Lapdogs Of The Bourgeoisie Opening Forum

This event has already taken place and ended on 2 May 2009

Lapdogs of the Bourgeoisie present a day-long forum event with performances, talks and screenings by practitioners including Natascha Sadr Haghighian, Tirdad Zolghadr, Marion von Osten and San Keller.

Suhail Malik - “We Gonna Pop Anotha Cap(ital) in Your (Cl)Asses”
10am - 11.30am / Booking Essential.
Reading Group: the crisis as implement of class restructuring.

The current financial crisis has seen dramatic governmental intervention to 'save the banking system' and, with that, restore the credit flows needed to keep businesses going and so save jobs. This session examines what the political effects are of such emergency intervention, especially in the UK-US versions at the core of neoliberalism.

How do the injections of enormous amounts of public money into the banking and credit system redistribute wealth nationally and internationally? Is the crisis really the end of the dominance of neo-liberalism? How are class relations reconstituted by governmental action to immunise the credit system, an action that is declared to be a purely economically driven necessity?

Please download the following texts to read in preparation for the reading group:

Contours of Crisis: Plus ça change, plus c’est pareil? by Shimshon Bichler and Jonathan Nitzan Download pdf here

Interview: David Harvey – Exploring the logic of capital, Interview by Joseph Choonara Download word doc here

The following texts are also provided as background reading:

Too Big to Save: The End of Financial Capitalism by Saskia Sassen. Download. Download pdf here

China’s Dollar Trap by Paul Krugman
Download pdf here

The Cash-for-Trash Economy, Mr. Bernanke Spreads the Fire by Michael Hudson. Download pdf here

Chris Evans - Is My Work Enough?
12pm - 1.30pm / Booking Essential
Individual portfolio critiques for artists. 

Exhibition Introduction
2pm - 3pm
Introductions by the curators, followed by a talk by Wayne Lloyd, artist, giving observations on the Bristol art scene. 

San Keller - Nothing’s Perfect
3pm - 3.45pm
For this performance/exhibition tour, Jonathan Griffin, Assistant Editor of frieze magazine, uses a replica of Christian Dior’s brass-tipped cane to critique works in the exhibition. 

Natascha Sadr Haghighian
4.15pm - 5pm
Solo Show - lecture/performance based on the conditions of labour for artists. 

Daniel Schmid Films
7.30pm – 10pm
A rare screening of films by Daniel Schmid (1941-2006), considered to be one of the most significant auteurs of the European avant-garde. The screening will be introduced by Marion von Osten.

Lapdogs of the Bourgeoisie Film & Events Programme

To accompany the exhibition Lapdogs of the Bourgeoisie there is a series of events, talks, tours and film screenings during May & July.

Each film screening will be preceded by two commissioned trailers: The Freedom of Negative Expression by Chris Evans and Lapdogs by Neil Cummings.