About Pierre d'Alancaisez

Pierre d’Alancaisez is a PhD researcher at Birmingham City University, where he is investigating the impact claims of social and political art in the context of artists' access to non-arts knowledge and skills. Pierre founded and directed Waterside Contemporary in London, a gallery that pioneered social practice and art activism approaches in the art market. He held senior positions in publishing and financial services and designed cultural engagement strategies for higher education and the charity sector.

Pierre d’Alancaisez is a contemporary art curator, cultural strategist, researcher. Sometime scientist, financial services professional.

Pierre's website

NBN Episodes hosted by Pierre:

Robert R. Janes, "Museums and Societal Collapse: The Museum as Lifeboat" (Routledge, 2023)

January 2, 2024

Museums and Societal Collapse

Robert R. Janes

Who do you turn to at the brink of the apocalypse? What might help us to mitigate the financial, commercial, political, social, and cultural collapse …

Vid Simoniti, "Artists Remake the World: A Contemporary Art Manifesto" (Yale UP, 2023)

November 29, 2023

Artists Remake the World

Vid Simoniti

Artists Remake the World: A Contemporary Art Manifesto (Yale UP, 2023) puts forward an account of contemporary art’s political ambitions and potential…

Benjamin Studebaker, "The Chronic Crisis of American Democracy: The Way Is Shut" (Palgrave MacMillan, 2023)

July 28, 2023

The Chronic Crisis of American Democracy

Benjamin Studebaker
Listen:

Today I talked to Benjamin Studebaker about his new book The Chronic Crisis of American Democracy: The Way Is Shut (Palgrave MacMillan, 2023) America…

Adrian Rifkin, "Future Imperfect: The Past Between My Fingers..." (2021)

July 2, 2023

Future Imperfect

Adrian Rifkin
Listen:

Then let the story really begin in 1968, though it has little to do with May. By chance it opens in January of that year, and it really concerns me ra…

Samuel J. Redman, "The Museum: A Short History of Crisis and Resilience" (NYU Press, 2022)

June 13, 2023

The Museum

Samuel J. Redman
Listen:

On an afternoon in January 1865, a roaring fire swept through the Smithsonian Institution. Dazed soldiers and worried citizens could only watch as the…

Sharon Hecker and Raffaele Bedarida, "Curating Fascism: Exhibitions and Memory from the Fall of Mussolini to Today" (Bloomsbury, 2022)

May 13, 2023

Curating Fascism

Sharon Hecker and Raffaele Bedarida

On the centenary of the fascist party's ascent to power in Italy, Curating Fascism: Exhibitions and Memory from the Fall of Mussolini to Today (Blooms…

Craig Leonard, "Uncommon Sense: Aesthetics after Marcuse" (MIT Press, 2022)

April 29, 2023

Uncommon Sense

Craig Leonard

In Uncommon Sense: Aesthetics after Marcuse (MIT Press, 2022), Craig Leonard argues for the contemporary relevance of the aesthetic theory of Herbert …

Rhea Myers, "Proof of Work: Blockchain Provocations 2011-2021" (MIT Press, 2023)

April 3, 2023

Proof of Work

Rhea Myers

Listen on Apple | Listen on Spotify NFT, BTC, DAO, ETH, WAGMI, HODL. It would have been hard to avoid these acronyms only a year ago. The hype around…

David Houston Jones, "Visual Culture and the Forensic: Culture, Memory, Ethics" (Routledge, 2022)

March 22, 2023

Visual Culture and the Forensic

David Houston Jones

The relationship between images and truth has a complicated history. In the Western tradition, the Kantian settlement on aesthetic judgment as detache…

Toby Green and Thomas Fazi, "The Covid Consensus: The Global Assault on Democracy and the Poor—A Critique from the Left" (Hurst, 2023)

March 12, 2023

The Covid Consensus

Toby Green and Thomas Fazi

During the first months of the pandemic, governments worldwide agreed that ‘following the science’ with hard lockdowns and vaccine mandates was the be…

Leila Jancovich and David Stevenson, "Failures in Cultural Participation" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022)

February 20, 2023

Failures in Cultural Participation

Leila Jancovich and David Stevenson

For the past two decades, the arts and cultural establishment in the UK has been trying to engage a broader set of audiences in their work. Countless …

Kaelen Wilson-Goldie, "Beautiful, Gruesome, and True: Artists at Work in the Face of War" (Columbia Global Reports, 2022)

February 3, 2023

Beautiful, Gruesome, and True

Kaelen Wilson-Goldie

Art has a long history of engaging with conflict and violence. From the antiquities, through Goya, to Guernica, our museums are filled with depictions…

Aaron Moulton, "The Influencing Machine" (Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art, 2022)

December 31, 2022

The Influencing Machine

Aaron Moulton

In the 1990s, a network of twenty Soros Centres for Contemporary Art sprung up across Eastern Europe: Almaty, Belgrade, Budapest, Kiev, Ljubljana, Pra…

Geert Lovink, "Sad by Design: On Platform Nihilism" (Pluto Press, 2019)

December 22, 2022

Sad by Design

Geert Lovink

Why is the internet making us so unhappy? Why is it in capital’s interests to cultivate populations that are depressed and desperate rather than drive…

Peter Rehberg, "Hipster Porn: Queer Masculinities and Affective Sexualities in the Fanzine 'Butt'" (Routledge, 2022)

November 4, 2022

Hipster Porn:

Peter Rehberg

It’s easy to forget that the cultural archetypes that pass for queerness today have historical roots. Some of these roots are mere years away from tod…

Gregory Sholette, "The Art of Activism and the Activism of Art" (Lund Humphries, 2021)

September 27, 2022

The Art of Activism and the Activism of Art

Gregory Sholette

Since the global financial crash of 2008, artists have become increasingly engaged in a wide range of cultural activism targeted against capitalism, p…

Olúfemi Táíwò, "Against Decolonization: Taking African Agency Seriously" (Hurst, 2022)

September 22, 2022

Against Decolonization

Olúfemi Táíwò

Decolonisation has lost its way. Originally a struggle to escape the West’s direct political and economic control, it has become a catch-all idea, oft…

Nicholas Gamso, "Art After Liberalism" (Columbia UP, 2022)

September 12, 2022

Art After Liberalism

Nicholas Gamso

Art After Liberalism (Columbia UP, 2022) is an account of creative practice at a moment of converging political and social rifts – a moment that could…

Anthony Downey, "Critique in Practice: Renzo Martens' Episode III (Enjoy Poverty)" (Sternberg Press, 2020)

September 1, 2022

Critique in Practice

Anthony Downey

In 2008, the artist Renzo Martens released his controversial film Episode 3: Enjoy Poverty filmed in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The film portra…

Karen Archey, "After Institutions" (Les presses du réel, 2022)

August 22, 2022

After Institutions

Karen Archey

Faced with waning state support, declining revenue, and forced entrepreneurialism, museums have become a threatened public space. Simultaneously, they…

Heide Hinrichs and Jo-Ey Tang, "Shelf Documents: Art Library as Practice" (Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, 2021)

August 5, 2022

Shelf Documents

Heide Hinrichs and Jo-Ey Tang

How can a library change the world? How can an art library change the art school or the gallery? Or even an art practice? In Shelf Documents: Art Libr…

Mattin, "Social Dissonance" (MIT Press, 2022)

July 5, 2022

Social Dissonance

Mattin

We are not what we think we are. Our self-image as natural individuated subjects is determined behind our backs: historically by political forces, cog…

Kuba Szreder, "The ABC of the Projectariat: Living and Working in a Precarious Art World" (Manchester UP, 2021)

July 1, 2022

The ABC of the Projectariat

Kuba Szreder

Labour has taken an about-turn. From Adam Smith’s proposal for specialisation which saw the factory line reorganised so that each worker needed to und…

Joshua Citarella, "Politigram and the Post-Left" (Blurb, 2021)

June 7, 2022

Politigram and the Post-Left

Joshua Citarella

The internet’s potential to perform political miracles has been a source of both hope and disappointment for many grassroots movements. We remember th…