AAANZ Annual Conference: The Work of Art

A Person Looks At A Work Of Art / someone looks at something...(detail), 1987. Courtesy National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
A Person Looks At A Work Of Art / someone looks at something...(detail), 1987. Courtesy National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

The Centre for Art History and Art Theory is hosting the 2016 AAANZ Annual Conference. AAANZ conferences present opportunities to re-examine art history, art theory and studio practice and generate innovative perspectives on histories and cultural traditions. For 'The Work of Art', we invite discussion on how works of art, craft, design and architecture operate and are operated on in different ways and contexts, historically, socially, politically, aesthetically and affectively. Given the location for the conference in Australia’s national capital, with its concentration of national cultural institutions, we also welcome sessions on how art is made to work in institutional contexts.

Panel sessions might consider issues such as:

  • The function of art in broad social terms
  • The ways in which art “works upon” its viewers (its affect)
  • The practice of art and the various processes of creation
  • Art in which labour or work is the subject
  • The changing character of work and its impacts on art
  • The economic frameworks of art production and development of different ways of working
  • The singular work of art as a subject for close reading
  • Curatorial processes and other interventions that make art work

Conference sessions will be held at the Australian National University with evening events at the National Gallery of Australia and the National Portrait Gallery.

For the conference program, click here.

Updated:  2 December 2016/Responsible Officer:  Head of School/Page Contact:  CASS Marketing & Communications