspects of the visual culture of international, national, and local elections, and discuss the role that public art has adopted in visualizing the complex networks of electoral politics. How have artists working in public art in the expanded field translated, shifted, and reframed the debates around elections? How are art practices applied as a tool for both propagandistic and didactic efforts in relation to candidates, political issues, suffrage rights, or “get out the vote” campaigns? What is the role of the commissioning process undertaken by electoral teams and activist organizations to bring their messaging to potential voters? How has public art visualized or reinvented ways to confront fraudulent electoral systems? Case studies on historical and contemporary topics are welcome as are proposals for future projects. This session encourages participation from artists, art historians, interdisciplinary scholars, curators, and theorists.
For detailed submission guidelines, please consult: http://www.collegeart.org/programs/conference/cfp