Co-presented with Gertrude Contemporary

In 1980, Roland Barthes died and one of his most championed books, Camera Lucida, was published. At the time, the New York Times wrote that Camera Lucida was “more intimate than theoretical. Barthes bites into photography like Proust into a madeleine and what results is an intricate, quirky and ultimately frustrating meditation linking photography to death.”

Barthes’ reach went further, of course, than photography, and as a literary theorist, philosopher, linguist, critic, and semiotician his influence has been felt by generations.

This year, 100 years since Barthes’ birth, CCP invites you to join together for two evenings in recognition of his legacy.

Roland Barthes Reading Group with Giles Feilkes

Dust off your copy of Camera Lucida and come to CCP for an evening of led discussion around this familiar and enduring text.

Giles Fielke is a PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne, working on a counter-modern history for the organisation of images, demonstrated by separate artwork-projects of the filmmakers Hollis Frampton and Harun Farocki. He has written for Discipline, Meanjin, Higher Arc and is also a founding member of the Artist Film Workshop, located in Swanston St, Melbourne.

Panel discussion; The Judgement of Paris: Melbourne’s love affair with French theory, on the occasion of Roland Barthes 100th birthday

Three engaged thinkers, Kevin Murray, Ann Debono and Bryan Cooke, have agreed to share their thoughts on three different aspects of French theory, with an overarching nod to Roland Barthes.

Kevin Murray will link back to the 1980s, specifically the Judgement of Paris series at Gertrude contemporary and the local relevance of French Theory for Melbourne artists and commentators.

Ann Debono will address the way that Barthes, Derrida and Baudrillard all suggest a suspicion of images as ideological programming devices, and Bryan Cooke will look from Barthes to Ranciere.