Rogoff, Irit, Goldsmiths, University of London

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Professor Irit Rogoff

Position held:
Professor of Visual Cultures

Phone:
+44 (0)20 7919 7406

Email:
i.rogoff (@gold.ac.uk)

RHB (Room: 242)
Department of Visual Cultures
Goldsmiths, University of London
New Cross
London
SE14 6NW
United Kingdom

Academic qualifications

PhD. Courtauld Institute of Art, London University, 1987 (Dissertation title: The Public Self - Self Portraits and Cultural Ideologies in German Modernism)
MA History of Art. Courtauld Institute of Art, London University, 1973
BA English Literature. Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1971
BA. History of Art. Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1971

Teaching

My teaching in the Department of Visual Cultures focuses on two areas;
Issues of geography, globalization, post-colonial and post-migratory conditions and their inscription as sites of knowledge production. An annual MA course entitled “Geographies” deals with these issues through theoretical texts and an annual collaborative student project that takes different forms. In 2008 the course investigated urban order through a study of Kings Cross and in 2009 the course project published a book “Market Tales – A Geopolyphony”.

The other area of my teaching is broadly speaking transitions within the contemporary art world as the emergent entities of the audience, the curatorial, the participatory, the self organized and the communal, have become increasingly important to contemporary arts and culture. I direct the ‘think tank’ PH.D in Curatorial / Knowledge, teach periodically on the PH.D. in Research Architecture and in the general PH.D seminar of the Department.

Areas of supervision

I have supervised a wide array of research projects around what we term ‘Global Counter cartographies”; post-coloniality and cultural difference, geography and globalization and alternative spatialities and their practices. Increasingly the dissertations I am advising have been looking at strategies of participation in the contemporary art world, concepts of the curatorial, the communal, the address, the educational turn in curating, and the relations between emergent practices and contemporary understandings of the political etc’.

Research interests

My practice is one of both academic research as well as in the practices of curating and organizing.
Here I am interested in untangling the seemingly naturalized relations of subjects and places, in the constitution of sites and spaces that can not be cohered under the proper names on nations, regions, identities or identities and in the cultural and artistic practices that have emerged from mobilities, dislocations and states of extreme and prolonged conflict and the terroristic as the undermine the certainties of belonging, stability and emplacement.. Two books “Terra Infirma – Geography’s Visual Culture” (2001) and “Unbounded – Limits’ Possibilities” (2010) have dealt with such issues as has a major curatorial project “De-Regulation - with the work of Kutlug Ataman “ an exhibition project (Antwerp 2006, Herzilya 2007, Berlin 2010) accompanied by symposia, book and international summer school in ‘Relational Geographies’ Berlin 2010 and funded by the Bundeskuturstiftung. In addition I directed a major AHRC research Center on “Translating the Image – Cross Cultural Contemporary Arts” 2000-2005 with several research fellows (Isaac Julian, Janice Cheddie,) PH.D researchers, conferences and a book “TransCoding” (2010)

The other aspect of my research is to do with ‘the participatory turn’ in contemporary art and in interventionist and educational practices. My forthcoming book “Looking Away – Participating Singularities, Ontological Communities” (2011) builds on work I published and curated in recent years and which asks the question on what does it mean to take part in culture beyond the roles that culture allots us for that kind of involvement. Curatorial project linked to this research thematic include “ Academy – Learning and Teaching “ (Vanabbemuseum NL 2006) and “Summit – Non Aligned Initiatives in Education Culture” (Berlin 2007)

Selected publications

Selected publications:

Books:

•    Museum Culture - Histories / Theories / Spectacles    I. Rogoff and D. Sherman, Minnesota University Press, 1994.

•    Terra Infirma - Geography’s Visual Culture Routledge (London and New York), May 2001.

•    A.C.A.D.E.M.Y, co-eds. Angelika Nollert and Irit Rogoff, Revolver 2006.

•    TRANSCODING – Cross Cultural Contemporary Arts, Walter Koenig Verlag, Cologne, 2010. Edited volume of AHRC funded research project.

•    Looking Away –Participating Singularities –Ontological Communities - Forthcoming, MIT 2010

•    Unbounded –Limits’ Possibilities – Forthcoming, Lukas & Sternberg 2010

Selected Articles:

•    ‘What is a Theorist’ in Was ist ein Kunstler, ed Katharyna Sykora, Berlin, 2003 Available on: http://www.kein.org/node/62
•    ‘The Where of Now’ in Time Zones, eds. Gregor Muir and Jessica Morgan, Tate Modern, October, 2004. Available on: http://www.kein.org/node/64
•    ‘Engendering Terror’ in Geography and the Politics of Mobility, Vienna Generali Foundation and Walter Koenig Books, Cologne, 2003. Available on: http://www.kein.org/node/63
•    ‘De-regulation: Kutlug Ataman and Irit Rogoff in conversation.’ Available on: http://www.kein.org/node/66
•    ‘The Educational Turn in Curating’, e flux Journal, Vol.1 Issue 1, 2008. Available on: http://www.e-flux.com/journal/view/18
•    ‘Academy as Potentiality” in A.C.A.D.E.M.Y (eds. Angelika Nollert and Irit Rogoff) Revolver, 2006 Available:
•    ‘We - Collectivities, Mutualities, Participations’ http://theater.kein.org/node/95

Grants & awards

Selected Academic Research Grants and Awards

European Cultural Fund, Amsterdam grant for “Field Work” project, conference and book. (2006/07)
Arts Humanities Research Council Research Leave Award (2006/07)
Leverhulme research fellowship (2001)
Project director “Translating The Image; Cross Cultural Contemporary Arts”. Award of five hundred thousand pounds over five years to bring in scholars and researchers, to fund PH.D students and run three international conferences. Project results in a book to be published by Walter Koenig verlag in 2010.

Professional activities

Curating and Organising

ACADEMY – a curatorial project generated by the Siemens Fund in collaboration with Hamburger Kunstverein, MUKHA, Anterwerp, Van Abbe Museum, Eindhoven, Goldsmiths College, Dept. of Visual Cultures. A series of exhibitions and symposia between 2005 - 2007. I served as curator of the Vanabbe exhibition “Learning from the museum” and editor of the book A.C.A.D.E.M.Y 2006.

Collaborative grant, BundeskulturStiftung, (German Federal Cultural Fund), for ‘Summit – Non Aligned Initiatives in Education Culture’, Berlin 2007: http://summit.kein.org/node/520

Curator of ‘De-Regulation - with the work of Kutlug Ataman’ MuHka , Antwerp, MCA Herzylia, KW Berlin 2006-8. http://www.de-regulation.org/node
Award Burdeskulturstiftung (German Federal Cultural Fund), 2009.

Director AHRB project 'Translating the Image: Cross-cultural Contemporary Arts' (2001-2006)
Editorial Board Parallax (University of Leeds)
Editorial Board Journal of Visual Culture (Sage Publications)
External examiner of MA Slade School of Art, University College London (2002-2005)

Papers presented

Books:

The Divided Heritage - Themes and Problems in German Modernism, Ed. Irit Rogoff. Cambridge University Press, 1991.
Museum Culture - Histories / Theories / Spectacles, I. Rogoff and D. Sherman, Minnesota University Press, 1994.
Terra Infirma - Geography's Visual Culture, Routledge, London and New York, May 2000.
Othering German Art - Haunts of Difference, Forthcoming, University of California Press, September ,2005.
Looking Away - Participations in Visual Culture, Forthcoming, MIT, 2006.

Goldsmiths - University of London