Aging in the Afterlife: The Many Deaths of Art

 February 23, 2013  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

A panel held by the Platypus Affiliated Society on Saturday, February 23, 2013, at the New School. Video Recording Transcribed in Platypus Review #58 Panelists Julieta Aranda was born in Mexico City, and currently lives and works between Berlin and New York. Central to Aranda’s multidimensional practice are her involvement with circulation mechanisms and the idea of a “poetics of circulation”; the possibility of a politicized subjectivity through the perception and use of time, and the notion of power over the imaginary. [Read More]
Aesthetics  Art  Occupy  The many deaths of art 

Changes in Art and Society

A View From the Present

 March 31, 2012  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

Panel held on March 31st, 2012 at the Fourth Annual Platypus International Convention, School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Video Recording Transcript in Platypus Review #46 Panelists Mary Jane Jacob (School of the Art Institute) Walter Benn Michaels (University of Illinois Chicago) Robert Pippin (University of Chicago) Description Hegel famously remarked that the task of philosophy was to “comprehend its own time in thought.” In a sense, we can extend this as the raison d’etre for artistic production, albeit in a modified way: art’s task is to “comprehend its own time in form. [Read More]
Platypus International Convention 2012  Aesthetics  Art  Culture  Politics  Society 

The Significance of Art in the Occupy Movement

 March 17, 2012  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

Video Recording Panelists Noah Fischer is a Brooklyn-based artist originally from north of San Francisco. He has exhibited kinetic art installations, photographs, and sculpture in New York, Europe, and India. He has also worked collaboratively with the Berlin-based performance group andcompany&Co. Noah initiated Occupy Subways and Occupy Museums in the first weeks of OWS. Noah is the curator of the No-Eyes Viewing Wall at Brooklyn Zen Center. [Read More]
Occupy  Left Forum  Left Forum 2012  Aesthetics  Art  Occupy  Occupy museums  Occupy subways  Occupy wall street 

Art, Culture, and Politics

Marxist Approaches

 April 30, 2011  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

Panel held as part of the third annual Platypus International Convention, on Saturday, April 30, 2011, at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Audio Recording Your browser does not support the audio element A transcript of Bret Schneider’s remarks appears in Platypus Review #37 Panelists Omair Hussain Lucy Parker Pac Pobric Bret Schneider Description After its apparent exhaustion as a project of social transformation, Marxism seems to remain alive as a cultural and hermeneutic endeavor. [Read More]
Platypus International Convention 2011  Aesthetics  Art  Contemporary art  Culture  Leon Trotsky  Marxism  Politics  Jacques Rancière  Theodor W. Adorno  Leon Trotsky  Walter Benjamin 

Aesthetics in Protest

 March 19, 2011  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

A panel discussion organized by the Platypus Affiliated Society, held on March 19, 2011 at Left Forum, Pace University. Audio Recording Your browser does not support the audio element A transcript of Chris Mansour’s remarks appears in Platypus Review #39 Panelists Chris Mansour - Parsons School of Design, Platypus Affiliated Society Jamie Keesling - 491 Laurel Whitney - Yes Men Marc Herbst - Journal of Aesthetics and Protest, Reclaim the Streets [Read More]
Left Forum  Left Forum 2011  Aesthetics  Journal of Aesthetics and Protest  Protest  Reclaim the Streets  Yes Men 

On the Possibility of What Isn't

An Interview with Robert Pippin

 March 14, 2011  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

A public interview with Robert Pippin, hosted by the Platypus Affiliated Society, exploring the implications of Hegel’s thought, particularly regarding art, in the present day. Held on March 14, 2011, at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Audio Recording Your browser does not support the audio element Transcript in Platypus Review #36 Description Robert Pippin is a professor in the John U. Nef Committee on Social Thought, the Department of Philosophy, and the College at the University of Chicago. [Read More]
Aesthetics  Art  Dialectics  Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel  Hegelian  Hegelianism  Karl Marx  Marxism 

What is Critique?

 November 20, 2010  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

An all day symposium, “What is Critique?” was held on Nov. 20, 2010 at the New School in New York City. The first video is from the afternoon panel, entitled The Art Critique: Its History, Theories, and Practices. This panel consisted of Tom Butter, Simone Douglas, and James Elkins; it was moderated by Laurie Rojas. The second video is documentation of the evening panel, entitled The Relevance of Critical Theory to Art Today. [Read More]
J.M. Bernstein  Aesthetics  Art  Art criticism  Art critique  Critical theory  Critique 

Review: "The Common Sense"

 November 1, 2007  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

MY FIRST IMPRESSION UPON ENTERING Haseeb Ahmed’s installation, “The Common Sense,” which opened at Around the Coyote Gallery on September 5th was one of open space. It was an openness that contrasted sharply with the hundreds of paintings, photographs, sculptures that cluttered the rest of the many other galleries that opened that Night in Wicker Park’s FlatIron Building. Such a contrast pointed out the fact that, more a piece of interior architecture than a collection of installed objects, the central element to be experienced in Ahmed’s installation was space itself. [Read More]
Aesthetics  Architecture  Art  Critical theory  Exhibition  Installation  Islam  Marxism  Muslim  Religion  Sculpture  Society