20 June 2018, 7:00pm
UKS
#12 MINIBAR
FREE YOUR MODERNITY #3: TALK: WILL BRADLEY | LECTURE-PERFORMANCE: MARTIN WHITE
The UKS spring program Free Your Modernity calls Scandinavia’s high level of trust in freedom of speech within arts and culture into question through both a talk series and a research display. How ideas of contemporary art, “fri kunst,” were conceptualized in the post-war era and how these were influenced by (monetary) support from the US—in particular via the CIA organization The Congress for Cultural Freedom—is a recurring subject.
For the final event in this talk series, curator, writer, and artistic director of Kunsthall Oslo, Will Bradley, will draw this question up till today. In his address The Return of the Pink Painter: How Black Magic Fascists Stole the Avant-Garde, he will rage against dark conspiratory influences and their impact on the contemporary Norwegian art scene.
As the evening’s second speaker, Australian, Oslo-based visual artist Martin White will develop his ongoing research and lecture-performance Are We Not Drawn Onward, We FeW, drawn OnwarD to NeW erA. Speaking about the US-support of Norwegian psychiatrist Carl Wilhelm Sem-Jacobsen, White broadens the questions of American influence to the wider societal fields of mental health—determining normativity versus insanity—and human rights.
PROGRAM:
7PM | WILL BRADLEY
RETURN OF THE PINK PAINTER: HOW BLACK MAGIC FASCISTS STOLE THE AVANT-GARDE
Lene Berg’s film currently on show at UKS The Man in the Background opens up the clandestine influence of The Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF) and the CIA on culture in the Cold War era. The Return of the Pink Painter: How Black Magic Fascists Stole the Avant-Garde will take you further and deeper into the uncanny vortex of history, unfolding the story of a conspiracy beyond your wildest imagination, in a search for the ultimate truth. You’ll discover exactly how the CIA psy-ops project of the CCF has survived until now, and how it touches the Oslo art scene of today. But far beyond that, you’ll discover how the CIA lost the game, not to democracy but to a forgotten disciple of Tristan Tzara, a frustrated painter whose occult teachings about Fascism and magic are the basis of an ideology that has invaded the internet, permeated Western politics, and secretly taken power over both Art Basel and the entire world.
Non-disclaimer: Everything in this talk is true; no names have been changed.
Allergy warning: May contain traces of Marxism.
Everyone who attends will get a free copy of the limited-edition booklet “Art In The Early 21st-Century” produced especially for the occasion.
8PM | MARTIN WHITE
Are We Not Drawn Onward, We FeW, drawn OnwarD to NeW erA
Are We Not Drawn Onward, We FeW, drawn OnwarD to NeW erA is a lecture performance that exposes the work and archive of Norwegian psychiatrist Carl Wilhelm Sem-Jacobsen. Sem-Jacobsen’s experimental psychosurgery was performed at Gaustad Hospital, Oslo, between 1956 and 1977 and was funded by agencies in North America including the Ford Foundation and various departments of the U.S. Military. The lecture-performance shows previously unseen, highly restricted photographs and documents many of which cannot be photographed, distributed or electronically broadcast in any way. The act of presenting this material as a lecture is therefore given a political imperative.
*Image: Martin White: Are We Not Drawn Onward, We FeW, drawn OnwarD to NeW erA. Photo: Eva Rosa Hollup