Pati Hertling explores how the twentieth-century notion of the artist salon carries over into international art practice today. Charting different expressions of the salon in Europe and the US, Hertling highlights how these communities cohered against a backdrop of war, censorship, migration, and other significant political and social events. She begins with the Hôtel de Rambouillet, considered to be the first instance of the salon in seventeenth-century France, and follows this line of inquiry through the birth of cabaret, the expatriate circle hosted by Gertrude Stein, and then onto the subsequent rise of salon-style spaces in the US after the Second World War, among other examples.

For the second part, Hertling convenes a panel with Heather Corcoran of Rhizome, Peter Russo of Triple Canopy, and Dena Yago of Are.na to respond to her question about present-day manifestations of the salon. Panelists will explore how artist communities come to be in light of a contemporary culture that is not only shaped by in-person communication but also online connectivity that lends awareness, if not always deep engagement, to art and ideas in different parts of the world. If the salon is an outmoded form of gathering, what social structures have replaced it today? This second session offers some concepts and concerns that may contribute to the creation of such spaces.

Propositions is a public forum that explores ideas in development. Each two-part seminar introduces a topic of current investigation in an invited speaker’s own artistic or intellectual practice. Over the course of a seminar session, these developing ideas are responded to, researched, and discussed to propel them forward in unique ways.

Pati Hertling was born in Berlin, Germany, in 1977. She is an art restitution attorney and independent curator. Since 2005, she has also worked on small, independent curatorial projects. Together with artist Peter Kisur, she started “Evas Arche und der Feminist” in 2005 in Berlin, a monthly series of salon events that presented works by two artists for one night. Since 2007, she has continued “Evas Arche” in New York City—first at Gavin Brown’s project space behind the “Passerby” bar, then upstairs at Gavin Brown’s enterprise on Leroy Street. Participating artists included John Giorno, Susanne Winterling, Leilah Weinraub, Rachel Harrison, Glen Fogel, Bettina Koester, Jonathan Horowitz, and many others. She has also curated numerous exhibitions, including “modern modern” (2009) at Chelsea Art Museum, New York, and “Heart to Hand” (2012) at the Swiss Institute, New York.