We cannot understand art without also understanding the systems of power that underpin it. Yet what languages are available to describe these systems?
This workshop explored the concepts and theories of power available to scholars of art today. What are the dominant concepts and theories, and what new ones are emerging to supplement or replace them?What new stories do they tell us about art, and what new forms of art making do they make visible?
Throughout the 20th century, the forces underpinning art have been theorised in terms of gender, race, class and sexuality and by concepts (mostly derived from the Euro-American humanities tradition) such as institution and critique, fields, discourses, apparatuses, assemblages and infrastructures.
In the 21st century, these frameworks have been both extended in new directions and critiqued. This is due, in part, to the escalating economic and social inequalities shaping social spheres, the art they produce and the forms of its circulation. These frameworks are also now subject to revision under the ongoing force of Indigenous activism, scholarship and art which both critiques them, and offers new systems of knowledge.
Co-presented by the Institute for Culture and Society at Western Sydney University and the Power Institute at the University of Sydney. Convened by Tony Bennett and Nick Croggon.
