“In Defense of Sloth: An Eclectic and Entertaining Series of Presentation About that Most Philosophical of Vices: A Primer”

In Defense of Sloth: An Eclectic and Entertaining Series of Presentations About that Most Philosophical of Vices: A PRIMER

 

Theories and polemics about sloth have figured widely in Western thought in the work of artists, philosophers, and cultural critics as diverse as Aquinas, Nietzsche, and Malevich, as well as Marx, Kierkegaard, and Wilde. In Dante’s Purgatorio, for example, sloth is described as being the “failure to love God with all one’s heart, all one’s mind, and all one’s soul.” A more secular viewpoint on sloth is provided by Paul LaFargue, Karl Marx’s son-in-law, who authored the influential The Right to be Lazy(1883) and tirelessly campaigned for a three-hour work day. Likewise, in his manifesto “The Praise of Laziness” (1988), Zagreb-based artist Mladen Stilinovic suggests that Western artists are too preoccupied with promotion and production, and are thus less artists than producers.

 

The project has been organized in conjunction with Slought in New York, an archival exploration into the activities of the Philadelphia-based Slought Foundation, on display from November 29-December 15, 2007 at Zone:Chelsea Center for the Arts. The “In Defense of Sloth” project is collaboratively organized by Aaron Levy, Slought Foundation, and Sina Najafi, Cabinet Magazine, in association with undergraduate students in the 2007-2008 Russell Bergman Foundation Curatorial Seminar in the University of Pennsylvania Departments of English and Art History.

In Defense of Sloth: An Eclectic and Entertaining Series of Presentations About that Most Philosophical of Vices: A PRIMER

6:30 – 8:30PM, November 29, 2007

Organized by Cabinet Magazine and Slought Foundation

Related:
Slought in New York, installation view

Slought in New York at ZONE: Chelsea Center for the Arts

Curated by Aaron Levy, Jean-Michel Rabaté, and Osvaldo Romberg
November 29 - December 15, 2007

Categories: spotlight

Tags:

“Should Art Abolish Art?” A conversation with Arakawa + Gins, Arthur C. Danto, Don Idhe and others

In conjunction with opening of Slought in New York at ZONE: Chelsea Center for the Arts

 

“Should Art Abolish Art?”

Thursday, November 29th, 7-8pm

A conversation with Arakawa + Gins, Arthur C. Danto, Don Idhe and others on the problematics of cultural production after Duchamp.

Moderated by Jean-Michel Rabate and Aaron Levy; Introduced by Osvaldo Romberg

Should Art Abolish Art?

7-8pm, November 29, 2007

 

Since 1963, artists-architects-poets Arakawa and Madeline Gins(b. 1936/1941) have worked in collaboration to produce visionary, boundary-defying art and architecture. Their seminal work, The Mechanism of Meaning, has been exhibited widely throughout the world. A sequel to that, To Not To Die, appeared in 1987. As a means of financing the design and construction of works of procedural architecture that draw on The Mechanism of Meaning, extending its theoretical implications into the environment, Arakawa and Gins founded the Architectural Body Research Foundation. The Foundation actively collaborates with leading practitioners in a wide-range of disciplines including, but not limited to, experimental biology, neuroscience, quantum physics, experimental phenomenology, and medicine. Architectural projects have included residences (Reversible Destiny Houses – Mitaka; Bioscleave House – East Hampton, Long Island; Shidami Resource Recycling Model House), parks (Site of Reversible Destiny – Yoro) and plans for housing complexes and neighborhoods (Isle of Reversible Destiny – Venice and Isle of Reversible Destiny-Fukuoka, Sensorium City, Tokyo). The Second International Conference on the work of Arakawa and Gins will take place at Slought Foundation and the University of Pennsylvania from April 6-8, 2007 (here for more information). Responding to A + G’s two recent works of theory, Architectural Body (University of Alabama Press, 2002) and Making Dying Illegal (Roof Books, 2006), philosopher Jean-Jacques Lecercle declared this pair to be the successor philosophers to Marx and Engels.

 

Arthur C. Danto(b. 1924) is an American art critic and philosopher. From 1949 to 1950, Danto studied in Paris on a Fulbright scholarship under Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and in 1951 returned to teach at Columbia University, where he is currently Johnsonian Professor of Philosophy Emeritus. Danto is the author of numerous books on aesthetics and philosophy, including Nietzsche as Philosopher, Mysticism and Morality, The Transfiguration of the Commonplace, Narration and Knowledge, Connections to the World: The Basic Concepts of Philosophy. He has also published several collections of art criticism, including Encounters and Reflections: Art in the Historical Present (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1990), which won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism; Beyond the Brillo Box: The Visual Arts in Post-Historical Perspective (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1992); Playing With the Edge: The Photographic Achievement of Robert Mapplethorpe (University of California, 1995); and The Madonna of the Future: Essays in a Pluralistic Art World (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2000). Art critic for The Nation, he has also published numerous articles in other journals.

 

Don Ihde(b. 1934) is a philosopher of science and technology, and a post-phenomenologist. In 1979 he wrote what is often identified as the first North American work on philosophy of technology, Technics and Praxis. Ihde is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Ihde is the author of thirteen original books and the editor of many others. Recent examples include Chasing Technoscience (2003), edited with Evan Selinger; Bodies in Technology (2002); Expanding Hermeneutics: Visualism in Science (1998); and Postphenomenology (1993). Ihde lectures and gives seminars internationally and some of his books and articles have appeared in a dozen languages. He is currently working on Imaging Technologies: Plato Upside Down. Ihde is also the Director of the Technoscience Research Group in the Philosophy Department, where he directs ongoing graduate and post-graduate research seminars around the study of technoscience and cutting-edge work in the fields of the philosophies of science and technology and science studies.

Related:
Slought in New York, installation view

Slought in New York at ZONE: Chelsea Center for the Arts

Curated by Aaron Levy, Jean-Michel Rabaté, and Osvaldo Romberg
November 29 - December 15, 2007

Categories: spotlight

Tags:

Slought in New York at ZONE: Chelsea Center for the Arts

An archival exploration into the activities of Slought Foundation, Philadelphia, featuring information about past projects with William Anastasi, Arakawa + Gins, Günter Brus, Hélène Cixous, Braco Dimitrijevic, Fred Forest, Hermann Nitsch, Dennis Oppenheim, David Stephens, Marjorie Welish, et al.

 

How can organizations located on the periphery of major international art cities contribute to and provoke the cultural and political landscape? What can a young organization that resists the market-driven orientation of today’s cultural institutions achieve with minimal private funding and an all-volunteer staff? An archival exploration into the activities of Slought Foundation in Philadelphia since its inception in 2002. It will feature information about past projects with William Anastasi, Arakawa + Gins, Günter Brus, Hélène Cixous, Braco Dimitrijevic, Fred Forest, Hermann Nitsch, Dennis Oppenheim,  David Stephens, Marjorie Welish, as well as documentation of over 200 past performances, conversations, exhibitions, and publications at Slought Foundation that explore new futures for contemporary political and cultural life.

Slought in New York at ZONE:Chelsea Center for the Arts

Curated by Aaron Levy, Jean-Michel Rabaté, and Osvaldo Romberg

 

Opening Reception

6-9PM, Thursday November 29, 2007

 

 

In conjunction:

 

Thursday, November 29th, 7-8pm

“Should Art Abolish Art?”

A conversation with Arakawa + Gins and others

Moderated by Jean-Michel Rabate and Aaron Levy; Introduced by Osvaldo Romberg

 

Friday, December 7th, 6:30-8:30pm

“In Defense of Sloth: A Primer”

Organized by Cabinet Magazine and Slought Foundation by Aaron Levy and Sina Najafi

 

Saturday, December 8, 2007; 11:00am-5:30pm

“In Defense of Sloth: A Symposium” at The Great Hall, Cooper Union

Organized by Cabinet Magazine and Slought Foundation

Hosted by and in partnership with the Cooper Union, Irwin S. Chairman School of Architecture

Related:
Slought in New York, installation view

Slought in New York at ZONE: Chelsea Center for the Arts

Curated by Aaron Levy, Jean-Michel Rabaté, and Osvaldo Romberg
November 29 - December 15, 2007

Categories: exhibitions

Tags: