Please join guests Jordan Crandall (US), Tina Gonsalves (AU), GH
Hovagimyan (US), Conor McGarrigle (IR), Susana Mendes Silva (PT), and
Michele White (US) as we address
a question posed by the upcoming Documenta 12:

"What is bare life?"
This second question underscores the sheer vulnerability and complete exposure of being. Bare life deals with that part of our existence from which no measure of security will ever protect us. But as in sexuality, absolute exposure is intricately connected with infinite pleasure. There is an apocalyptic and obviously political
dimension to bare life (brought out by torture and the concentration
camp). There is, however, also a lyrical or even ecstatic dimension
to it – a freedom for new and unexpected possibilities (in human
relations as well as in our relationship to nature or, more generally, the world in which we live). Here and there, art dissolves the radical separation between painful subjection and joyous liberation. But what does that mean for its audiences?"