2020 Art+Ethics Seminar

2020 begins a new phase for our seminar series. Most noticeably, we have a new name, the Art+Ethics Seminar. This name reflects a change in our approach to the seminar.

Rather than focus solely on public art practice, we’re expanding the scope of the seminar to explore broader topics. This is where the “+” in the title comes in.

By Art+, we mean visual arts, design, architecture, urban planning, music, performance, and more. While much of our focus will remain on contemporary art, we’re going to delve more deeply into the history and philosophy of art.

We will continue discussing the ways in which our ethical frameworks shape and are shaped by artistic practice. We will continue to examine how broader sociocultural, political, and economic contexts shape the institutional worlds of art and design as well as the lived experiences of artists and the communities in which they work.

Art+Ethics Seminar meetings will be different than the previous iteration, which operated primarily as a reading group. In this next phase, we are commissioning speakers to write short essays, which they will present to the group. These think pieces will be the focus of the discussions that follow.

24 February 2020 | 5:00-6:30 PM
IUPUI Arts & Humanities Institute
755 W. Michigan St. (IUPUI Library, Room UL 4115P)

What is Art+Ethics?
Laura Holzman, Pam Napier, and Jason M. Kelly

20 April 2020 | 5:30-7:00 PM
Kurt Vonnegut Library & Museum
543 Indiana Ave.

Dr. Kelli Morgan, “Seeing the Systemic: The Often Omitted Underpinnings of White Supremacy Culture in American Art Museums Today”

Dr. Kelli Morgan, the associate curator for American Art at the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields discusses the ways in which critical-race approaches to traditional American art and art history can significantly shift the exclusive and supremacist culture embedded in American art museums.

This event is co-hosted with the Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library.

6 April 2020 | 5:00-6:30 PM

Rebecca Bray and Steve Lambert

Rebecca Bray and Steve Lambert are the co-Directors of the Center for Artistic Activism.

28 May 2020 | 11:30-1:00 PM

Laura Raicovich: Manifestations of the Neutral

Laura Raicovich is a New York-based writer and culture worker who currently serves as Interim Director of the Leslie Lohman Museum of Art. She previously served as the director of the Queens Museum, where she co-curated Mel Chin: All Over the Place, a multi-borough survey of the artist's work. Before joining the Queens Museum, she launched Creative Time's Global Initiatives, was Dia Art Foundation's Deputy Director, and held posts at the Guggenheim and Public Art Fund. She is working on a forthcoming book on museums, cultural institutions, and the myth of neutrality.

8 December 2020 | 12:00-1:00 PM

Dan Hicks: The Brutish Museums: The Benin Bronzes, Colonial Violence and Cultural Restitution

Dan Hicks FSA, MCIfA is Professor of Contemporary Archaeology in the School of Archaeology, Curator of World Archaeology at the Pitt Rivers Museum, and a Fellow of St Cross College. His award-winning research focuses on the restitution of African cultural heritage from Euro-American collections, focusing on the place of ideas of cultural whiteness in ongoing histories of colonial violence.

Register at https://iu.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_j6CyrRfGRhazdnOkRa3cXQ

For more information, contact the organizers: Jason M. Kelly (jaskelly@iupui.edu), Pamela Napier (pcnapier@iupui.edu), and Laura Holzman (holzmanl@iupui.edu).