Okwui Enwezor, Paul Mellon Distinguished Fellow Lecture 2000

Internationally renowned writer, curator, art historian and professor Okwui Enwezor gives a lecture at Skowhegan. Enwezor grounds his talk in the importance of grappling with the fundamentalisms of our time, specifically being concerned in many ways with international exhibitions and the connection to global capitalism. Enwezor says that when we deal with the destabilization with institutions and the flow of market with capital to the so called art world, this is called the post colonial condition. Enwezor says that in the present post colonial condition, we need new tools in order to construct the idea of other curatorial practices within culture rather then simply in the borders of art history. It is this mandate that drives Enwezor to always seek to make exhibitions that can operate as a space for making knowledge. Enwezor urges participants to remember that art history is never complete. Regardless of how art history has become institutionalized, Enwezor urges participants to think through the very constructs of the world and what we consider art and culture. Enwezor says that when we do this, we can make exhibitions within cultures, and not exhibitions of art within art history.