Autonomy – 31 AUG 2019
The discussion focuses on Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Judgement and Herbert Marcuse’s Critique of Marxist Aesthetics. Here, the discussion interrogates the Enlightenment concept of “aesthetic autonomy” and nuance the reasons (or non-reasons) why it ought to be defended or not to be defended. Issues concerning art and design, propaganda art, and the connection (or disconnect) between art and politics are relevant here.
Space – 28 SEPT 2019
The discussion focuses on space as a social construction and how such space shapes the practice and reception of art. Institutional critique, relations between art practice, urban design, and architecture, street art, tensions between urban and regional art, social control, surveillance, and resistance, are topics of concern here. The discussion introduces select thoughts from Michel Foucault, Henri Lefebvre, and Michel de Certeau.
Community – 05 DEC 2019
This discussion uses the “culture wars” in the mid-80s and 90s as backdrops. It entertains and nuances the relationship between artists and the community using select passages from the texts of Nicolas Bourriaud, Claire Bishop, and Grant Kester. Topics of concern that are relevant to the discussion are “aesthetic autonomy,” artistic agency and efficacy, regional art, and the role of dialogue in socially-engaged art practice.
