Colby Chamberlain
@colbychamberlain.bsky.social
830 followers 940 following 78 posts
Asst. Professor of Art History, Cleveland Institute of Art | “Fluxus Administration,” UChicago Press, 2024 | Queens native, Cleveland resident | he/him
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colbychamberlain.bsky.social
From MoMA and PS1 to the Cleveland Institute of Art, I keep finding myself at institutions that have benefited not just from Agnes Gund’s philanthropic support but her moral clarity and kindness. Rest in peace.
colbychamberlain.bsky.social
I’m giving a talk at e-flux on Thursday 9/25, 7:30pm, “The Fluxhouse Cooperatives and the Future of the City.” The program will also include a performance of Maciunas’s “Solo for Violin” by Laura Ortman.
www.e-flux.com/events/67832...
George Maciunas: Lecture and Performance - Events - e-flux
An evening dedicated to George Maciunas, featuring a lecture by Colby Chamberlain and a performance by Laura Ortman of work by Maciunas.
www.e-flux.com
Reposted by Colby Chamberlain
thebaffler.com
It’s Labor Day! In Baffler no. 59, Dana Kopel took us inside the fight to unionize at the New Museum, where management skimped on raises but found the money to hire union-busting consultants and lawyers.
thebaffler.com/salvos/again...
Against Artsploitation | Dana Kopel
Somehow, the anti-austerity politics of our work didn’t apply to those of us working at the museum. Behind the New Museum’s veneer of social justice was rampant exploitation.
thebaffler.com
Reposted by Colby Chamberlain
maricohn.bsky.social
Transgender studies professor Dr. Susan Stryker tears Gavin Newsom a new one while accepting the Transgender Legacy Award from the California state legislature 🔥🔥🔥 @susanstryker.bsky.social
colbychamberlain.bsky.social
Apparently Rocky Balboa is once again at the top of the Philadelphia Museum steps. I wrote about the Balboa statue back in 2008 for an early issue of Triple Canopy.
tc3.canopycanopycanopy.com/contents/the...
Triple Canopy – The Balboa Effect by Colby Chamberlain
The Guggenheim Bilbao’s latest installation is a 1,400-pound bronze pun.
tc3.canopycanopycanopy.com
colbychamberlain.bsky.social
Did not expect to learn in the Christophe de Menil obit that Dash Snow and Uma Thurman are related.
colbychamberlain.bsky.social
Ever since I moved out of NYC, I think of the line “I don't want to move to a city where the only cultural advantage is being able to make a right turn on a red light” pretty much every day.
colbychamberlain.bsky.social
Here we discuss #OWS’s impact on our approach to the practice of art history and ask what resources Occupy's unfinished project can offer a moment dominated by the dawn of a second Trump administration.
Page from "Writing Art History After Occupy," October 192 (Spring 2025): 107–30. Page from "Writing Art History After Occupy," October 192 (Spring 2025): 107–30. Page from "Writing Art History After Occupy," October 192 (Spring 2025): 107–30. Page from "Writing Art History After Occupy," October 192 (Spring 2025): 107–30.
colbychamberlain.bsky.social
The three of us were fellows at the Whitney ISP when #OccupyWallStreet broke out, working on manuscripts that have since been published @uchicagopress.bsky.social @uminnpress.bsky.social
Cover of Lindsay Caplan, “Arte Programmata: Freedom, Control, and the Computer in 1960s Italy” (University of Minnesota, 2022 Cover of Nadja Millner-Larsen, “Up Against the Real: Black Mask From Art to Action” (University of Chicago, 2023) Cover of Colby Chamberlain, “Fluxus Administration: George Maciunas and the Art of Paperwork” (University of Chicago, 2024).
colbychamberlain.bsky.social
The best way to think in dark times is to think with others. It has been sustaining to work with Lindsay Caplan and Nadja Millner-Larsen on “Writing Art History After Occupy,” first as a panel and now as a (no-paywall!) article in the journal October.
direct.mit.edu/octo/article...
Writing Art History After Occupy*
Abstract. This conversation explores the impact of Occupy Wall Street on the practice of art history. The authors of three recent books—on the new media art of Arte Programmata, the administrative aut...
direct.mit.edu
colbychamberlain.bsky.social
The next time College Art Association makes a call for conference panels, I’m going to propose a panel on the prevalence of redundant panels. #CAA114
Reposted by Colby Chamberlain
colbychamberlain.bsky.social
There are now three leftist academics with children who have become prominent Democratic politicians— Marxist economist Donald Harris; Gramsci scholar Joseph Buttigieg, and post-colonial theorist Mahmood Mamdani.
Reposted by Colby Chamberlain
burrata.bsky.social
It’s wild how much politicians from Queens have shaped the national political scene in the past ten years. I’d read a take.
colbychamberlain.bsky.social
Greedo ranked Cuomo first.
noahjoad.bsky.social
Somehow Palpatine has endorsed Cuomo.
colbychamberlain.bsky.social
“Where are the greatest museum seats in the world? Thanks for asking. The soft modernist squares in the Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna are hard to beat, as are the Ashmolean’s cosy circular sofas and benches.”
apollo-magazine.com
Whether it’s a plush sofa or a severe slab of wood, the choices museums make about seating can really affect how we see the art on the walls, writes Ben Street
What makes a good museum bench? | Apollo Magazine
Whether it’s a plush sofa or a severe slab of wood, the choices museums make about seating matter more than we think, writes Ben Street
buff.ly
colbychamberlain.bsky.social
The two social groups I frequently see wearing Apple Watches: nurses and grandparents. The former, because they’re constantly on their feet while doing rounds in the hospital; the latter because they’re afraid of falling and not being able to call an ambulance to bring them to the hospital.
Reposted by Colby Chamberlain
laurenoneillbutler.bsky.social
Excited to be in conversation with the great Annie Ochmanek on Saturday, June 21, at 4pm at MoMA PS1.
colbychamberlain.bsky.social
Just saw the obit for Amanda Feilding, whose love of parrots and drilling holes in skulls we covered @cabinetmagazine.bsky.social www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/28/tu...