Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego

The University of California, San Diego, Department of Visual Arts, in collaboration with the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (MCASD), is honored to convene the inaugural Art History Graduate Symposium. This landmark event establishes a vital forum for scholarly exchange, assembling a North American cohort of emerging historians and practitioners to examine the evolving methodologies of visual culture.  

The symposium’s three thematic sessions–Aural Pleasures, Interstitial, and Passing On–provide a rigorous framework for investigating the intersections of sound, memory, and the ephemeral. By interrogating the "afterlives" of the archive and the "monstrosity" of the spirit, these proceedings seek to redefine the boundaries of how art mediates historical identity and ontological presence.   

• 11AM: Welcome and Opening Remarks by Malik Gaines, PhD Director, Department of Visual Arts, University of California, San Diego  

Panel 1: Aural Pleasures and the Edges of Sounding moderated by Christine Negus  

• 11:15AM:  Tramaine Suubi, “Outer Limits: Between and Beyond Binaries through the grӕ,” University of California, San Diego 
• 11:30AM: Fiona Martinez, "Contrapuntal Poetics,” University of California, San Diego 
• 11:45AM: Aiden Levy, “Stranger to Stranger: Queer, Immersive, & Cosmological Artistic Appropriations of Baldwin,” Tufts University 
• 12PM: Q & A 

12:30 – 1:30PM: Lunch Break   

Panel 2: Interstitial: Remains and Afterlives moderated by sarah bricke  

• 1:30PM: Thomas Duncan, “The Photographic Coupling of Andy Warhol and Brigid Berlin,” University of California, Los Angeles 
• 1:45PM: Bronwen Cox,  “Absent Bodies and Archives of Ephemera: Portraits of Loss in the Work of Rebecca  Belmore, Ana Mendieta, and Felix Gonzalez-Torres,” University of Toronto 
• 2:00PM: Sila Ulug, “Where Art Begins and Ends,” University of Chicago 
• 2:15PM: Elias Mendel, “Dear Martha,” University of Illinois Chicago 
• 2:30PM: Q & A  

3 – 3:15PM: Break  

Panel 3: Passing On: Monstrosity and Spirit moderated by Kamryn Olds  

• 3:15PM: Alana Batten, “Death, Image, Spirit: Photography as a Mediator,” York University 
• 3:30PM: Sarah Grace Faulk, “Domestic Technology: Lutz Bacher’s Video Practice,” University of California, Riverside 
• 3:45PM: Gabriel Gaston, McGill University 
• 4PM: Q & A & Close