About Academia is the latest project by renowned international artist Antoni Muntadas, who is the subject of a major retrospective this fall at the Museo Nacional Reina Sofia, Madrid. About Academia is an inquiry into the problematic relations between the production of knowledge and economic power in our universities. Over the course of three years, Muntadas and his team of collaborators researched the history of “academia” as an institution in the Western world, from its beginnings to the present challenges, and then proceeded to interview faculty members at Harvard and other U.S. research universities, including Noam Chomsky, Carol Becker, Howard Zinn, Bradley Epps, Mark Wigley, Thomas Cummins, Doris Sommer, John Coatsworth and David Harvey, among others.
About Academia premiered at the Carpenter Center for Visual Arts at Harvard University. The exhibition is co-sponsored by the Carpenter Center and the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University, and Arizona State University Art Museum. The ASU Art Museum’s presentation is curated by Gordon Knox, director, and was made possible by the Evelyn Smith Exhibition Fund; Twin Palms Hotel, Tempe; and the Friends of the ASU Art Museum.
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