Overview

Stephen Wright presented his latest research project that at the time of March Meeting 2011 was in its initial stages. The driving question was what constituted conceptual art in the Mediterranean, a requisite for the celebrated post-conceptual work in the region.

Presentation Proposal

The project stems from an observation and an attendant question: There is clearly a thriving post-conceptual art in the Mediterranean area (Walid Raad, Walid Sadek, Decolonizing Palestine, Khalil Rabah, Djamel Kokene, Yto Barrada, Lasserre & Yacoub...), which given its relationship to the territory of art and that of other forms of knowledge production, operates through what I describe as ‘extraterritorial reciprocity’. Which begs the following, unanswered and even unposed question: Was there a conceptual art in the Mediterranean? We begin from the hypothesis that indeed there was, though it remains unknown to itself and unmapped. For otherwise, one would have to conclude that current practices are a pure product of importation from America and Europe—and even in that case, we would want to ask: In what suitcase? With whom? When? Via what stopover? The project will unearth and performatively document and map the trajectories of these avuncular precursors alongside the exhibition of post-conceptual works whose conditions of possibility they guaranteed.