Tuesday, September 20, 7:00 p.m.

LAURENT JENNY
Professor, Université de Genève; author of La Parole singulière; La Fin de l’intériorité; Je suis la révolution, Histoire d’une métaphore 1830-1975; Stases et flux, la vie esthétique (2012)

L’Art dans la vie, l’art contre la vie

Le thème de la contradiction entre art et vie marque la tradition des avant-gardes du XXe siècle, de Duchamp à Kaprow. Il s’accompagne d’un corollaire non moins étrange : celui du sacrifice nécessaire de l’artefact comme mode d’accès privilégié à la vie. Ces paradoxes recouvrent un oubli des formes les plus communes et partagées de l’expérience esthétique telle qu’elle se pratique dans la vie.

in French.

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Thursday, September 22, 7:00 p.m.

 MICHAEL DORSCH
Assistant Professor, The Cooper Union; author of French Sculpture Following the Franco-Prussian War, 1870-80: Realist Allegories and the Commemoration of Defeat

 Strong Women, Fallen Men: French Sculpture Following the

Franco-Prussian War, 1870-80

French Sculpture Following the Franco-Prussian War, 1870–80 investigates the role played by the trope of the 'strong woman, fallen man' in re-establishing morale among the French people following the Franco-Prussian War. The study explores how certain French sculptors – including Falguière, Mercié, Barrias, and Rodin – presented this recent history of defeat in commemorative monuments that increasingly dominated public space across France during the final decades of the nineteenth century.