Patricia Reed ~ Nontrivial Art: Transformative Instrumentalism - Part Two
This talk takes up the discrepancy between what C0ntemporary Art (CA) says it does (its idealisms) and what CA does in reality - shifting the focus to what Art ought to do in terms of demands and functions. Taking up the rather Promethean appeals for 'transformation' asserted by Walter Benjamin, yet adapted to our contemporary historical condition (qualified by planetary complexity and what A.F. Schmid calls ‘Integrative Objects’), the talk looks at how art could be affirmatively instrumentalized as a positive 'freedom-to' if it is to participate in a project of post-catastrophic world-making.