Evaluating Remote Art

Event Details

Date:

Monday, 05 December 2022 - Monday, 05 December 2022

Time:

All Day

Room:

The Writers Studio - Level 6

UQ Location:

Michie Building (St Lucia)

URL:

Event category(s):

Full Description:: Over the last several years, curators and critics have been scrambling to keep up with shifting cultural norms and values vis-à-vis the aesthetics, ethics, and politics of art. Even artworks that were once regarded as innocuous – indeed, sometimes canonical – are now potential flashpoints if they are too far out of step with contemporary mores. This raises important theoretical and practical questions: The practical questions center on what the responses of curators and critics should be. Should they follow the public in engaging in a wide reappraisal of the aesthetic, ethical, and political value (or disvalue) of the works? Should decisions about what art to exhibit be made on the basis of how closely it meshes with contemporary norms? The theoretical questions underlie the practical ones: What would be the conceptual or normative basis for such decisions on the part of curators and critics? How should we evaluate the value (aesthetic, ethical, political) of art that is temporally or culturally distant from us? On what grounds? This symposium approaches these questions by opening a dialogue between art history, curatorship and philosophical aesthetics.

Morning tea, lunch, and afternoon tea will be provided.