Talks

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

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

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

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

Parafiction and Parafact: The Space Between, SECAC 2013 – Material Culture and Public Humanities, Greensboro, NC, co-chair with Andrianna Campbell-Lafleur (31 October–2 November 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 (9 March 2012). See also: Critchley, On Humor (Verso, 2002).

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Alias: Art and Identity in Cold War Hollywood,” lecture given in conjunction with the exhibition, Holy Barbarians: Beat Culture on the West Coast (18 November 2016 – 12 March 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 (13 November 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 (26–29 October 2022).

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

“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 (30 June 2015). Podcast​.

“Interrogating Performativity: Role Playing and Artistic Production in 1960s Los Angeles,” Scholar Lecture Series, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe, NM (29 May 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 (9 May 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 (14–17 February 2024)

"Contrast Agents: JSG Boggs at the Edge of Law," Looking Otherwise: Aesthetics of Viewing and Beholding, ASAP/13, University of California, Los Angeles (15–18 September 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 (6–8 October 2022); and CAA 2023 – 111th Annual College Art Association Conference, New York, NY (15–18 February 2023; Online; panel canceled at last minute).

"Liminal Property: Between Freedom of Expression and Ownership of Culture," Social Paradigms, ASAP/12: Reciprocity, Virtual Conference (27–30 October 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 (10–14 June 2021); and hide text "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 (10–13 February 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 (14–17 April 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 (7–11 December 2020; Online).

“Art Provoking Policy: Semiotic Disobedience and Conscientious Law-Breaking,” Arts Patronage in Modern America, Rothermere American Institute, University of Oxford (27–28 June 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 (7–9 June 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 (13–16 February 2019); and ​Persona: ‘Performance Art’ or ‘Self-Branding’?, International Persona Studies Conference, Newcastle University, Newcastle, UK (25–26 June 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 (4–7 January 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 (5–7 December 2018).

“Rule-Following: Lowell Darling and Uncivil Obedience,” Craft: Unsettling Hierarchies, CAA 2018 – 106th Annual College Art Association Conference, Los Angeles, CA (21–24 February 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 (26–28 October 2017).

“Humor and Activism in Contemporary Azerbaijani Art,” Humor, Globalization, and Culture-Specificity in Modern and Contemporary Art, Frans Hals Museum, The Netherlands (16 June 2017); and ​"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 (5–8 October 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 (25–26 May 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 (15–18 February 2017).

“Secret: George Herms and Clandestine Operations in Cold War Los Angeles,” Scholl Seminar on American Art, Newberry Library, Chicago, IL (22 April 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 (21–24 October 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 (24–27 September 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 (31 March–1 April 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 (11–14 February 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 (8–11 October 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 (11 April 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 (4–5 April 2014). ​Video.

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

"Interrogating the Alter: Critical Engagements with Humorous Strategies in Southern California,” CCPH 2013 – California Council for the Promotion of History Conference, Hanford, CA (17–19 October 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 (25–26 October 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 (18–20 October 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 (18–20 October 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 (22–25 February 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 (9–12 November 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 (21–23 October 2010).

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

Panelist for: "Money! Money? Money! Transdisciplinary Crossings and TransRational Cash," Common Core 10th Year Anniversary Event, University of Hong Kong (16 May 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 (17 May 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 (26 April 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 (1 March 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 (5 June 2019).

Organizer of: Erika Doss, University of Notre Dame, “Troubling Memorials: Disgraced Monuments and Problematic Public Art in America,” School of Modern Languages and Cultures Seminar Series, University of Hong Kong (13 March 2019).