Lecture by Peter Osborne: “Contemporary Art as Historical Art”

Lecture by Peter Osborne: “Contemporary Art as Historical Art (Avowals and Disavowals of History in Venice and Ukraine)”

What does it mean to experience an artwork as at once contemporary and historical – as historical in the very mode of its contemporaneity? And how do spatial relations affect the character of this contemporaneity? In particular, how might the dialectic of site and non-site that constitutes the spatial aspect of the artwork be expanded to encompass the full range of its geo-political conditions? This talk will address these questions through a discussion of two contrasting cases: (i) the curatorial-political discourses at the 60th Venice Biennale, Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere (2024), and (ii) the situation of art in response to the war in Ukraine.

Peter Osborne is one of the leading contemporary thinkers in the philosophy of art and critical theory. His work has profoundly shaped debates on conceptual and post-conceptual art, contemporaneity, historicity, and the global conditions of critique.

This lecture is part of a series of talks by Peter Osborne jointly organized by the Contemporary Art Centre, the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre, and the Vilnius Academy of Arts. The lecture was moderated by the philosopher and curator Edvardas Šumila. More information: https://cac.lt/en/event/a-lecture-cyc...