Institute of Advanced Studies

Seeking the contemporary aesthetic

Surrounded by the work of French artist ORLAN, The Holmes à Court Gallery presented a day of lectures and discussions that explore contemporary aesthetics.

Using the discourses of art, architecture, design, food, fashion, politics and philosophy, the speakers examined the history of aesthetics and explored current issues within their particular discipline.

Discussions touched on:

• Is the consideration of aesthetics important for society today?
• Is there an underlying unity to current aesthetic judgement?
• Can a universal aesthetic be articulated, or is aesthetics always relative to time, place and discipline?
• Is beauty still central to art and aesthetics?

ORLAN’s work provided a pivotal sounding board to the day’s discussions. In 1998 she launched an international exploration into different standards of beauty. She began in Mexico with the Pre-Columbian civilizations and, using digital technology, melded the image of her face with the stone of the statuary she found, making self-hybridizations in which the grotesque becomes inseparable from the beautiful.

Our keynote speaker took these explorations further to give an international perspective on what may count as art today and why, and addressed such questions as:

• In the hands of an artist is the use of computer technologies or lab Petri dishes equivalent to traditional media?
• To what extent are so-called bio-art and computer generated art then art, and when do they escape their destiny of “simply” being science and technology?
• How do we judge if it is art or not, and who decides that?
• Are the aesthetics inherent to the art object, in the process, or in the ideas the work generates?
  

Speakers

• Amy Barrett-Lennard, Director, Perth Institute of Contemporary Art
• Lucas Bowers, fashion designer
• Andrew Clark, journalist
• Design aesthetic TBC
• Jens Hauser, Paris based curator and writer
• Kate Lamont restaurateur
• Hartley Slater philosopher
• Roger Wood architect

The Manning Clark House Day of Ideas 2007 was presented by the Holmes à Court Gallery in association with the Institute for Advanced Studies, UWA