James Gallery
Facing Fifth Avenue on the main floor of the building, the James Gallery is a focal point of the Graduate Center's campus and a conspicuous presence amidst its surrounding commercial storefronts.
After History: Alexandre Kojève as a Photographer
On view April 10-June 1, 2013
Schematic itinerary made by Alexandre Kojève depicting his travels through the Netherlands in 1946. Courtesy Bibliothèque nationale de France. © Nina Kousnetzoff.
The experimental exhibition “After History: Alexandre Kojève as a Photographer” presents the photographs, collected postcards, and hand-drawn itineraries of the French-Russian philosopher Alexandre Kojève (1902-1968) to compose a visual exposition of his philosophy. Kojève’s lectures on Hegel in Paris before World War II deeply influenced critical thinkers of the post-World War II generation, and among his students were Jacques Lacan and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. He expressed in his writings on posthistory that a commitment to certain aesthetic attitudes has replaced the more traditional “historic” commitment to the truth. Guest curator Boris Groys asserts that discourses of biopolitics put forward by Michel Foucault, Giorgio Agamben, and Gilles Deleuze are indebted to Kojève’s work. The project presents the philosopher’s world view in the tumultuous postwar era as colonial history was being played out between the West and the so-called “Third World.” The James Gallery is the only US venue for the exhibition made in collaboration with BAK Utrecht, the Netherlands.