May 11th, 2016
7pm
Salon of former Palais Dürckheim, Cranachstraße 47, Weimar

"Beyond Physics"? Conceptual Art and Science Lecture by Larisa Dryansky

Conceptual art’s affinities with science are both obvious and misleading. Many works of conceptual art appear to emulate the rigor of science. At the same time, it has often been pointed out how these works in fact undermine the very rationality of the procedures they borrow from scientific models. In a different way, this paper considers how artists looked to scientific sources for new directions at a critical juncture for art. The issue is not to investigate how artists illustrated or applied scientific discoveries. Rather, I explore how science provided frameworks to address the question of how to pursue art at a time when the narrative of modern art appeared to have run its course. In particular, I focus on the case of Douglas Huebler to show how the inspiration he drew from the philosophy of science sheds light on the thorny issue of visual experience in conceptual art.