Claire Bishop

Art critic/professor Claire Bishop, author of the book Installation Art: A Critical History (Tate) and editor of Participation (Whitechapel Gallery/MIT Press), has written extensively on the impulse of contemporary artists toward a practice that embraces social engagement, redefines community, and challenges the relationship of aesthetic form to political context. For this talk, Bishop will focus on the complex ethics of performance and representation in contemporary art, drawing on recent works in which artists employ others in the piece and examining issues of authorship and authenticity that arise in these situations.