Simon Critchley is a renowned scholar and philosopher who is (among other highly notable positions) the Chair and Professor of Philosophy at The New School, the series moderator for The New York Times philosophy column "The Stone", and the editor of the How to Read... series published by esteemed academic publishers W. W. Norton that provides introductory material on thinkers from Darwin to Shakespeare to Marx.

Critchley's lecture details some of the reasons why the glamour, celebrity, business, and radiant superficiality abundant in this field breeds such a strong response, and for good reason. Focusing in particular on the work, especially the films of French artist Philippe Parreno, the talk lists some of the reasons it is easy to hate contemporary art in gruesome detail, but also provides at least one good reason why we should love it.

Reading List
Suggested materials by Simon Critchley can be found here.

Paddy Johnson is the founding Editor of Art F City (formerly Art Fag City) and the Arts Editor for the L Magazine. In addition to her work on the blog, she has been published in magazines such as New York Magazine, The Economist, and The Guardian and linked to by publications such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Awl.

The Ethics of Critique pulls from Johnson’s unique experience as the founding editor of an esteemed art criticism blog. Due to Art F City being supported by the very community it critiques, conflicts of interest are inevitable. In her lecture, Johnson poses a series of scenarios where the collision of expectations in a critique setting range from clear to murky, and explain how the blog responds to these conflicts.

Held in conjunction with the exhibition of The Temporary Institute of Emancipated Objects, curated by Cortney Stell in the Philip J. Steele Gallery on the RMCAD campus, a panel of artists exhibited in the show participated in a panel discussion on the importance of failure in the practice of art-making and everyday life.

Barry Anderson's single channel non-linear animations are created, in part, from appropriated American advertising images of the 1950s to 1970s. He has exhibited widely in national institutions such as the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Syracuse University, and the Kansas City Art Institute.

Brett Windham's sculptures and collages are derived from materials found during her walks around New York City. Windham's works touch on the complexity of ways of seeing our everyday landscapes.

Whitney Lynn's installation and sculptural works highlight the psychological barriers found in everyday objects. Her works give rise to observations that transcend familiar experience. Lynn holds a MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and has had several solo shows including Sculptures Involontaires seen at Steven Wolf Fine Arts in San Francisco.

Humberto Duque's works involve humor, irony, and sinister sharpness, similarly to Duchamp's ready-mades. His works often proposes some sort of absurd solution for common objects, like a tablecloth listlessly blowing in the wind created by four battery operated fans. Duque's work has been featured on the Art21 blog and he has had solo exhibitions at Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts in Taiwan and the MCO Arte Contemporânea in Portugal, just to name a few. 

McKenzie Wark is a scholar of critical and media theory as well as notable historian of the Situationist International. Wark, Australian born, teaches at Eugene Lang College The New School for Liberal Arts, where his courses range from cultural studies to media theory with curriculum engaging with Cinema and Social Action, Game Culture, and the Military Entertainment Complex.

The Beach Beneath the Street centers on the Situationist International (SI), an international group of revolutionary thinkers and artists that sought to subvert the superficial spectacle engendered by advanced capitalism by constructing situations that allowed a freedom from what they deemed to be a fake reality.

*This lecture took place during the 2012-2013 academic year, but was not a part of the Ethics series.

Reading List
Suggested materials by McKenzie Wark can be found here.