Steven Henry Madoff’s english-langueage guest lecture devoted to the book Unseparate: Modernism, Interdisciplinary Art, and Network Aesthetics
Steven Henry Madoff, photo by Susan Salinger
We invite you to Steven Henry Madoff’s guest lecture - an art historian, critic, and writer, devoted to his newest publication Unseparate: Modernism, Interdisciplinary Art, and Network Aesthetics. The book combines issues from the fields of art history, philosophy, and media theory, offering a fresh perspective on modernism and its significance for contemporary aesthetics. The lecture will be an opportunity to reflect on the contemporary relevance of modernism, the relations between media, and how art can transcend divisions in the era of global networks and cultural tensions.
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More information about the book:
The book Unseparate: Modernism, Interdisciplinary Art, and Network Aesthetics (published by Stanford University Press, October 2025) is an innovative reinterpretation of European modernism and its significance for contemporary art. For over a century, art historiography has treated modernism primarily as an expression of fragmentation - a broken world and alienation. Instead of seeing it solely as a testimony to crisis and dissolution, Madoff points to the relational dimension of modernism, the search for wholeness, integration, and connections between different artistic forms.
Analysing examples ranging from Richard Wagner and his concept of the Gesamtkunstwerk (a total work of art), through the works of Paul Cézanne, Marcel Duchamp, Hugo Ball, and Walter Gropius, the author shows how the idea of uniting different artistic media and disciplines permeates the history of modern art. In this perspective, later initiatives such as Andy Warhol’s Factory, e-flux, and the Rebuild Foundation, as well as the practices of artists and collectives, including Joan Jonas, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Thomas Hirschhorn, Hito Steyerl, Anne Imhof, and ruangrupa, appear as a continuation and development of these threads.
At the same time, by returning to the artworks and projects of leading figures of European modernism, Madoff suggests that their diverse ambitions toward totality were both aesthetically productive and politically dangerous. This striking contemporary reflection allows readers to better understand the complex history of modernism and reveal deeper connections between artworks, while also linking them to today’s network culture and interdisciplinary art, from installation to performance.
Bio:
Steven Henry Madoff - writer, editor, and poet, considered one of the most influential thinkers in contemporary visual culture criticism. Madoff is the founder and chair of the Curatorial Practice program at the School of Visual Arts in New York; previously, he taught at the Yale School of Art. His critical texts and essays have been published, among others, in Artforum, Modern Painters, ARTnews (editor-in-chief), The New York Times, and Time. He is also the author and editor of publications in the fields of art theory and curatorial practice, such as What About Activism? (2019) and Art School: Propositions for the 21st Century. Over the past 30 years, Madoff has curated exhibitions in the United States, Europe, and the Middle East. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including fellowships and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Academy of American Poets. He lectures internationally on contemporary art and art pedagogy.
The event will be conducted in English.
