[rohrpost] »Art , Aesthetics, Politics« – Image Controversy VI with a Lecture by Thomas Keenan and Juliane Rebentisch, May 27th at diaphanes, Berlin-Kreuzberg

[Graduiertenkolleg »Sichtbarkeit und Sichtbarmachung. Hybride Formen des Bildwissens«]

»Art, Aesthetics, Politics« – Image Controversy VI with a Lecture by Thomas 
Keenan and a Comment by Juliane Rebentisch

Thursday, May 27th, 2015, 7.30 pm at diaphanes, Dresdener Str. 118, 
Berlin-Kreuzberg

The research training center »Visibility and Visualization. Hybrid Forms of 
Pictorial Knowledge« at the University of Potsdam invites you to its sixth 
image controversy bringing together internationally renowned scholars to 
debate theoretical concepts of images and forms of visibility/invisibility. 
For the current edition, we will discuss potential connections and 
differences between art, aesthetics, and politics together with Thomas 
Keenan (Director of the Human Rights Program at Bard College) and Juliane 
Rebentisch (Professor of Philosophy and Aesthetics at HfG Offenbach) who 
will deliver an extended commentary to Keenan’s lecture.

Both scholars entertain a long-standing relationship with contemporary art; 
and both take a critical stance. Yet, while Rebentisch stresses the 
fundamentally different logic of the aesthetic and follows Adorno in his 
reading of the artwork as autonomous, Keenan has claimed art for more 
overtly political means, including his contribution to formulating a new 
forensic aesthetics and his appeal to human rights organizations to take 
seriously aesthetics’ proximity to ethics and politics. By having them 
engage in discussion, we hope to shed light on the relationship between art 
and politics, art and non-art, the definition of aesthetics and its role in 
contemporary art and political culture.

Lecture, comment, and discussion will be in English; the event is free and 
open to the public.

Thomas Keenan is Associate Professor of Comparative Literature and Director 
of the Human Rights Program at Bard College. He received his PhD in 
Philosophy from Yale University. His research interests include media and 
conflict, literary and political theory, humanitarianism and human rights, 
violence and politics, evidence and photojournalism. Among his publications 
are: Fables of Responsibility (Stanford UP, 1997); Mengele's Skull (with E. 
Weizman, Sternberg, 2012); New Media, Old Media (ed. with W. Chun, 
Routledge, 2005); The Human Snapshot (ed. with T. Zolghadr, Sternberg, 
2013). Also, Keenan is the curator of Antiphotojournalism (with C. Guerra, 
2010/11), and Aid and Abet (2011).

Juliane Rebentisch is Professor of Philosophy and Aesthetics at HfG 
Offenbach where she has also served as Vice President since 2014. In 
addition, she is a member of the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research and 
President of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Ästhetik (2015-18). Her main 
areas of research include aesthetics, ethics, and political philosophy. 
Among her publications are: Ästhetik der Installation (Suhrkamp 
2003)/Aesthetics of Installation Art (Sternberg 2012); Kreation und 
Depression. Freiheit im gegenwärtigen Kapitalismus (ed. with Ch. Menke, 
Kadmos 2010); Die Kunst der Freiheit. Zur Dialektik demokratischer Existenz 
(Suhrkamp 2012); Theorien der Gegenwartskunst zur Einführung (Junius 2013).
You will find further information at:

http://www.sichtbarkeit-sichtbarmachung.de/veranstaltungen/s/article/bildkontroverse-vi/
https://www.facebook.com/events/376862372498622/

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»Sichtbarkeit und Sichtbarmachung. Hybride Formen des Bildwissens«
DFG-Graduiertenkolleg 1539
Universität Potsdam
Am Neuen Palais 10
14469 Potsdamhttp://www.sichtbarkeit-sichtbarmachung.de 
<http://www.sichtbarkeit-sichtbarmachung.de/veranstaltungen/s/article/bildkontroverse-vi/>