Rethinking Autonomy & Art

Monday

25 april7:00 pm

NYU

Kimmel center, room 908

(60 washington square south)

The term ‘autonomy’ has crept into the lexicon of contemporary art discourse for reasons that are not self-evident. But there is a curious lack of historical consciousness. The aesthetic, social, and political implications of autonomy continue to haunt us, but, perhaps, only as farce. For the once restless non-identity between art and politics that Leon Trotsky and Theodor Adorno attempted to register seems to have become one or another false reconciliation. This discussion will attempt to lay a groundwork for comprehending autonomy from a historical perspective. And thus it asks: Is art still a form of self-consciousness? Can it be so without the Left, whose historical mission was to bring the modern world to self-consciousness through overcoming capitalism?

Led by Bret Schneider, editor of 491 and assistant editor of the Platypus Review.