An event within the Intellectual Publics series, convened by Ken Wissoker
October 20, 2017 6:30 pmWilliam P. Kelly Skylight Room (9100)
The Graduate Center, CUNY
365 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10016
Free and open to the public
The conceptual art movement of the 1960s and 1970s continues to exert a strong influence on contemporary art the world over. Art historians Terry Smith and Robert Bailey and artist Mary Kelly, themselves either participants in the movement or scholars now revisiting it, discuss conceptual art’s turn to language within a visual arts context, how conceptual art’s embrace of written and spoken discourse gave art new intellectual powers, and the political, psychological, and philosophical consequences that issue from these transformations. Individually, their work explores conceptual art’s entanglements at a variety of scales, ranging from the enormity of global historical processes to the intimacy of intersubjective encounters. Committed to the ongoing importance of conceptual art’s rigorously thoughtful manner, Smith, Kelly, and Bailey argue for a multifaceted account of its enduring relevance in a world where critically sophisticated and intellectually pointed art remains as necessary — and as consequential — as ever.
