READING THE GALLERY II

November 20, 2019, 6:30pm–8pm
Open to all
Free program with refreshments

Reading the Gallery is a reading group in conjunction with on-site exhibitions. By collectively reading a short text out loud, following by an informal discussion, we will explore the critical relationship between art and theory. In reading and thinking together, we will consider the ways in which galleries can be sites of knowledge production and dissemination, and offer us ways to situate our practices as scholars, students and artists.

Climate crisis is an urgent issue living in the Anthropocene, where the human and human activity are a definitive force in the earth’s geology and ecosystems. This iteration of our reading group responds to the exhibition Level Earth, asking us to consider the ways we are implicated in the crisis we find ourselves in, and how art offers a means to respond to this crisis.

As a means of approaching these questions we will be reading “At the Radical Edge of Life” by Andrew Brown. This text is the introduction to the book Art & Ecology Now, a survey of ecology focused art from the earth works of the 1960s to contemporary practice. In reading this introduction, we will consider the ways artists have grappled with nature and ecology historically, so that we may situate our practices today, and the potential role for art and artists in addressing the climate crisis.