Limited seating available, arrive early to ensure availability
Since Duchamp, the ‘value’ of art has been constantly questioned. As the
importance of the concept behind a work of art began to eclipse issues of
production and technique, new questions arose concerning the role of the
artist. Most important of these questions was: In what ways was the art world
lacking before Duchamp, and subsequently others, entered the scene? Joseph
Kosuth posed this question and many others in his seminal text Art After
Philosophy (1969). Using Kosuth’s essay as a starting point, this series
of lectures looks at 20 key artists of the twentieth century who contributed to
the revolutions and counter-revolutions that nurtured contemporary art.
The eighth lecture in this series focuses on Joseph Beuys (1921–1986), the
German artist and teacher who turned his life into legend, with actions and
performances How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare (1965) and I
Like America and America Likes Me (1974), where he spent days locked in a
room with a wild coyote. Irina Kulik examines this mythical artist and the
effect he has had on contemporary art.
Irina Kulik is an art critic, culture theorist, lecturer at the Institute of
Contemporary Art and the MKhAT studio school in Moscow, columnist of
Kultura newspaper and author of numerous publications on contemporary
art, music and cinema.
