Vivian L Smith Foundation Symposium: TRESPASS: Entering the Scene of Making

The Menil Collection presents the Vivian L. Smith Foundation Symposium: TRESPASS: Entering the Scene of Making, Saturday, April 16.

At what moment is something made? Modern and contemporary works of art that harness live human behavior, or that rely on multiple drafts or iterations, reveal that the scope of artmaking is wider than a single creator and often not easily quantifiable.

What role do social spaces, drafts, scripts, and drawings play as contributing factors to the meaning of a finished work?

Taking into account emerging social, political, and human-object relations that can form when a work of art is “in process,” this symposium proposes new ways to understand the scenes and narratives of artmaking.

Symposium participants include: Cornelia Butler, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Peggy Phelan, Stanford University; Judith Rodenbeck, University of California, Riverside; and Anna Lovatt, Meadows School of the Arts, Southern Methodist University.

Moderated by Katie Anania, PhD candidate in Art History at the University of Texas at Austin and Vivian L. Smith Curatorial Fellow at the Menil Collection.

The fellowship and symposium are generously supported by the Vivian L. Smith Foundation

Pictured: Trisha Brown, Untitled (Montpellier), 2002. The Menil Collection, Houston, Purchased with funds provided by the John R. Eckel, Jr. Foundation. © Trisha Brown. Photo courtesy of Sikkema Jenkins & Co.