Andrea Fraser presents a lecture in conjunction with her essay for X-TRA, “Toward a Reflexive Resistance,” in which she considers the structural positions of the Left and Right in relation to cultural capital and power in the wake of the elections of 2016. The essay discusses how artists and arts institutions both challenge and reinforce established relations of power, and the importance of critical reflexivity in the face of complex forms of domination.

Fraser’s essay is in printed in X-TRA Volume 20 number 2, and is available online here.

Andrea Fraser is an artist and professor of art at the University of California Los Angeles. Her book 2016 in Museums, Money, and Politics, co-published by Westreich Wagner Publications, Wattis Institute of Contemporary Art, and MIT Press, is forthcoming in 20¬18. She is a 2017 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Visual Arts Grand recipient.

This program is part of X-TRA’s Artist Writes series, commissioned essays and lectures by A.L. Steiner, Andrea Fraser, Martine Syms, and Pope.L. Artist Writes is grounded in X-TRA’s mission to provide a platform for artists to define their own terms of engagement and to make meaningful contributions to the fields of criticism and theory.

Support for this series has been generously provided by the Michael Asher Foundation, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Isambard Kingdom Brunel Society of North America, and Pasadena Art Alliance.