Presentation by Bruno Bosteels, Columbia University Dean of Humanities

Join us Sunday afternoon, December 14, when Columbia University Dean of Humanities Bruno Bosteels presents "Poetics of the Event: Lotty Rosenfeld between Nelly Richard and Willy Thayer."

In 2003, on the thirtieth anniversary of the military coup of September 11, 1973, the Chilean philosopher Willy Thayer published a provocative interpretation of the destruction resulting from the bombing of the Palace of La Moneda in Santiago as a component of the military takeover. This violent political break from Salvador Allende’s rule would mark an anticipation and preemptive deactivation of the poetics of rupture, happening, and event in the Chilean art scene, especially the neo-avant-garde canonized as Escena de la Avanzada (active 1977-1983) in cultural critic Nelly Richard’s book Margins and Institutions: Art in Chile since 1973 (Melbourne, 1987). In this talk Bruno Bosteels revisits the heated polemic that followed between Richard and Thayer on the potential links between art, politics, and cultural critique.

This lecture presentation is in conjunction with the current exhibition Lotty Rosenfeld: Disobedient Spaces (November 7, 2025–March 15, 2026).

EVENT INFO:

Bruno Bosteels
"Poetics of the Event: Lotty Rosenfeld between Nelly Richard and Willy Thayer"
Sunday, December 14, 1:00–2:00pm
Katharina Otto-Bernstein Screening Room
Lenfest Center for the Arts
615 West 129th Street
New York, NY 10027

Advance registration suggested.

More information on the event and exhibition.