In the exclusive Los Angeles launch of Internet_Art: From the Birth of the Web to the Rise of NFTs, Jeffrey Deitch appears in conversation with Dr. Omar Kholeif, a leading figure in the world of networked culture whose new book explores the artists and events that defined the mass medium of our time.

Pace Live is pleased to present a conversation between Trevor Paglen and Dr. Omar Kholeif, a leading figure in the world of networked culture and author of Internet_Art: From the Birth of the Web to the Rise of NFTs (Phaidon). The live discussion will take place amid Paglen’s exhibition You’ve Just Been Fucked by PSYOPS with a book signing for Internet_Art to follow.

The ultimate event in their global book tour—Dr. Omar Kholeif has circled the world and back home to London where they are in dialogue with one of their biggest creative influences, artist Cory Arcangel. In this intimate dialogue, Kholeif discusses the impact of Arcangel’s practice on their own work over the last two decades. They will also discuss some of Arcangel’s recent artistic endeavours and consider the influence of the internet on shaping artistic practices today.

What are the social and territorial markers of African identity? Who is a person of African descent?  And how might we reconstitute African identity outside of settler colonial imaginations?

In this session, scholars and artists think through constructions of identity, interrogating the socio-historical precedents of what it means to be African and the plurality of experiences and contestations that produce polyvocal understandings of identity among African people.

Drawing from Achille Mbembe’s Critique of Black Reason (2013) and a conceptualisation of blackness as “a collection of voices, pronouncements, discourses, forms of knowledge, commentary, and nonsense, whose object is things or people “of African origin,” we question the positioning of African identity amidst entanglements with western imperialism and colonialism. This session complicates both continental and trans-diasporic perceptions of blackness as a racial construct and probes the implications of rigid social identifiers such as citizenship and ethnicity in the establishment of a so-called “African-ness.”

Conceived by Zeitz MOCAA in collaboration with the Institute for Humanities in Africa (HUMA) at the University of Cape Town (UCT), the When We See Us webinar series is part of a larger project that comprises a major exhibition of the same name as well as an extensive publication. When We See Us will attempt to unveil the deeper historic contexts and networks of a complex and underrepresented genealogy that stems from African and Black modernities and spans several generations from the early 20th century to the present. To watch previous episodes, please click here. For the full schedule of webinars, visit our website. 

Join the launch of Magda Stawarska's first monograph, in a talk featuring the artist, Dr. Omar Kholeif, and Lubaina Himid CBE RA.

“the only British artist to have been associated with all of the movements dealing with illusion in the 1960s…Op art, kinetic art and light art:”

Sean Scully RA Rabat Blue 2024 Oil on aluminium 152.4 x 134.6 cm (Image courtesy of the artist)

Join pioneering artist, Sean Scully RA, proponent of emotional abstraction and one of the most distinguished artists of our time, and Omar Kholeif, co-curator of the current exhibition, Peter Sedgley: 5 Decades, for a live in-situ talk at The Redfern Gallery, London.The duo will consider the sensory illusion of looking; the possibilities of fiction; poetry and the voice, taking us on a freeflowing journey up and down lanes of memory, which brim with both energy and feeling.

RSVP: info@redfern-gallery.com 020 7734 1732

RSVP is essential as numbers will be limited. Seating will be on a first come, first served basis.

Finding My Blue Sky proposes new ways of looking and feeling one’s way through art by tracing different paths through modernity.

Curated by Dr. Omar Kholeif

Featuring:

Lawrence Abu Hamdan | Souad Abdelrassoul | Sonia Balassanian | Huguette Caland | Saloua Raouda Choucair | Sarah Cunningham | Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian | Simone Fattal | Hugh Hayden | Celia Hempton | Paul Heyer | Susan Hiller | Lubaina Himid | Leiko Ikemura | Anuar Khalifi | John Latham | Haroon Mirza | Otobong Nkanga | Luísa Correia Pereira | Laure Prouvost | Michael Rakowitz | Chelenge van Rampelberg | Hrair Sarkissian | Sean Scully | Gor Soudan | Magda Stawarska | Liliane Tomasko | Miko Veldkamp | Barbara Walker

“The show is my love-letter to London, a city that I have continually returned to over the last four decades. It is a journey of retreat and surrender that will be familiar to millions in search of a sense of longing and belonging — of home, of sacred space.” – Omar Kholeif, PhD, curator of Finding My Blue Sky

Dr. O aka the avatar of Omar Kholeif invites artist and designer Marwan Kaabour into the subterranean gallery at 27 Bell Street on the 1 year anniversary of The Queer Arab Glossary for an interactive talk and quickfre Q and A followed by book signing.