Critic Claire Bishop, known for extensive writing on contemporary art and social engagement, will speak at the Walker on Thursday, October 30 at 7 pm. The first in a fall series of Mack Lectures, Bishop’s talk will focus on the complex ethics of performance and representation in contemporary art, drawing on recent works in which artists such as Artur Zmijewski, Jeremy Deller, and Phil Collins employ others in a piece and examining issues of authorship and authenticity that arise in these situations.
Newly appointed as a professor in the History of Art Department at the CUNY Graduate Center in New York, Bishop’s work has centered on a critical examination of how aesthetics and participation are evaluated in work termed “relational.” Her oft-cited article “Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics” appeared in the journal October in 2004 (available here) and prompted a lively exchange in the journal’s “letter and responses” page, as her 2006 essay “The Social Turn: Collaboration and its Discontents” did for the letters to the editor section of Artforum. She is also the author of the book Installation Art: A Critical History (Tate Publishing, 2005), and the edited anthology Documents of Contemporary Art: Participation (Whitechapel/MIT Press, 2006).
The talk is free; pick up tickets at the Bazinet Garden Lobby desk starting at 6 pm on the night of the event.
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