Thijs Lijster: The Crisis of Criticism and Towards an “Espacement” of Criticism
World of Art | School for Curatorial Practices and Critical Writing | Year 15
Together with The Igor Zabel Association for Culture and Theory we cordially invite you to the presentation of the analysis Where Has Art Criticism Gone? by Maja Breznik. The presentation and the analysis are part of the programme How Critical Is the Condition of Critical Writing?.
Thijs Lijster: The Crisis of Criticism
Tuesday, 29 March 2016, 2.40–4.20 p.m., Faculty of Arts (room 343), Aškerčeva 2, Ljubljana
What is the “crisis of criticism”, which has been the subject of so many debates during the past decade, and what are its origins? Can we even speak of a crisis, if criticism is virtually omnipresent? This lecture will begin with a brief historical overview of art criticism, followed by discussions on the function of the critic (e. g. interpretation, judgment, connecting the work to the socio-historical context), the use and misuse of criticism, and ways out of the crisis. I will argue that the critic has still an important role to play in the democratic public sphere.
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Thijs Lijster: Towards an “Espacement” of Criticism
Wednesday, 30 March 2016, 6 p.m., Project Room, SCCA–Ljubljana, Metelkova 6, Ljubljana
In this lecture I will relate contemporary developments in art criticism to the “time-space compression” that characterizes modernity. The shift from modern to contemporary art in the 1980s comes with both a de-historicization and de-territorialisation of criticism. Although I consider this development critically, I argue that new theoretical sources might generate a discourse that allows us to step out of the expert field of traditional criticism, thus creating a new space for criticism.
Thijs Lijster is assistant professor of philosophy of art and culture at the University of Groningen. He studied in Groningen and New York, and in 2012 received his PhD for his dissertation on Benjamin’s and Adorno’s concepts of art criticism. In 2010 Lijster won the Dutch/Flemish Prize for Young Art Criticism, and in 2015 the NWO/Boekman dissertation award. He has contributed to books such as Conceptions of Critique in Modern and Contemporary Philosophy (2012), Institutional Attitudes (2012), and No Culture, No Europe (2015), and coedited Spaces for Criticism. Shifts in Contemporary Art Discourses (2015). (Photo: Marc Schoeters)
Photo of lectures: SCCA-Ljubljana archive
This programme is being part of the World of Art, School for Curators and Critics of Contemporary Art; and prepared by SCCA–Ljubljana & the Igor Zabel Association for Culture and Theory.
Lectures and workshops will be partly in English and partly in Slovenian.
Partner: Department of Art History, Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana.
Supported by: City of Ljubljana – Department for Culture, ERSTE Foundation, and Goethe-Institut Ljubljana.
