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A major, two-day international conference reconceptualising modernist artistic practices from a transnational, interdisciplinary perspective.ArgumentThe conference takes as its point of departure the consolidation of a new historiography of artistic modernism written at a global level and characterized by a weakening or even outright rejection of the demarcations that traditionally served to separate Western artistic practice from &#8216;the rest&#8217;. Influential recent studies and exhibitions have argued for the categories of cosmopolitan, rather than national, modernisms; global rather than Anglo-American conceptualism; a diasporic rather than continental Afro-modernism. These developments go beyond a tokenistic inclusion of artistic practices from formerly economically peripheral and semi-peripheral nations into the mainstream canon; they do not simply expand the group of nations understood to be &#8216;core&#8217; to the development of modernism in line with changing geopolitical realities and the waning of Western hegemony. Rather, they challenge the imagined community of the nation or region as the basic unit of artistic territorialisation, focusing instead on diverse, networked artistic communities that are understood to cohere at a transnational and/or transregional level, often with particular global cities as their enabling nodes.  As postmodernism has taken its place in history so we are obliged to rearticulate the notion of the &#8216;contemporary&#8217; once again. This conference explores the ways in which doing so requires us to revisit the putative supersession of modernism, examining what types of relations may be found between modernist and contemporary transnational artistic practices Does the development of a transnational history of artistic modernism reflect the ascendancy of a genuinely postcolonial disciplinary moment, one that surrenders the idea of Western exceptionalism? Is there a risk that we are witnessing a reorientation of scholarly priorities in step with the type of selective &#8216;denationalization&#8217; pursued by global capital, one that preserves deep, if no longer uniform, structural inequities between the global North and South, West and East, while continuing to rely on the power of particular nation states as its guarantor? In the name of what present, then, is the past to be reimagined?The conference develops a critical perspective on the proliferating discourses of the transnational, considering how they have reshaped the study of modern and contemporary art and the links that are articulated between them. It focuses on scholarship which foregrounds the methodological implications, as well as the historical unfolding, of transnational developments in and between artistic and curatorial practice.Participants: Kate Bush (Barbican), TJ Demos (UCL), Elvira Dyangani Ose (Tate Modern), Hiroko Ikegami (Kobe), Shanay Jhaveri (RCA), Shruti Kapila (Cambridge), Vasif Kortun (SALT, Istanbul), Christian Kravagna (Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna), Kobena Mercer (Yale), Partha Mitter (Sussex), Maureen Murphy (La Sorbonne), Zahia Rahmani (INHA, Paris), Julian Stallabrass (Courtauld Institute of Art), Stephanie Schwartz (UCL) and Terry Smith (Pittsburgh)The conference is organized by Devika Singh and&#160;Luke Skrebowski (University of Cambridge).It has received support from: the Japan Foundation; the Terra Foundation for American Art; the Institut Francais and the Austrian Cultural Forum; in addition to that of the Centre for Research in the Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH), the Department of History of Art, Churchill College and Kettle's Yard (University of Cambridge).ProgrammeMonday&#160;23th September&#160;10.00Registration and Coffee&#160;Welcome and IntroductionLuke Skrebowski&#160;and&#160;Devika Singh&#160;(University of Cambridge)&#160;PANEL 1: TRANSNATIONAL MODERNISMSMaureen Murphy&#160;(Paris I &#8211; La Sorbonne):&#160;The "Modern" or the Missing Chapter in the History of Contemporary African ArtShruti Kapila&#160;(University of Cambridge):&#160;Husain's Walk Out of the NationHiroko Ikegami&#160;(Kobe University):&#160;Goodbye Marilyn, Goodbye Elvis: Tanaami Keiichi&#8217;s Response to America&#160;Chair: Karolina Watras&#160;KEYNOTE 1Partha Mitter&#160;(University of Sussex):&#160;Why Do We Need to Reimagine Modernism?&#160;13.00 - 14.00Lunch&#160;&#160;PANEL 2: SPECTRES OF COLONIALISMStephanie Schwartz&#160;(UCL):&#160;After Revolution: Art and HomageChristian Kravagna&#160;(University of Vienna):&#160;Purity of Art in Times of Transculturality: Modernist Art Theory and the Culture of MigrationTJ Demos&#160;(UCL, London):&#160;Transnationality in Contemporary Art and EcologyChair: Khadija von Zinnenburg Carroll&#160;Tea&#160;&#160;FILM PROGRAMMECurated by&#160;Shanay Jhaveri&#160;(RCA, London)&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;Les Visites de Rabindranath Tagore chez Albert Kahn, Paris (1927)Charles and Ray Eames - House&#160;(1955)Pere Portabella - Mudanza&#160;(2008)Sedat Pakay - James Baldwin: From Another Place (1973)The Otolith Group - People to be Resembling&#160;(2012)18.00Drinks reception at Kettle's Yard hosted by&#160;Andrew Nairne&#160;Tuesday&#160;24th September&#160;&#160;PANEL 3: COSMO-CONTEMPORANEITYZahia Rahmani&#160;(INHA, Paris):&#160;The Positive Effect of the Anthropological Turn in Contemporary ArtJulian Stallabrass&#160;(The Courtauld Institute of Art, London):Populism, Elite Art and the TransnationalKobena Mercer&#160;(Yale University):&#160;Interruption and ConjunctureChair: Alyce Mahon&#160;Coffee&#160;CURATING PANEL/ROUNDTABLE: CURATING IN THE GLOBAL FIELDChaired by&#160;Andrew Nairne&#160;(Kettle's Yard)Participants:Elvira Dyangani Ose&#160;(Tate Modern)Kate Bush&#160;(Barbican Art Gallery)Vasif Kortun&#160;(SALT, Istanbul)&#160;&#160;KEYNOTE 2Terry Smith&#160;(University of Pittsburgh):&#160;Thinking Contemporary Art, World Historically13.15Close&#160;