Aesthetics Discussion Group: Joan Kee (UM History of Art)

If contemporary art in the U.S. was profoundly defined by artistic engagements with legal ideas, rituals, and documents, what role did aesthetics play? Artists who engaged with the law sought to convey the social purpose of an artwork without overstating its political impact and without losing sight of how aesthetic decisions compel audiences to see their everyday world differently. Rather than a formal talk, I will introduce various situations in which aesthetic questions and experiences played a formative role in shaping how artists rethought their identities as authors, catalysts, and citizens. Artists discussed include Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Tehching Hsieh, and Sally Mann.