Plug In Institute for Contemporary Art presents a performative lecture by cultural theorist, psychoanalyst, art critic and writer, Jeanne Randolph on Thursday, February 26th at 7PM. Internationally recognized, Winnipeg-based Randolph has published widely and received acclaim for her much celebrated essay “The Amenable Object” (1983) as well as her books The Ethics of Luxury: Materialism and Imagination (2007), and her upcoming publication Shopping Cart Pantheism (2015).

Randolph’s lecture is part of a series of programs related to Plug In ICA’S current exhibit Yesterday Was Once Tomorrow (Or, Brick is A Tool). Her ideas for The Bottom-Feeders began with an epiphany about the cultural underground she had as a young girl while watching the film The Subterraneans at a Texas drive-in in 1960. The film, directed by Jack Smight, is a bohemian love story about the transformative experience of finding one’s self in love and art. This moment confirmed to Randolph that there was such a thing as a cultural underground that was yet not ‘wall-eyed’: “With one eye on what you are doin’ with your comrades and one eye on the mainstream in case the mainstream will make you an offer.”

Randolph explores the ethics and politics of writing about art and artists while using psychoanalytic theory as a medium for cultural criticism. She is also heralded for introducing ficto-criticism as a critique of modern art criticism, and is the first and only writer in Canada to develop Object Relations psychoanalytic theory as a medium for cultural criticism. Randolph’s writing is marked by an innovative approach to her chosen subject; a deeply ethical philosophical meandering that blends cultural theory and art criticism with personal history and a poetics of the imagination.

Plug In ICA gratefully acknowledges the support of the Manitoba Writer’s Guild, for sponsoring this event, as well as donors, members and volunteers.

For general information please contact: info@plugin.org.

For media inquiries please contact: Janique Vigier at janique@plugin.org or by telephone at (204) 942-104 ext 27.