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On 4 June 2019 at 4 pm Ivan Gaskell, Professor of Cultural History and Museum Studies at Bard Graduate Center, New York City, will give an open lecture in Tallinn University (room M-234) titled “The Artist’s Mark”.
Abstract of the lecture:
How can anyone tell whether any given thing is or is not an artwork? Since the early twentieth century, some artists have claimed that art is whatever artists make or designate. This lecture demonstrates that such claims are mistaken. To achieve and sustain the use of any given thing as an artwork, the acquiescence of a viable community of appreciators must complement the authority of the artist. Further, gaining and losing artwork status are not symmetrical operations. It is easier for a thing to become an artwork than it is to lose that status, no matter the use to which it is put.
Anyone using tangible things as historical evidence should take into account not only the use of any given thing at any particular time, but the uses to which it has been put over time. A distinction between being an artwork and functioning by convention as an artwork may seem trivial. On the contrary, to acknowledge this difference diminishes the authority that many artists claim.
About the lecturer:
Ivan Gaskell is Professor of Cultural History and Museum Studies at Bard Graduate Center, New York City. He was educated at Oxford, the Courtauld Institute of Art, and Cambridge, and served at the Warburg Institute, Cambridge University, and Harvard University before moving to Bard Graduate Center in 2012. His transdisciplinary work addresses intersections among history, art history, anthropology, and philosophy. He is the author, co-author, or editor of fourteen books, including Tangible Things: Making History through Objects (2015). He is the co-editor of the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of History and Material Culture, and author of the forthcoming monograph, Paintings and the Past: Philosophy, History, Art (Routledge). Ivan Gaskell has held fellowships at the University of Buenos Aires, the Clark Art Institute (twice), the Center for the Study of World Religions of the Harvard Divinity School, and the Advanced Study Institute of the University of Göttingen, where he was appointed a permanent fellow in 2016.
The lecture is open to everyone.
The event is supported by the (European Union) European Regional Development Fund (Tallinn University’s ASTRA project, TLU TEE – Tallinn University as a promoter of intelligent lifestyle and Estonian Academy of Arts ASTRA project, EKA LOOVKÄRG).