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Avant-Guardian Musings

  • Spring 2025
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“Art is an outlet toward regions which are not ruled by time and space”
— Marcel Duchamp

Avant-Guardian Musings is a curated space of ideas and information, resources, reviews and readings for undergraduate and graduate students studying modern and contemporary art history and visual art theory, film and photography studies, and the expanding field of visual culture and screen studies. For students currently enrolled in my courses or the field school, the blog and associated social media links also serve as a place of reflection and an extension of the ideas and visual material raised in lecture and seminar discussion.

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Blog
From the Archives | How (And Why) To Take Excellent Lecture Notes
From the Archives | How (And Why) To Take Excellent Lecture Notes
about 10 months ago
Weekly Musings + Round Up... And A Few More Things
Weekly Musings + Round Up... And A Few More Things
about 2 years ago
Weekly Musings + Round Up... And A Few More Things
about 2 years ago
Weekly Musings + Round Up... And A Few More Things
Weekly Musings + Round Up... And A Few More Things
about 2 years ago
Top 10 Modern and Contemporary Art Exhibitions Worth Visiting In 2023
Top 10 Modern and Contemporary Art Exhibitions Worth Visiting In 2023
about 2 years ago

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Delighted to find these iconic Tom Ford Whitney’s deep in my closet over the weekend ✨☀️🕶️Anyone else remember these sunglasses from back in the day? I want to say these are well over 15 years old and they were a very big splurge, but I loved
Delighted to find these iconic Tom Ford Whitney’s deep in my closet over the weekend ✨☀️🕶️Anyone else remember these sunglasses from back in the day? I want to say these are well over 15 years old and they were a very big splurge, but I loved rediscovering and wearing them today. Great design is timeless. Invest in things you love— your future self will thank you✨ . . . #tomford #sunglasses #tomfordwhitney #whatiwore #shamelessselfie
If Seoul was a colour, it would be neon and bright, and if it was a shape, it would be curved and post-structural.
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#artanddesign #odetoacity #urban #seoul #korea #design #contemporaryart #architecture
If Seoul was a colour, it would be neon and bright, and if it was a shape, it would be curved and post-structural. . . . #artanddesign #odetoacity #urban #seoul #korea #design #contemporaryart #architecture
Visited the stunning Leeum Museum of Art today and took in the spatial delights of Korean architecture married to modern art. What I love most is how the familiar European and American “masters” (i.e. Rodin, Giacometti, Rauschenberg, Hess
Visited the stunning Leeum Museum of Art today and took in the spatial delights of Korean architecture married to modern art. What I love most is how the familiar European and American “masters” (i.e. Rodin, Giacometti, Rauschenberg, Hesse, Flavin, Rothko, Andre, Lewitt, Stella, etc…) are curated both in dialogue with Korean modern artists such as Lee Ufan and Kim Chong-yung, but also in juxtaposition to the beautiful natural setting that is showcased through large windows throughout the complex. A must see gallery if you visit Seoul. . . . #seoul #korea #modernart #contemporaryart #koreanart #arthistory
Flaneur for the day in Seoul ✨🇰🇷 A global city of high contrast, beauty, and living history around every corner.
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#seoul #korea #flaneur #daytripping #streetart #contemporaryart #modernart #urbanart #arthistory #urban #globalcity
Flaneur for the day in Seoul ✨🇰🇷 A global city of high contrast, beauty, and living history around every corner. . . . #seoul #korea #flaneur #daytripping #streetart #contemporaryart #modernart #urbanart #arthistory #urban #globalcity
Hello Seoul! 🇰🇷🛬✨안녕하세요 서울 Lucky me, I am incredibly excited to have arrived in South Korea today and staying smack dab in the middle of the stylish Gangnam District at the COEX Conference Centre. It is my first time in this beautiful city and I ca
Hello Seoul! 🇰🇷🛬✨안녕하세요 서울 Lucky me, I am incredibly excited to have arrived in South Korea today and staying smack dab in the middle of the stylish Gangnam District at the COEX Conference Centre. It is my first time in this beautiful city and I cannot wait to begin exploring, especially the contemporary art and design scene. I am here to attend and give a paper at the #IPSA2025 International Political Science Association World Congress, the largest global gathering of researchers and academics working on all things political and international relations oriented. IPSA as an academic association was founded under the auspices of UNESCO in 1949 and is devoted to the advancement of political science in all parts of the world and promotes collaboration between scholars in both established and emerging democracies. The 2025 Conference theme is “Resisting Autocratization in Polarized Societies” and I was invited to present a paper on my ongoing work on Trumpism, the neo avante-garde, and visual culture on a panel examining the role of cultural actors during periods of democratic backsliding. I only had a few hours after I arrived to my hotel to check out COEX, but I had to see the world famous library housed inside the shopping complex. It was a very cool sight for a book nerd like me 🤓 . . . #seoul #korea #southkorea #politicalscience #arthistory #academiclife #conference @kpuarts @kwantlenu

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© Dorothy Barenscott, Avant-Guardian Musings, and dorothybarenscott.com, 2010-2023. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Dorothy Barenscott, Avant-Guardian Musings, and dorothybarenscott.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

You can visit the symposium registration page to view full schedule and bios of presenters. The student artwork featured on our poster was created by Tasman Brewster in connection to Canadian poet Lorna Crozier's poem "Jell-O." The student collabora…

You can visit the symposium registration page to view full schedule and bios of presenters. The student artwork featured on our poster was created by Tasman Brewster in connection to Canadian poet Lorna Crozier's poem "Jell-O." The student collaboration for this poem is featured here. 

Canadian Culinary Imaginations Symposium| February 19-20: REGISTRATION OPEN!

January 27, 2016

It is finally here—mark your calendars! On Friday, February 19th and Saturday, February 20th, the Canadian Culinary Imaginations Symposium of Literary and Visual Fare is set to take place on Kwantlen Polytechnic University’s Richmond Campus in the Melville Centre for Dialogue. This is an event that I have been co-organizing with Dr. Shelley Boyd (KPU English Department) as a two-day interdisciplinary event featuring over 25 invited speakers, ranging from local and international academics, to artists, curators, and writers, who will explore how Canadian writers and/or visual artists use food to articulate larger historical and cultural contexts. 

We are pleased to feature our creative keynote speaker Vancouver Poet Laureate Rachel Rose presenting a talk on the topic of poems inspired by food. Our other featured speaker is internationally recognized Visual Artist Sylvia Grace Borda who will lead a discussion on her art projects and their relationship to sustainable food systems and economies.

The symposium will coincide with the launch of the public art exhibition we have also planned, organized, and curated— "Artful Fare: Conversations About Food"— presenting the collaborative art projects of KPU Fine Arts and English students as they engage in creative-critical dialogues about Canadian poetry. Full schedule and list of participants and all registration information can be found HERE. Spread the word and join us in the conversation!

Background:

Over the past year, I have been working with Canadian Literature specialist Dr. Shelley Boyd on fostering a collaborative research stream related to her already well-developed research and publications in the field of literary food studies. In my own capacity as an art historian, I have had an interest in the representation and discourse around food, metaphors of consumption, and the symbolic use of food in modern and contemporary art, and especially among the avant-garde. Our interests intersected while I was working on a research project looking at the work of Canadian-born artist and designer Tobias Wong and his use of food and popular culture in several projects (I went on to present a paper related to this research titled “Object Lesson—The Case of Tobias Wong” at the AAH Association of Art Historians Annual Conference at the University of Reading in 2013). Wong’s close working relationship with novelist and artist Douglas Coupland, a prominent Canadian figure that Dr. Boyd has also been researching and presenting work about—notably, her paper “Douglas Coupland's "Digital" Landmarks: Navigating the Electronic Environment” presented at a Canadian Studies conference at the University College Dublin in 2012—sparked our interest in collaborating on a project looking at the literary and art historical implications of Coupland’s output on Canadian food narratives. Our collaboration and mutual interest in Coupland hinges on how he utilizes pop art sensibilities and aesthetics, which take obsession with consumer culture and convenience food as potent subject matter, and connects them to a literary style that relishes in the creation of dystopic fictional microcosms.

Our shared research, located at the intersection of literary and art historical analysis, laid the foundation for our collaborative work co-organizing the Canadian Culinary Imagination Conference and it also helped inspire a related student project that has been taking place at KPU since last fall.  

The online exhibition of "Artful Fare" accompanies two separate physical art exhibitions slated for February 19-20 and March 3-17 at KPU.

The online exhibition of "Artful Fare" accompanies two separate physical art exhibitions slated for February 19-20 and March 3-17 at KPU.

“Artful Fare: Conversations About Food Student Collaborative and Exhibition Project”—which can be viewed HERE— is an ongoing project started in fall 2015 and the brainchild of Dr. Boyd partnering KPU English students studying Canadian poetry together with Studio and Art History students working across a wide range of disciplines in the Fine Arts Department. All of the participating students were assigned Canadian poems selected by Dr. Boyd to align with the broader theme of food narratives. Students were then put in small mixed groups of English and Fine Arts students studying the same poem and encouraged to approach the themes of the poetry from their own disciplinary perspective while working collaboratively to share context and insights. The result of these student collaborations (focusing on 17 Canadian poems) can be explored on the online exhibition and will also be featured as two separate art exhibitions set to coincide with the symposium at KPU Richmond on February 19-20, and at KPU Surrey on March 3-17. 

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© Dorothy Barenscott, 2010-2025