Symposium brings art world elite to Harn Museum

March 1, 2006

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – The Harn Eminent Scholar Symposium featuring a select group of art historians, cultural critics, artists and theorists from around the world will begin Thursday, March 2, at the Harn Museum of Art during Museum Nights.

The symposium, entitled “Art in the Age of Globalization: Directions in Contemporary Art Since 1989″, will explore the changing meaning of art in an era of globalization. The three-day symposium is free and open to the public.

The way that culture is understood changed fundamentally after 1989, a year that marked the collapse of the “Second World” that began in 1945. Issues that will be addressed during the symposium include how the new conditions of globalization affect the production, exhibition and distribution of art, and whether this new form of art production can still be discussed within the context of art history, or should be incorporated into the larger domain of “cultural studies.”

Also to be addressed is the role the Internet and other new technologies play in the ongoing loss of the special status once presumed for art, and the historical origins of that transformation. Artists’ response to this leveling of culture also will be discussed.

Speakers at the symposium include Sabeth Buchmann, Whitney Davis, Diedrich Diedrichsen, Harun Farocki, Hal Foster, Renée Green, Branden Joseph, James Meyer, Juliana Rebentisch, Terry Smith, Julian Stallabrass, Blake Stimson and Anne Wagner.

The symposium is organized by Associate Professor Alex Alberro of the UF School of Art and Art History through the Harn Eminent Scholar Endowment and is co-sponsored by the Harn Museum of Art.

Visit http://conference.getonnow.net/main.html for a schedule and more information or call (352) 392-0201, ext. 201.