John Paul Ricco’s talk: “The Commerce of Anonymity”

20 Nov 2015 - 17:00 / 20 Nov 2015 - 19:00

The Comparative Literature Course Union presents the Fall edition of the Emerging Research in Comparative Literature Series:

A talk by John Paul Ricco
Associate Professor of Comparative Literature,
Art History & Visual Culture University of Toronto

Friday, Nov 20th 2015, 5pm – 6.30pm Victoria College, VC101, University of Toronto

Centered around The Andrew Project (2010-13), by artist Shaan Syed, this paper is an extended theoretical meditation on the politics and ethics of the name, drawing, the portrait, anonymity, the signature, loss and its impossible commemoration. Poster-sized reproductions of a line drawing of a young man’s face are wheat-pasted on the streets of London, Toronto and Berlin, and provoke consideration of the aesthetics of social anonymity and the figure of the passerby and the stranger in cities today. From the affirmation of the portrait as the face of effacement and erasure, emerge scenes of sociality that are ethical to the extent that they do not rely upon or demand identification, and thereby remain open to the risk, surprise and pleasure of shared existence, as that which happens in passing. An intimacy that remains un-nameable in the “commerce” of our everyday lives.