The collection of essays Brian O'Doherty/Patrick Ireland—Word, Image and Institutional Critique investigates Brian O’Doherty’s seminal work: his visual art practice, art criticism, institutional leadership and critique, media work, and literary writing. The authors provide fresh perspectives on an oeuvre that has greatly contributed to the arts in many ways.
O’Doherty’s role in and for conceptual art and minimalism in New York through, among others, publication of a box-shaped journal, Aspen 5+6 (1967) is as much a theme as his seminal critique of the Modernist white cube gallery (Inside the White Cube, 1976), his art-historical ventures, and Irish origins. O’Doherty’s key role in creating funding mechanisms for conceptual and live art in the US (as a Program Director of the National Endowment for the Arts) is featured, together with his differentiation and calling into question of many categories, such as landscape, drawing, the senses, and word and image relations.
He anticipated many now current concerns, especially art writing and artistic research. This new appreciation of his work is achieved through the diversity of historical and theoretical responses that characterizes this anthology. The focus, however, lies on his mode of thinking, which embraces the paradox. It can be recognized in the single-minded pursuit of his art practice and his other monumental contributions to twentieth-century culture, i.e. between institution and institutional critique, both inside and outside the white cube, and in word and image. He sits in the most fruitful place: between all the stools – and he has thought through what it may mean when those working in and with art find themselves there.
Practical informationi
- What: Book Launch and Lecture
- With: Christa-Maria Lerm Hayes
- When: 26 January 2018, 14:30–16:00
- Where: S.M.A.K., Jan Hoetplein 1, 9000 Gent (BE)
- Language: English
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