Talks

Visuality and Representation in Central Asia, CESS 2017 – 18th Annual Central Eurasian Studies Society Conference, University of Washington, Seattle, WA (October 5–8, 2017).

Revisiting Time in Contemporary Art, CAA 2017 – 105th Annual College Art Association Conference, New York, NY, co-chair with Sarah Archino (February 15–18, 2017).

Truth-telling and Parafiction: Practice and Theory, CAA 2015 – 103th Annual College Art Association Conference, New York, NY, co-chair with Sarah Archino (February 11–14, 2015).

Beyond Connectivity: The Network as Art Historical Model, SECAC 2014 – Nexus: From Handmade to High Tech, Sarasota, FL, co-chair with Alexis Carrozza (October 8–11, 2014).

Parafiction and Parafact: The Space Between, SECAC 2013 – Material Culture and Public Humanities, Greensboro, NC, co-chair with Andrianna Campbell-Lafleur (October 31–November 2, 2013).

Deadly Serious Art: Strategies of Humor as Critique, The Graduate Center, CUNY, New York, NY; Keynote: Simon Critchley, The New School, NY, co-chair with Sarah Archino (March 9, 2012). See also: 2012_Verso_DeadlySeriousArt_SimonCritchleydiscussinghumorascritique[SYM] Simon Critchley, On Humor (Verso, 2002).

"Authentic Counterfeits: The Space between Art and Money," Roe Art Building, Furman University, Greenville, SC (March 26, 2024).

“Making Money: A Question of Value," The Edith O'Donnell Institute of Art History, University of Texas at Dallas (February 21, 2024).

“The Art of Surveillance,” Schedler Honors College Soapbox Lecture Series, University of Central Arkansas, Conway, Arkansas (October 28, 2022).

“Extralegal Portraiture: Art and Surveillance in the 21st Century,” American Studies, University of Notre Dame (March 23, 2021; Online).

"The Legal Medium: Art and Law in the United States," Centre for Popular Culture in the Humanities, Education University of Hong Kong (October 13, 2020; Online).

“The Letter of the Law: Art and Uncivil Obedience in the United States” Brownbag Lunch Series, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC (January 25, 2018).

“Alias: Art and Identity in Cold War Hollywood,” lecture given in conjunction with the exhibition, Holy Barbarians: Beat Culture on the West Coast (November 18, 2016 – March 12, 2017), Menil Collection, Houston, TX (24 January 2017).

“Incongruent Strategies: Engagements with Humor and Identity in Contemporary Azerbaijani Art,” Visiting Scholar Roundtable Series, Institute for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies (IERES), Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University, Washington, DC (November 13, 2013).

“Imaginary Portraiture,” The Art and History of Research: Recipients of the William R. Levin Award for Research in the History of Art, SECAC 2022 – 77th Annual Meeting of the Southeast College Art Conference, Renaissance Harborplace Baltimore Hotel/Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), Baltimore, MD (October 26–29, 2022).

“The Legal Medium: An Aesthetics of Uncivil Obedience,” Department of Fine Arts Lecture Series, University of Hong Kong, HK (January 24, 2019).

“Role Players: Fictional Artistic Practice in the Shadow of Cold War Hollywood,” Eberly Family Special Collections Library Summer Research Travel Awards, Penn State University (August 11, 2017)

“Engagements with Chance and Risk: Los Angeles-based Artists Looking to Las Vegas in the Postwar Era,” Center for Gaming Research, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, NV (June 30, 2015). Podcast​.

“Interrogating Performativity: Role Playing and Artistic Production in 1960s Los Angeles,” Scholar Lecture Series, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe, NM (May 28, 2014).

“F(r)amed by Los Angeles: Role-Playing within the Reflections of Billy Al Bengston’s 1960s Work,” Fellows Lectures in American Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC (May 9, 2014).

"Cultural Property: Lost and Found," Confronting the Legacy of New Deal Art in the Twenty-First Century, CAA 2024 – 112th Annual College Art Association Conference, Chicago, IL (February 14–17, 2024).

"Contrast Agents: JSG Boggs at the Edge of Law," Looking Otherwise: Aesthetics of Viewing and Beholding, ASAP/13, University of California, Los Angeles (September 15–18, 2022); hide text "Contrast Agents: JSG Boggs at the Border of Law," AHAA 2022 – The Association of Historians of American Art Seventh Biennial Symposium, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art/University of Arkansas, Fayetteville (October 6–8, 2022); and CAA 2023 – 111th Annual College Art Association Conference, New York, NY (February 15–18, 2023; Online; panel canceled at last minute).

"Liminal Property: Between Freedom of Expression and Ownership of Culture," Social Paradigms, ASAP/12: Reciprocity, Virtual Conference (October 27–30, 2021; Online).

"Extralegal Portraiture and Surveillance," Art Machines 2: International Symposium on Machine Learning and Art 2021, School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong (June 10–14, 2021); and 2021_CAA109ProgramBinder[SYM] "Extralegal Portraiture of the Surveillance Generation," Conjuring Criminality: Police and the Sorcery of Images, CAA 2021 – 109th Annual College Art Association Conference, New York, NY (February 10–13, 2021; Online).

“Telling Stories: Art and Financial True Crime,” The Real Price: Between Art and the (art) market, AAH 2021 – Association for Art History Annual Conference, University of Birmingham, England (April 14–17, 2021; Online). Panel.

"Financial True Crime: Art, Fraud, and Data-Driven Storytelling," Theorizing Contemporary Capitalism and Its Limits, OCIS 2020 – 9th Biennial Oceanic Conference on International Studies, Australia National University, Canberra, NSW, Australia (December 7–11, 2020; Online).

“Art Provoking Policy: Semiotic Disobedience and Conscientious Law-Breaking,” Arts Patronage in Modern America, Rothermere American Institute, University of Oxford (June 27–28, 2019).

“Art Provoking Law: Uncivil Obedience and the Unsettling of Immigration Law,” Art after 1945: At Home or Homeless?, AAH 2019 – Association for Art History Annual Conference, University of Brighton, England (4–6 April 2019); and 2019-06-07_ASAP_HK_ConferenceSchedule[SYM] Art, Praxis, Migration, ASAP/Hong Kong: Old Lands, New Ground, hosted by Tai Kwun Centre for Heritage and Arts, Hong Kong (June 7–9, 2019).

“Intimate Strangers and Affective Economies: Ann Hirsch, Amalia Ulman, and Marisa Olson,” Technologies of Counter-Publicity, CAA 2019 – 107th Annual College Art Association Conference, New York, NY (February 13–16, 2019); and ​Persona: ‘Performance Art’ or ‘Self-Branding’?, International Persona Studies Conference, Newcastle University, Newcastle, UK (June 25–26, 2019).

“Art Chasing Liability: Digital Sharecropping and Conscientious Law-Breaking,” Critical Practices, Art Machines: International Symposium on Computational Media Art 2019, School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong (January 4–7, 2019). ​Conference Website.

“Art Chasing Fraud: Parajournalism and Transmedia Storytelling,” AAANZ 2018 – Art Association of Australia & New Zealand, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), Melbourne, Australia (December 5–7, 2018).

“Rule-Following: Lowell Darling and Uncivil Obedience,” Craft: Unsettling Hierarchies, CAA 2018 – 106th Annual College Art Association Conference, Los Angeles, CA (February 21–24, 2018).

“An Aesthetics of Uncivil Obedience: Performance Art and the Legal Medium,” Performing Resistance, ASAP/9: The Arts of the Present, University of California, Berkeley, CA (October 26–28, 2017).

“Humor and Activism in Contemporary Azerbaijani Art,” Humor, Globalization, and Culture-Specificity in Modern and Contemporary Art, Frans Hals Museum, The Netherlands (June 16, 2017); and 2017-10-05_CESS_Program[SYM] "Subtle Activism in Contemporary Azerbaijani Art," The Arts in Politics and Memory in Central Eurasia, CESS 2017 – 18th Annual Central Eurasian Studies Society Conference, University of Washington, Seattle, WA (October 5–8, 2017).

“Political Re-presentation: Artist-Candidates and the Boundaries of the Electoral Process,” Border Control: on the Edges of American Art, Tate Liverpool/Terra Foundation for American Art, Liverpool, United Kingdom (May 25–26, 2017).

“Naming: Imaginary Authorship in Cold War Los Angeles,” American Conceptual Art and the Political Imagination, from Cold War to Globalization, CAA 2017 – 105th Annual College Art Association Conference, New York, NY (February 15–18, 2017).

“Secret: George Herms and Clandestine Operations in Cold War Los Angeles,” Scholl Seminar on American Art, Newberry Library, Chicago, IL (April 22, 2016).

“Viewer's Choice: Cosmopsis and Harun Farocki's Deep Play,” Unraveling Timelines: Challenges to Chrononormativity in Art and Art History, SECAC 2015 – Confluence, Pittsburgh, PA (October 21–24, 2015).

"Biography and Plausibility: The (Non)Fictional Histories of the Los Angeles Avant-Garde," Productive Lies: Activism and the Parafictional, ASAP/7: arts & the public, Greenville, SC (September 24–27, 2015).

“Erasure and (Re)construction: From Judy Gerowitz to Judy Chicago,” Erased, Replaced, Omitted, Denied: American Art and Negation, journée d'études, Institut national d'histoire de l'art/Terra Foundation for American Art, Paris, France (March 31–April 1, 2015).

“Occupying Roles: Billy Al Bengston in Print,” Occupation and Representation, Visual Culture Caucus, CAA 2015 – 103rd Annual College Art Association Conference, New York, NY (February 11–14, 2015).

"Judy Gerowitz to Judy Chicago: The Functionality of Color within the Construction of a Public Identity," The Color of Sculpture, SECAC 2014 – Nexus: From Handmade to High Tech, Sarasota, FL (October 8–11, 2014).

“F(r)amed for Levity: Published and Parodic Interventions of the Los Angeles Avant-Garde,” Languages of Art: Interactions Between Art and Literature, Art History Graduate Student Symposium, Rutgers, State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, NJ (April 11, 2014).

“Incongruent Strategies: Engagements with Humor and Identity in Contemporary Azerbaijani Art,” Caucasus Connections, ARISC 2014 – American Research Institute of the South Caucasus Annual Conference, University of Indiana, Bloomington, IN (April 4–5, 2014). ​Video.

"On Humor: Incongruency and Identity in Contemporary Azerbaijani Art," Boundaries and (In)Security, SECAC 2013 – Material Culture and Public Humanities, Greensboro, NC (October 31–November 2, 2013).

"Interrogating the Alter: Critical Engagements with Humorous Strategies in Southern California,” CCPH 2013 – California Council for the Promotion of History Conference, Hanford, CA (October 17–19, 2013).

“Prankster Antics and Intrusions: The Politics of Display in Los Angeles of the 1950s,” In Sight/On View: The Museum as Site of Inquiry, Annual Graduate Student Symposium, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL (October 25–26, 2012); and 2012[SYM] "The Prankster Antics of the Los Angeles Avant-Garde of the 1950s," California Social Movements: Different Perspectives, CCPH 2012 – California Council for the Promotion of History Conference, Woodland, CA (October 18–20, 2012).

“Prank, Provoke, Shock: Strategies of the Los Angeles Avant-Garde of the 1950s,” Shocking Collisions: The Artistic Strategy of Shock across Historical Distance, SECAC 2012 – Collisions: Where Past Meets Present, Durham, NC (October 18–20, 2012).

“The Real And Reflected Self: Finish Fetish and the Alter Ego,” Finish Fetish Sculpture from Los Angeles, 1960s–1970s: Conservation Dilemmas, CAA 2012 – 100th Annual College Art Association Conference, Los Angeles, CA (February 22–25, 2012).

“The Alter Ego as Satirical Act: A Los Angeles Critique,” Spoofing Off: Are Parody and Satire Effective Tools for Institutional Critique?, SECAC 2011 – Text + Texture, Savannah, GA (November 9–12, 2011).

"Celebrity as Assemblage: A West Coast Critique," "The Art of Assemblage" at 50, SECAC 2010 – Curiouser: Where Cerebellum Meets Antebellum, School of the Visual Arts, Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), Richmond, VA (October 21–23, 2010).

co-presenter with Gabriel Getzie, "Permission to play: Exploring Art with Games," HKU Workshop Series of Humanities and Digital Technologies (May 24, 2023).

Panelist for: "Money! Money? Money! Transdisciplinary Crossings and TransRational Cash," Common Core 10th Year Anniversary Event, University of Hong Kong (May 16, 2022).

Organizer of: Kara Carmack, Misericordia University in Dallas, Pennsylvania, "Wynn Chamberlain’s Brand X and the Wasteland of American Television," School of Modern Languages and Cultures, University of Hong Kong (May 17, 2021).

Organizer of: Tiffany Funk, University of Illinois at Chicago, "Deep Listening: The Uncanny Algorithmic Aesthetics of DeepDream and Early Computational Music Composition," School of Modern Languages and Cultures, University of Hong Kong (April 26, 2021).

Organizer of: Sarah Archino, Furman University, “Pranks and Self-Censorship: Duchamp, Dada, and the 'Image Withheld'," School of Modern Languages and Cultures, University of Hong Kong (March 1, 2021).

Commentator for: Joan Kee, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, “Book Talk: Models of Integrity: Art and Law in Post-Sixties America,” Faculty of Art and Faculty of Law Seminar Series, University of Hong Kong (June 5, 2019).