Dr Gavin Grindon
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Email
ggrindon@essex.ac.uk -
Telephone
+44 (0) 1206 873445
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Location
6.135, Colchester Campus
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Academic support hours
Wed 11-12 Thu 1-2 (Autumn 2017)
Profile
Biography
My research focuses on art and curating from 1900-present, focusing on political, critical and socially-engaged art and curating. My research takes the form of academic writing and public exhibitions. My writing focuses on new histories and critical theories of art and curating vis-a-vis protest and social movements; which involves working across terms such as activist-art; social practice; institutional critique; and across fields such as art and design history, museum studies and cultural policy. I am currently completing a book on the history of activist-art. My first academic background is in critical theory and continental philosophy. My PhD, at Manchester under Ken Hirsckop and Terry Eagleton, traced the reiteration of theories of 'revolution-as-festival' from dissident Surrealists in the 1930s; through the Situationist International and adjacent 1960s art-activist groups; to second-wave anarchists and artists linked to Reclaim the Streets in the 1990s. Since then I have been consistently interested in how approaching making and curating that takes place in other art worlds parallel to established fine art institutions involves rethinking theories and methods, of curating or art and design history, in broader social-critical terms. I have published on these topics in Art History, the Oxford Art Journal, Third Text and elsewhere. In 2014 I co-curated the exhibition Disobedient Objects at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, about objects of art and design produced by protest movements internationally since the late 1970s. It was, surprisingly, the museum's most visited exhibition since 1946. In 2015 I curated Cruel Designs, an exhibition examining design for social control (from CCTV and anti-homeless spikes to border fences and rubber bullets) at Banksy's Dismaland. In 2017 I co-curated a Palestinian-led Museum of the Occupation at Banksy's Walled off Hotel in Palestine. In 2018, I co-curated From Nope to Hope, which included work by Tania Bruguera, Jeremy Deller, Dread Scott, Shepard Fairey, Milton Glaser, Guerrilla Girls and others. In 2019 I co-curated a satirical Museum of Neoliberalism with the artist Darren Cullen which is currently open for tourists and school visits in South London. I have consulted for museums and galleries internationally. I was a member of the collective Liberate Tate, who from 2010 produced performance interventions in Tate spaces to pressure the organisation to drop BP sponsorship, which they did in 2016. This was the first in a wave of similar moves by other cultural institutions, and of a wave of 'museum protest' since. The group has been widely written about, and the group's archive is held at the University of Essex special collections. I'm currently co-authoring a history of the group. While completing my forthcoming book on activist-art, I have recently begun parallel projects which explore how new methods in the digital humanities can be developed for critical and social-historical methods in art history and curating. I'm always happy to hear from prospective PhD students in any of these areas.
Qualifications
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PhD English Studies, University of Manchester, 2007
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MA Cultural Criticism, University of Manchester, 2001
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BA English Literature and Language, University of Leeds, 2000
Research and professional activities
Research interests
modern and contemporary art history
art and politics; activist-art; institutional critique and its futures
visual and material cultures of social movements and of social control
aesthetics and affect in social movements
curatorial studies; intersections of curating, critique and political organising
Conferences and presentations
'Confronting Activist Art and Design From a Museological Perspective', M+ Museum, Hong Kong, 21 March 2016.
Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 2016
'Disobedient Objects',Design e Conspiração: Ziguezagues Entre Arte e Filosofia, Universidade Anhembi Morumbi, Sao Paulo, 29 March 2016.
Sao Paulo, Brazil, 2016
'Disobedient Objects,'Warsaw Under Construction,' Warsaw Museum of Contemporary Art, Warsaw, 15 Nov 2014.
Warsaw, Poland, 2014
The Museum Divide: Beyond Institutional Critique, The Natural History Museum, Queens Museum, New York,with Hans Haacke and Mark Dion, 24 Oct 2014.
New York, United States, 2014
Contemporary Art and Social Movements, Art and Radical Democracy After Occupy, UCL, with Chantal Mouffe and Mark Fisher,5 Dec 2013.
London, United Kingdom, 2013
Exodus From Art, Creative Dissent, York University, with TJ Demos and Irit Rogoff,5 June 2013.
2013
Disobedient Objects, Radical Gestures, Central Saint Martins, 1 June, 2013.
London, United Kingdom, 2013
Black Mask Contravention, Architecture Association, 25 May, 2013.
2013
organiser, The Politics of the Social in Contemporary Art, Tate Modern, 15 Feb 2013.
London, United Kingdom, 2013
The Socialist Surrealism of the Orange Alternative and the Contested Legacy of the Avant-Garde, Polish Art in Public Space, Courtauld Institute, 6 Dec 2012. Translated into Polish and published on the website of the Warsaw Centre for Contemporary Art.
London, United Kingdom, 2012
Activist-Art, Tactics of Protest, Royal College of Art, 1st Feb 2012.
London, United Kingdom, 2012
'Disobedient Objects: Agency and Determination in Activist-Art, Whose Participation? Spaces of Interaction in Contemporary Art and Architecture, Cabaret Voltaire, Zurich, Switzerland, organised by ETH Zurich, 16-17 Dec 2011.
Zurich, Switzerland, 2011
organiser with Dean Kenning, Art... What's the Use?, Whitechapel Gallery, 2011.'Disobedient Objects,'Warsaw Under Construction,' Warsaw Museum of Contemporary Art, 15 Nov 2014.
Warsaw, Poland, 2011
Black Mask: 1960s Destruction Art and Civil Disobedience, Visual Culture Seminar, Goldsmiths University, 6 Oct 2011.
London, United Kingdom, 2011
Second-Wave Situationism: Artists' Participation in Social Movements, 1964-77, CUNY Graduate Centre, New York, 10 May 2011.
New York, United States, 2011
Teaching and supervision
Current teaching responsibilities
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Art and Ideas III (AR323)
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Museum Activism: Art, Politics, Cultural Work and Policy (AR942)
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Preparing for your Professional Placement (AR946)
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Exhibition and Portfolio (AR952)
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Exhibition (Joint Project) (AR953)
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Final Project: Writing Art History (AR980)
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Dissertation - MA Schemes (AR981)
Current supervision
Previous supervision
Degree subject: Art History and Theory
Degree type: Doctor of Philosophy
Awarded date: 26/5/2022
Degree subject: Art History and Theory
Degree type: Doctor of Philosophy
Awarded date: 16/6/2017
Publications
Journal articles (11)
Grindon, G., (2015). Poetry Written in Gasoline: Black Mask and Up Against the Wall Motherfucker. Art History. 38 (1), 170-209
Grindon, G., (2015). Fantasies of participation: The situationist imaginary of new forms of labour in art and politics. Nordic Journal of Aesthetics. 24 (49-50), 62-90
Grindon, G., (2013). Revolutionary Romanticism: Henri Lefebvre's revolution-as-festival. Third Text. 27 (2), 208-220
Grindon, G., (2011). Surrealism, Dada and the refusal of work: autonomy, activism and social participation in the radical Avant-Garde. Oxford Art Journal. 34 (1), 79-96
Grindon, G., (2011). Uses of a Whirlwind: Movement, Movements, and Contemporary Radical Currents in the United States. RADICAL PHILOSOPHY (169), 62-63
Grindon, G., (2010). Alchemist of the revolution: the affective materialism of Georges Bataille. Third Text. 24 (3), 305-317
Grindon, G., (2010). Art and activism. Art Monthly. 333, 9-12
Grindon, G., (2010). Bike Bloc stories. Groundswell (1), 2-12
Gerdes, B., Grindon, G. and Nunes, R., (2010). Protests past and protest futures: a critical conversation about the state of protest and cultural composition. The Journal of Aesthetics and Protest. 7
Grindon, G., (2009). Second-wave situationism?. Fifth Estate (350), 11, 50-51
Grindon, G., (2004). Carnival against capital: a comparison of Bakhtin, Vaneigem and Bey. Anarchist Studies. 12 (2), 147-161
Books (2)
Fyrich, W. and Grindon, G., (2014). Lives of the Orange Men A Biographical History of the Polish Orange Alternative Movement. Autonomedia. 9781570272691
Grindon, G. and Flood, C., (2014). Disobedient Objects. Victoria and Albert Museum. 9781851777976
Book chapters (5)
Grindon, G., (2019). Detournement After Jorn. In: Art Strikes Back - from Jorn to Banksy. Editors: Madsen, CK. and Thage, J., . Museum Jorn. 8792307388. 9788792307385
Grindon, G., (2015). The Museum of Cruel Designs. In: Dismaland Bemusement Park, Catalogue. Editors: Banksy, . Dismaland
Grindon, G., (2015). Disobedient Objects. In: Participation in Art and Architecture: Spaces of Participation and Occupation. Editors: Stierli, M. and Widrich, M., . I B Tauris. 1851777970. 9781784530303
(2011). The Notion of Irony in Cultural Activism. In: Cultural Activism. BRILL. 21- 34. 9789042029811
Grindon, G., (2007). The breath of the possible. In: Constituent imagination: militant investigations, collective theorization. Editors: Shukaitis, S. and Graeber, D., . AK Press. 94- 107. 9781904859352
Exhibitions (5)
Flood, C. and Grindon, G., Disobedient Objects
Grindon, G., Cruel Designs. Exhibition
Grindon, G. and Banksy, Occupation Museum. Exhibition
Worth, J., Waterhouse, C. and Grindon, G., From Nope to Hope: Art Against Arms, Oil and Injustice. exhibition
Grindon, G. and Cullen, D., The Museum of Neoliberalism. exhibition
Other (1)
Kanngieser, A. and Grindon, G., (2013).Introduction. Parallax. 19(2),Informa UK Limited
Contact
Academic support hours:
Wed 11-12 Thu 1-2 (Autumn 2017)