Goldsmiths - University of London

Dr Jean-Paul Martinon

Teaching

I currently teach courses at undergraduate and postgraduate level in museum studies, curatorial theory, contemporary French philosophy, and Sub-Saharan African thought. I co-founded the PhD Curatorial / Knowledge Programme with Irit Rogoff.

Areas of supervision

I have recently supervised dissertations on negative theology, the work of Jacques Derrida, contemporary cinema, museum theory, and curatorial practice. With regards to philosophy, I welcome proposals for research on any aspect of modern and contemporary French or Sub-Saharan thought. With regards to contemporary visual culture, I welcome proposals for research on any aspects of the history and theory of museums, exhibition practices, and cinema.

Research interests

After completing a master’s degree in International Law in Paris, I moved to London in the late 80s. Very quickly and with no previous experience or training, I found myself curating exhibitions of contemporary art. In 1991 I co-founded Rear Window, an independent arts trust that staged a series of exhibitions and conferences in temporary sites across London throughout the 90s. Each project presented, outside the conventions of the gallery space (in and around different frames, themes, media, and locations), new or collaborative work by young or established contemporary artists, writers, and poets. One such project, Care and Control (1995), was sited in a fully functioning psychiatric hospital in East London and involved 30 psychiatric patients and 18 contemporary artists. It is in the context of this project that I completed my first monograph, a social history of Hackney Workhouse, Swelling Grounds, 1995. I stopped curating exhibitions by the end of the millennium and started working in academia, completing a PhD in contemporary art theory in 2001.  My interest in contemporary curatorial practices developed with the creation of the Curatorial Knowledge PhD Programme and the editing of a new book on this topic, Allegories of the Curatorial.

Over the years, I have slowly developed an interest in two areas of modern and contemporary philosophy.  The first focuses on the works of Emmanuel Levinas and Jacques Derrida. This interest led me to complete a second monograph, On Futurity / Malabou, Nancy & Derrida (2007), which comprises a series of essays on the notion of futurity in contemporary continental philosophy.   The second focuses on the work of Sub-Saharan philosophers and specifically the work of Alexis Kagame and Maniragaba Balibutsa, both of Rwanda.  This interest led me to write a new monograph, After "Rwanda" (2012), which focuses on the Genocide Memorial Centre in Kigali, Rwanda.

Selected publications

Books (forthcoming):

After "Rwanda" (2012). This book focuses on the way both Rwandan and French contemporary philosophy understand peace today.

The Curatorial (2013). This edited book is an anthology of texts that explore the way knowledge forms itself in the contemporary art space.

Books:

On Futurity, Malabou, Nancy, and Derrida, Palgrave MacMillan, 2007

Swelling Grounds, Rear Window, 1995

Selected articles:

“Bearers and Proper Names,” in The Renaming Machine, Parasite Publications, 2009

‘Switzerland: On Joanna Hodge’s Derrida on Time’ in Radical Philosophy, Routledge, 2008.

‘33, 34, 35… The Life of The Limits,’ in Josef Steiff & Tristan Tamplin (eds), Battlestar Galactica and Philosophy, Open Court, 2008.

“Museum, Plasticity, Temporality,’ in Journal of Museum Management and Curatorship, 2006, pp. 157-67.

‘Strategies of (In)visibility’, in EIPCP Web Journal, 2005, pp. 1-6.

‘Grafts, Repetitions & Polymorphous Bodies” in Daniel Buren 3°W, The Wordsworth Trust, 2005, pp. 29-44.

‘Museum and Restlessness’ in Hugh Genoways (ed), Museum Philosophy for the 21st Century, Alta Mira Press, 2005, pp. 59-69.

‘Changing an Opinion,’ in Jean-Paul Martinon and Kirsty Ogg (eds), To Change an Opinion: Art and the 'New' World Disorder, The Showroom and Cornerhouse, 2004, pp. 26-9.