MIAMI, FLA.- The Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami (ICA Miami) announced today the launch of its Art + Research Center (A+RC), the museum’s new research department and educational initiative dedicated to exploring topical social and environmental issues in relation to contemporary art. The A+RC’s program will feature application-based, graduate-level workshops and public presentations by leading thinkers and theorists in the humanities and social sciences, exploring themes such as climate change and social justice that impact the conditions from which contemporary art emerges.

Developed by ICA Miami’s Curator of Programs, Gean Moreno, the Art + Research Center is the first museum-based research department in South Florida focused on theoretical inquiry. A major component of the A+RC will be the production of print publications and e-books that expand the reach of its programmatic activities and provide a new open source for freely distributed research materials in our region. Mounted in collaboration with Florida International University’s MFA Visual Art program, the A+RC’s field-advancing curricula will include a calendar of lectures, programs, and symposia geared towards fostering robust dialogue with the general public and lifelong learners.

“The Art + Research Center will make an immediate impact on the community of cultural producers in Miami, and greatly enhances ICA Miami’s mission to build visual literacy and develop rigorous scholarship in our community,” said Ellen Salpeter, ICA Miami Director. “The Center is indicative of a number of new ideas that the museum is developing as we begin to transition into our new permanent home late next year.”

For the pilot semester beginning October 3, and its theme of “New Social Abstractions,” leading artists-theorists Hito Steyerl, Simon Denny, Evan Calder Williams, and writer Ana Teixeira Pinto will lead an exploration into new levels of complexity that organize our modern world and discuss new kinds of artistic production that this development may demand.

Art + Research Center 2016 Pilot Semester Applications
The Art + Research Center’s semester of month-long graduate-level workshops are free to attend, but require an application and a $25 administrative fee. Applications are available at www.icamiami.org/arc. Space is limited, and the deadline to apply is September 25, 2016. ICA Miami’s Art + Research Center calendar of public programs are free, RSVP required. All Art + Research Center programs take place at ICA Miami (4040 NE 2nd Avenue, Miami FL) unless otherwise noted.

Art + Research Center 2016 Pilot Semester
Schedule of Events New Social Abstractions (October 3 – 27, 2016)
Whether it is a finance economy that relies on complex projections and infinitesimal shifts, or infrastructures and corporations that blur national and hemispheric borders, today’s world functions at levels of complexity that defy straightforward examination. Current social abstractions provoke new ways of understanding and describing our world and our culture. ICA Miami’s A+RC pilot semester will address how contemporary art production might contend with a world defined by ever-changing abstraction.

Evan Calder Williams Seminar: October 3 – 5, 6:30 p.m.
Public Presentation: October 6, 7:00 p.m.
Evan Calder Williams is a writer, theorist, and artist. He received a Ph.D. in literature from the University of California Santa Cruz and was a Fulbright Fellow in Italy for his research on cinema, industry, and revolt. He is the author of Combined and Uneven Apocalypse and Roman Letters. His writing has appeared in Film Quarterly, Mute, The Journal of American Studies, Radical Philosophy, Historical Materialism, Third Rail, and The New Inquiry. He has presented films, performance, and audio works at the Serpentine Gallery, the Whitney Museum, Tramway, Artists Space, Images Festival, ISSUE Project Room, the Ljubljana Biennial of Graphic Arts, and the Montreal International Festival du Nouveau Cinéma. He is part of the editorial collective of Viewpoint Magazine and works, with Lucy Raven and Victoria Brooks, as Thirteen Black Cats, a research and production collective for moving images. He is currently a 2015 artist-in-residence at ISSUE Project Room.

Simon Denny Seminar: October 11 – 12, 6:30 p.m.
Public Presentation: October 13, 7:00 p.m.
Simon Denny is an artist working with installation, sculpture and video. He studied at the Elam School of Fine Arts at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, and at the Städelschule, Frankfurt. Selected solo exhibitions include: WIELS, Brussels (2016); Serpentine Galleries, London (2015); MoMA PS1, New York (2015); Portikus, Frankfurt (2014); MuMOK, Vienna (2013); Kunstverein Munich (2013); and Aspen Art Museum (2012). In 2012, Denny was awarded the Art Basel Statements Baloise Preis. Selected group shows include: The 9th Berlin Biennale (2016); Hack Space, K11 Art Foundation, Hong Kong (2016); After Babel, Moderna Museet, Stockholm (2015); Europe, Europe, Astrup Fearnley Museet, Oslo (2014); Art Post-Internet, Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing (2014); and Speculations on Anonymous Materials, Fridericianum, Kassel (2013). Denny represented New Zealand at the 56th Venice Biennale (2015) and was included in the central curated exhibition in 2013.

Ana Teixeira Pinto Seminar: October 17 – 19, 6:30 p.m.
Public Presentation: October 20, 7:00 p.m.
Ana Teixeira Pinto is a writer from Lisbon currently living in Berlin. She is a lecturer at the UdK (Universität der Kunste) Berlin and her writings have appeared in publications such as e-flux journal, Art-Agenda, Mousse, Frieze/de, Domus, Inaesthetics, Manifesta Journal, and Texte zur Kunst.

Hito Steyerl Seminar: October 26 – 27, 6:30 p.m.
Public Presentation: October 28, 7:00 p.m.
Hito Steyerl is one of the most influential contemporary artists in the fields of video art and media theory practicing today. In her work Steyerl explores the proliferation of digital technologies and their effects on image production, the emergence of surveillance and militarization regimes, cultural globalization, and finance capitalism, among other topics. Steyerl represented Germany at the 56th Venice Biennale (2015), and participated in Documenta 12 (2007) and the 13th Istanbul Biennial (2013). Recent solo exhibitions have been held at the Chicago Art Institute, the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, and the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) in London.