Organized by the Austrian Ludwig Foundation

“It’s not linear thinking but more like cosmic storms which are all over the place.” (Lee Lozano, 1971) – “I also used vectors to imply motion, since the cosmos is in motion and constantly expanding.” (Howardena Pindell, 2004) – “My ocean is made of graphite in front of which I tumble, chase, flop over.“ (Rosemarie Castoro, 1970) 

Drawing on the collection of the Austrian Ludwig Foundation and beyond, this one-day symposium focusses on New York art practices of the 1960s and 70s by engaging with the works of Rosemarie Castoro (1939–2015), Lee Lozano (1930–1999), and Howardena Pindell (*1943). Intersecting in various ways with notions of abstraction, Minimalism and Postminimalism, the three artists’ works were also formed against the backdrop of their respective relationship to and involvement with political movements of that period such as the Art Workers’ Coalition, burgeoning feminism as well as the Black Power movement. 

The symposium takes US scholar Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s notion of “beside” as a starting point in order to make meaningful connections between the artists’ practices that resist a linear logic and allow for a complex and contradictory range of spatial, temporal, and aesthetic relations. Through a series of talks, conversations, and a roundtable discussion with a number of international speakers, the symposium positions the three artists’ practices not only within the cultural, social, and political contexts of the US in the 1960s and 70s. It also seeks to engage with them from a contemporary curatorial perspective through which institutional exhibitions and the global art market are connected with art historical discourses and artists’ more recent works. 

speakers and moderators

Manuela Ammer, curator, mumok – Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien 
Martin Beck, artist, Vienna and New York 
Julia Bryan-Wilson, Professor of Art History, Columbia, NY 
Sabeth Buchmann, Professor of the History of Modern and Postmodern Art, Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna 
Sarah Louise Cowan, Assistant Professor of Art History, DePauw University, Greencastle, IN
Sophie Cras, Assistant Professor of Art History, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne 
David Getsy, Professor of Art History, UVA, Charlottesville, VA 
Christian Liclair, art historian and art critic, former Editor-in-Chief Texte zur Kunst, Berlin
Anna Lovatt, Associate Professor, Department of Art History, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas 
Werner Pichler, Estate Rosemarie Castoro
Barbara Reisinger, Research Fellow, Department of Art History, University of Vienna 
Helena Vilalta, Pathway Leader, MRes Art: Exhibition Studies, Central Saint Martins, London 
Bärbel Vischer, curator for contemporary art, MAK Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna 
Alena Williams, Professor for Theory and Mediation of Contemporary Art, Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna

Registration

Admission to the event is free; all that is required is an online registration for a ticket.
Please register separately for the morning program and the afternoon program.
The symposium will be held in English.

The symposium was conceived by Bettina Brunner, Managing Director, Austrian Ludwig Foundation in collaboration with the Advisory Group of the Foundation’s 2025/26 research season “Beside, not infinite”: Jo Applin, Walter H. Annenberg Professor in the History of Art, The Courtauld Institute of Art, London // Ana Gonçalves Magalhães, Professor of Art History, University of São Paulo // Christian Liclair, former Editor-in-Chief, Texte zur Kunst, Berlin // Tina Post, Associate Professor, Department of English, University of Chicago // Barbara Reisinger, Research Fellow, Department of Art History, University of Vienna // Mike Sperlinger, Professor of Writing & Theory, Oslo Academy of Fine Art //Alena Williams, Professor for Theory and Mediation of Contemporary Art, Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna.

David Getsy was invited in conjunction with the 2026 Study Day Program “New Approaches to Performance Art”, organized by the Department of Art History, University of Vienna.

Lee Lozano’s painting Untitled (1967) was acquired by the Austrian Ludwig Foundation in 2016 and is on permanent loan to mumok. Rosemarie Castoro’s sculptural works Land of Lads (1975) and Land of Lashes(1976) were acquired by the Foundation in 2021 and are on permanent loan to MAK.