TCotA Forum - David Raskin

Hiroshi Sugimoto's Inhuman Photographs

David Raskin is Mohn Family Professor of Contemporary Art History at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and Editor-in-Chief of caa.reviews. He is author of Donald Judd (Yale University Press, 2010), and other scholarly publications, including essays on Noriyuki Haraguchi, Ad Reinhardt, Jo Baer, Olle Baertling, Enrique Martínez Celaya, Carl Andre, and pragmatic aesthetics. He is currently Visiting Fellow at the United States Study Centre, University of Sydney, Australia.

In asking why responses to Sugimoto's photographs turn on a dime from awe to scorn, Raskin suggest that these strange works of art manage to escape human desires. His hope is that by moving the conversation away from entrenched dichotomies such aesthetics or anti-aesthetics and toward an analysis of the nature of objects and feelings, he can suggest the ethical and practical consequences of inhuman art.

^{image credit: Hiroshi Sugimoto, Gemsbok, 1982. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art}

TCotA Forum is a weekly series of free public lectures held at the Tasmanian College of the Arts (Hunter St) during the semester. TCotA Forum welcomes all students and members of the public, providing a unique opportunity to hear local, national and international visiting scholars and presenters from diverse sectors of the arts discuss their area of professional practice.