Artists Space

Artists Space Dialogues:
Ciarán Finlayson and Peter Osborne (with Brendan Harvey)

Conversation
May 16, 2021, 1pm

For his third conversation, Ciarán Finlayson has asked scholar Brendan Harvey to join him for a discussion with philosopher Peter Osborne on the stakes of art theory and art historical periodization today. Starting from Osborne’s important works on art, Anywhere or Not at All: Philosophy of Contemporary Art and The Postconceptual Condition, the talk will explore Osborne’s three-decade editorship of the journal Radical Philosophy, the history of the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy (CRMEP) which Osborne founded, and aspects of his work on the temporality of social revolution and the ongoing crises of left politics and artistic form.

Portraits of two figures are arranged side-by-side. On the left, a figure wearing a white shirt sits at a table with different objects spread out on its surface, speaking into a microphone. On the right, a black and white photo of a figures bust sits inside a larger black square.
Portraits of Peter Osborne and Brendan Harvey. [Portraits of two figures are arranged side-by-side. On the left, a figure wearing a white shirt sits at a table with different objects spread out on its surface, speaking into a microphone. On the right, a black and white photo of a figures bust sits inside a larger black square.]

Artists Space Dialogues is an ongoing series in which an invited curator brings together influential figures in contemporary art and culture to join them in a series of three in-depth public discussions. Our spring series is organized by Ciarán Finlayson, a writer and editor based in New York City. Finlayson has invited artists and philosophers who examine the histories, possibilities, and failures of left politics in a global context. Each of the participants is either engaged in building and sustaining an arts or education institution or in making work about the meaning of exemplary transdisciplinary art and education institutions for the present.

This program will be streamed online via Zoom as part of Artists Space Dialogues.

Artists Space Dialogues: Ciarán Finlayson and Peter Osborne (with Brendan Harvey). Dialogue Documentation. Sunday, May 16, 2021, 1pm. Artists Space, New York. [Video documentation of multiple individuals engaged in dialogue with the use of imagery.]

Ciarán Finlayson is a writer and editor based in New York City. Finlayson’s essays on art and politics have appeared in magazines and journals including PARSE, Kunst und Politik: das Jahrbuch der Guernica-Gesellschaft, and Artforum, and he is currently the Managing Editor at Blank Forms.

Peter Osborne is Professor of Modern European Philosophy and Director of the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy (CRMEP), Kingston University London. He has held Visiting International Chairs in the Philosophy Department at the University of Paris 8 (2014, 2019), the Royal Institute of Art, Stockholm (2015) and Yale University School of Art (2017). He has contributed to a range of international journals (including Afterall, Artforum, Art History, Cultural Studies, New German Critique, New Left Review, October, Telos, Texte zur Kunst) and catalogues for art institutions (including Manifesta 5, Tate Modern, Biennale of Sydney, Walker Art Center Minneapolis, Office of Contemporary Art Norway, National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design Oslo, Reina Sofia Madrid, MMK Frankfurt). He was co-curator of the Norwegian Representation at the Venice Biennale 2011. From 1983 to 2016 he was an editor of the British journal Radical Philosophy. His books include The Politics of Time: Modernity and Avant-Garde (1995; 2011), Philosophy in Cultural Theory (2000), Conceptual Art (2002), Anywhere or Not at All: Philosophy of Contemporary Art (2013) and The Postconceptual Condition (2018). His next book, Crisis as Form, is forthcoming from Verso in 2022.

Brendan Harvey is a researcher in topics related to Art, Politics, and the Critique of Political Economy. He studied at the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy.

Program support for Artists Space is provided by The Friends of Artists Space, Lambent Foundation Fund of Tides Foundation, The Cowles Charitable Trust, The Cy Twombly Foundation, The David Teiger Foundation, The Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, The New York Community Trust, The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, The New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, Imperfect Family Foundation, Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, The Stavros Niarchos Foundation, The Willem de Kooning Foundation, The Danielson Foundation, The Fox Aarons Foundation, Herman Goldman Foundation, The Destina Foundation, The Luce Foundation, May and Samuel Rudin Family Foundation, The Milton and Sally Avery Arts Foundation, VIA Art Fund, Arison Arts Foundation, The Chicago Community Fund, The David Rockefeller Fund, The Jacques and Natasha Gelman Foundation, The Jill and Peter Kraus Foundation, The Richard Pousette-Dart Foundation.