"Aesthetics and Contemporary Art," Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy (CRMEP), Middlesex University, March 13-14, 2008.

An international interdisciplinary conference organized by the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy (CRMEP), Middlesex University, London in collaboration with the Collaborative Research Centre ‘Aesthetic Experience and the Dissolution of Artistic Limits’ (CRC 626), Free University Berlin, and supported by the British Academy. Advance Registration only:

• Two day registration: £48 waged, £25 students (£15 CRMEP students) - includes refreshments, lunches andreception.
• One day registration (subject to availability): £30 waged, £15 students (£10 CRMEP students).

Torn between a revival of the discourse of aesthetics and the persistence of conceptualism, critical writing about contemporary art has once again come to focus on differing views of its aesthetic dimension. The context and character of these debates has, however, shifted markedly from the 1960s, with changes in art practices, institutions, political contexts, and theoretical paradigms – and in particular, with the global extension of the Western artworld since 1989. This conference will reconsider the place of the aesthetic in contemporary art, in the broadest of ways, with reference to the topics of four plenary panels:

• Sensate Thinking: Aesthetics, Art, Ontology
• The Dissolution of Artistic Limits: Objects, Events, Ideas
• Aesthetics of Post-Autonomy: Institution, Collaboration, Participation
• Exhibition-Value: Aesthetics of Curation in a Global Artworld

Keynotes:

• Luis Camnitzer, artist and writer; Professor Emeritus of Art, State University of New York, Old Westbury; author of Conceptualism in Latin American Art (University of Texas Press, 2007).
• Art & Language (Michael Baldwin, Mel Ramsden and Charles Harrison), group of artists and writers, since 1968; see, for example, Art & Language in Practice, Vol.1. (Illustrated Handbook, Fundació Antoni Tàpies, 1999).

Plenary Panel Speakers: International:

• Dr Sebastian Egenhofer – Laurenz (Assistant) Professor for Contemporary Art, University of Basel
• Charles Esche, Director of the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven; Senior Research Fellow, Central St Martins College of Art and Design, University of the Arts, London; co-editor of Afterall; co-curator, 9th Istanbul Biennale, 2005
• Brian Holmes – writer and art critic (Paris); author of Hieroglyphs of the Future: Art and Politics in a Networked Era (Zagreb, 2002)
• Dr Pamela Lee – Associate Professor, Department of Art and Art History, Stanford University; author of Object to be Destroyed: the Work of Gordon Matta-Clark (MIT Press, 2000) and Chronophobia: On Time in the Art of the 1960s (MIT Press, 2004)

CRC 626, Free University Berlin:

• Dr Susanne Leeb – Research Associate Project A7, Sub-project: Cartographic Models in Contemporary Art
• Prof. Christoph Menke – Head of Project C1 / Institute for Philosophy, University of Potsdam; author of The Sovereignty of Art: Aesthetic Negativity in Adorno and Derrida (MIT Press, 1998)
• Dr Juliane Rebentisch – Research Associate C1, Sub-project: Democracy and Theatre / Institute for Philosophy, University of Potsdam; author of Aesthetik der Installation (Suhrkamp, 2003)
• Dr Dorethea Von Hantelmann – Research Associate Project A7, Sub-project: Exemplary Experiences: Relations Between Work and Situation in Contemporary Art

CRMEP, London:

• Prof. Eric Alliez –Project: Undoing the Image
• Dr Stewart Martin – Project: Absolute art
• Prof. Peter Osborne –Director, CRMEP; Project: Art Against Aesthetics

CRMEP/CRC 626 liaison:

• Dr Armen Avanessian, Postdoctoral Fellow, CRC 626
• Luke Skrebowski, PhD candidate, CRMEP

For registration contact: Ray Brassier r.brassier@mdx.ac.uk

Further information is available at: http://www.mdx.ac.uk/www/crmep/EVENTS/AestheticsandContemporaryArt.htm.