A free, public symposium on philosophy, art theory, and artistic practice focusing on the connection between autonomy and non-autonomy in contemporary art.

While art’s autonomy implies resistance against both censorship and the culture industry, non-autonomy means the ability to refer to reality not just to reproduce it but to critically question it. How relevant are these reflections for contemporary art? Does a debate on autonomy reiterate a modernist hierarchy? Or is it still a valid model and a viable strategy of critique? The debate about and against the autonomy of art has special relevance today, as the art world interrogates its role and responsibility within the political climate of the present moment.

Program

12:00-12:30 pm Introduction: Diego Malquori and Raffaele Bedarida.

12:30-1:15 pm Lecture: Leslie Hewitt, "Untitled (Structures)."

1:15-2:00 pm Lecture: Giuseppe Di Giacomo, "Autonomy and Non-Autonomy in Adorno’s Aesthetic Reflections"

break

4:00-4:30 pm Guided tour of the exhibition, We Dissent... Design of the Women's Movement in New York, at 41 Cooper Gallery, led by curators Stéphanie Jeanjean and Alexander Tochilovsky.

4:30-6:30 pm Roundtable involving Cooper students, faculty, and the panelists.

6:30-7:30 pm Screening and discussion: Lucy Raven, Subterrestrial Cinema (2017, Lucy Raven).