Please Note: This program will only be offered online via Zoom.
Can a sculpture made from automobile tires, a white canvas covered with white paint, and a banana duct-taped to a wall really be considered as art? They can, says art historian Nancy G. Heller, who explains how it’s possible. Plenty of creators still make traditional art, but others have rejected the rules that governed what was seen as fine art since antiquity. As a result, when a viewer encounters a work that is not realistic or made from pigment, metal, or stone, it can feel uncomfortable.
Instead, by considering the ways in which an abstract painting is like a pizza (or anything else encountered in everyday life), the comparison of basic elements like color, texture, scale, and overall composition between these objects can help demystify modern art. Using jargon-free language and a healthy dose of humor, Heller discusses common-sense ways of thinking about even the most idiosyncratic artworks on view in galleries, museums, or on the street. She also touches on new conundrums created for the art world by the development of artificial intelligence.
The goal, says Heller, is not for everyone to like a particular work of art. Individual taste—in paintings, as in music or cuisine—varies. Instead, it’s to recognize that we already have the tools necessary to become more open to finding intellectual stimulation and aesthetic pleasure from as wide a variety of sources as possible.
Heller is an emerita professor of art history at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia.
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