Press release :

On 9 June, philosopher Peter Osborne will give a talk as part of the seminar « What is to be done with the contemporary ? » organised by di volta in volta.

Peter Osborne is one of the leading thinkers in the philosophy of art, critical theory and contemporary history. His work has profoundly shaped debates on the politics of conceptual and post-conceptual art, contemporaneity, historical times, and the conditions of critique.

On 10 June, it will be followed by a roundtable discussion with François-Xavier Hutteau (Ph.D. student in economics) and Hugo Souza de Cursi (Ph.D. in History), organised by Sophia Djitli (writer, curator) in partnership with the group Lignes Anti-Impérialistes.

Lignes Anti-Impérialistes is a collective dedicated to political intervention and popular education, organised around a monthly reading group in Paris and Marseille. It is engaged in a process of self-education aimed at collectively developing analytical tools within the present conjuncture by re-engaging with the fields of political economy and Marxist theories of imperialism.

Tuesday 9 June 2026, 7 pm
Talk by Peter Osborne

Wednesday 10 June 2026, 7 pm
Panel by Sophia Djitli with François-Xavier Hutteau and Hugo Souza de Cursi, in partnership with Lignes Anti-Impérialistes

The seminar will be held in English, and French. It will take place in several sessions throughout the year, to be announced. It is open to everyone, subject to availability.

For any inquiry, please contact : info@divoltainvolta.com

Abstract :

This seminar invites participants to examine the construction and function of the concept of the “contemporary” developed by Peter Osborne since the late 2000s in order to think the relation between art and the present within the framework of globalisation. It proposes to bring this approach into dialogue with theories of imperialism, which have re-emerged in debates surrounding war and geopolitical tensions, providing tools for analysing the political economy of international relations.

Peter Osborne’s contribution to historical and philosophical debates surrounding the cultural production and reception of contemporary art has been particularly influential within the field of post-Marxist critical theory. His three most recent books, Anywhere, or Not at All (Verso, 2013), The Postconceptual Condition (Verso, 2018), and Crisis as Form (Verso, 2022), provide numerous analytical tools for approaching developments and contradictions immanent to artistic practices and their institutional recognition under conditions marked by the increasing transnationalisation of capital, the erosion of nation-state borders, and the multiplication of the crises of globalisation.

Whilst Peter Osborne defined the “global contemporary” as the fiction of the disjunctive unity of a multiplicity of temporalities projected onto a single matrix across the planet, through the institution of a globally transnational capitalism after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, it now appears necessary to interrogate this theoretical and historical construction in light of debates prompted by the intensification of conflicts across the world and the crisis of American hegemony — particularly as it is challenged by the rival power of China and gives rise to increasingly aggressive forms of imperialism.

In recent years, we have indeed witnessed a renewed interest in theories of imperialism, through analytical frameworks notably reintroduced into French-speaking intellectual and activist fields by the work of Benjamin Bürbaumer, a specialist in international political economy. In particular, they shed light on the relation between capitalist accumulation and international conflicts by showing how governments may attempt to overcome domestic contradictions by projecting them onto the world stage through coercive actions.

The aim of this seminar is to bring these two perspectives into dialogue in order to question the capacity of the concept of the contemporary to situate us reflexively within the present, and to analyse the transformations and possible forms of politicisation of artistic production in the current context of the fragmentation of the world market, war, the arms race, and inter-state rivalries.