This event is free and open to the public.
Public reception to follow the symposium at 3:30pm.
The Modes of Engagement symposium at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College will be held on Saturday October 11th, 2025, in conjunction with the inauguration of the new Keith Haring Wing. This symposium will feature the extensive research collections at the Center for Curatorial Studies alongside the practices of curators, academics and professionals from adjacent fields, art institutions and organizations. Both panels investigate the distinctive and unique challenges and methods of working with rare contemporary art related publications, editions and archives as part of exhibition-making, teaching, collecting and exploring publishing as an artistic and curatorial platform.
This one-day symposium consists of two 90-minute panels followed by a reception. Each panel includes curators, educators and library & archives professionals engaged in conversation about their scholarly, professional and pedagogical practices working with artists’ publications, archives, editions and multiples – materials collected in support of future scholarship and made accessible within museum and academic research collections.
Program
Welcome and introductory comments
Tom Eccles, Executive Director, CCS Bard
Panel I: Collecting and Exhibiting Special Collections
Time: 11:30am-1:00pm
Ann Butler, Director of Library & Archives, CCS Bard / Moderator
May Makki, Independent Curator and Writer (CCS Bard ‘22)
Artist’s Publishing is a Shout, a Broadcast, a Café
David Platzker, Art Historian, Curator, Writer and Art Dealer
Monkey Business
Farris Wahbeh, Benjamin and Irma Weiss Director of Research Resources and Collection Management, Whitney Museum of American Art
Centering Strategy, Enacting Procedure: Developing a Library Special Collection Policy and Collecting Scope
Robert Wiesenberger, Curator of Contemporary Projects, Clark Art Institute
Raffaella della Olga’s Typescripts at the Clark
Panel II: Teaching and Learning with Contemporary Art Archives
Time: 2:00pm-3:30pm
Lara Fresko Madra, Assistant Professor (CCS Bard) and Luma Fellow / Moderator
Eduardo Andres Alfonso, Curator and Architect (CCS Bard '22)
… for hours, days, and weeks at a time
Mariano López Seoane, Director of the Graduate Program (CCS Bard) and ISLAA Fellow in Latin American Art
Obsesión. A very personal assessment of Latin American art’s archive fever
Jeppe Ugelvig, Curator, Historian, and Cultural Critic (CCS Bard '18)
Wayward Curatorial: Archives, Magazines, and Merch of Art
Gee Wesley, Arts Organizer (CCS Bard '21)
An archive, institute, company, group, whatever