Lecture: Jonas Staal "From Alt-Right to Popular Propaganda Art"

What is the role of propaganda and propaganda art in the so-called "post-truth" era? Artist and propaganda researcher Jonas Staal will argue that propaganda is not merely a form of communication, but a practice of reality construction. Through concrete case-studies from the field of contemporary art, he will show how – from the War on Terror to the rise of alt-right regimes – propaganda art plays a crucial role in the shaping of our present-day world. But while these are exemplary of the negative associations we have with propaganda, Staal will simultaneously argue that there are forms of progressive, emancipatory and "popular" propaganda art as well, which can be identified in social movements and new practices of radical democracy.

Jonas Staal, *1981, is a visual artist whose work deals with the relation between art, propaganda, and democracy. He is the founder of the artistic and political organization New World Summit (2012–ongoing) and the campaign New Unions (2016–ongoing). With BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht, he co-founded the New World Academy (2013-16), and with Florian Malzacher he is currently directing the utopian training camp Training for the Future (2018-ongoing) at the Ruhrtriennale in Germany. Recent exhibition-projects include Art of the Stateless State (Moderna Galerija, Ljubljana, 2015), After Europe (State of Concept, Athens, 2016), Museum as Parliament (with the Democratic Federation of North Syria, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, 2018) and The Scottish-European Parliament (CCA, Glasgow, 2018). His projects have been exhibited widely, among others at the 7th Berlin Biennial (2012), the 31st São Paulo Biennale (2014), the Oslo Architecture Triennial (2016) and the Göteborg Biennale (2017). Recent publications and catalogs include Nosso Lar, Brasília (Jap Sam Books, 2014), Stateless Democracy (With co-editors Dilar Dirik and Renée In der Maur, BAK, 2015) and Steve Bannon: A Propaganda Retrospective (Het Nieuwe Instituut, 2018). His book Propaganda Art in the 21st Century is forthcoming from the MIT Press in the fall of 2019. Staal completed his PhD research on propaganda art at the PhDArts program of Leiden University, the Netherlands.

www.jonasstaal.nl