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 social engagement in curatorial practice and in art from 1900-present. 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 the museum's most visited exhibition since 1946. In 2015 I curated an exhibition on the history of 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 In 2018, I co-curated From Nope to Hope, in which artists (who had withdrawn their work from the Design Museum's 'Hope to Nope' political art show after the museum hosted a reception for arms dealers) showed their work in Brixton, including Tania Bruguera, Jeremy Deller, Shepard Fairey, Milton Glaser, Guerrilla Girls and others. In 2019 I co-curated a 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 have also been 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. My written research focuses on critical curatorial practice, cultural policy and organisational change; and on twentieth century art, specifically activist-art, institutional critique and its futures. I have an interest in the particular histories of activist-art, institutional critique and critical curatorial practice. My academic background is also in critical theory and continental philosophy, and I am interested in how approaching these topics involves rethinking theoretical and methodological approaches in art, design, visual and material culture. My PhD, completed at Manchester University under Prof. Terry Eagleton, comprised an intellectual history of theories of revolution-as-festival, which attempted to engage with affect and aesthetics in social movements, from Surrealist-influenced figures such as Georges Bataille and Henri Lefebvre through to more recent post-structuralist approaches to Marxism and anarchism. I have published in Art History, the Oxford Art Journal, Third Text and elsewhere. In 2010 I co-wrote the pamphlet A User's Guide to Demanding the Impossible, which has been translated into a number of languages. I am currently completing a book on the history of activist-art and some articles on curatorial history and theory, and on social histories of art and design.
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 II: More Art, More Ideas - Critique and Historiography in the History of Art (AR220)
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Collect, Curate, Display (AR221)
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Essex Cultural Outreach: Placement Module (AR250)
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Art and Ideas III (AR323)
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Practical Skills for Curatorial Work (AR912)
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Curating Inside Out (AR942)
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Exhibition and Portfolio (AR952)
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Exhibition (Joint Project) (AR953)
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Crisis of the American Idea (CS261)
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Skills for University Studies (CS711)
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Beyond the BA: Skills for the Next Step (CS712)
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Researching Art History (AR932)
Current supervision
Previous supervision
Degree subject: Art History and Theory
Degree type: Doctor of Philosophy
Awarded date: 16/6/2017
Publications
Journal articles (12)
Grindon, G., (2015). Fantasies of Participation: The Situationist International and New Forms of Labour in Art and Politics. Nordic Journal of Aesthetics. 24 (49-50), 49-50
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
Book chapters (4)
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
Grindon, G., (2011). The Notion of Irony in Cultural Activism. In: Cultural Activism. Brill | Rodopi. 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)