Tuesday 8 June 2004
18.30 - 20.30
James Elkins:
Why Art Historians and Critics Should Learn to Draw

James Elkins 2000

'There is little theorizing on the connections between the experience of painting a picture and the sense of painting gained by reading history or criticism. What might historians and critics miss if they do not have some experience of drawing and painting? In this year's Peter Fuller Memorial Lecture I will draw out some of the consequences of the disjunction between practice and scholarship, in part by proposing a parallel to music: what is the link between being able to play instrument (or write compositions) and reviewing music, or writing music history?

In part these are practical questions, which bear on the genres of art history and criticism; but they are also historical questions, because they have consequences for the kinds of modernism and postmodernism that are disseminated in the art world; and they are philosophic questions, because they model possible links between production and criticism, and between scholarly and studio practice at University.’ James Elkins

James Elkins (University College Cork/Art Institute of Chicago) is the author, most recently, of Visual Studies: A Skeptical Introduction and (forthcoming) Six Stories from the End of Representation.

In collaboration with the Peter Fuller Memorial Foundation

Tate Modern, Starr Auditorium

£6 (£4 concessions), booking recommended

For tickets book online or call 020 7887 8888