Sackler Lecture Series

The 2018 Sackler Lecture Series marks the 50th anniversary of 1968, a seismic year of social and political upheaval. If in Western Europe and North America, 1968 tends to be treated as synonymous with the events of May in Paris and their powerful ripple effect, this series acknowledges the diversity of experiences and artistic practices around the world that same year. In Argentina, a vanguard of artists collaborated with trade unions to put political intervention at the heart of their aesthetic programme, culminating in a landmark exhibition of solidarity with the rural poor of Tucumán. In the Eastern Bloc, all eyes were on the stunning reforms underway as part of the so-called Prague Spring. Briefly promising to deliver ‘socialism with a human face’, these were crushed by the Warsaw Pact invasion of 21 August. Our speakers – Pierre Buraglio, David Crowley, Darby English, Briony Fer, Joan Kee and Ana Longoni – will open up the art historical arena of ‘1968’ from an array of cultural, formal and geographical perspectives.