Walead Beshty
To Be Human Is to Be in Aesthetics - A Brief Practical Introduction to Aesthetics and the Function of Art
Course Detail
DescriptionThe work of London born Los Angeles-based artist Walead Beshty spans a range of media and methods (from photography to ceramics, canvas to kinetic sculpture). He has been exhibited and collected widely over the past two decades, while in tandem he has maintained active curatorial, teaching, and writing practices. In this course, Beshty will provide a general introduction to aesthetics from a practical perspective. Starting with the Greek origin of the term, participants with be given a broad view of the discipline spanning the vernacular, instrumental, and fine art forms, concluding with a discussion of contemporary artistic methodologies, and the socio-political effects of aesthetic practice, both its potentials and its limitations.Meet the PresenterWalead BeshtyWalead Beshty (b. 1976, London, UK) is an artist and writer working in Los Angeles. Recent solo exhibitions have been presented at Kunst Museum Winterthur, Switzerland; Musée d’art moderne et contemporain, Geneva, Switzerland; and the Barbican Centre, London. His work is held in museum collections worldwide, including the Guggenheim Museum, New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Tate, London; Victoria and Albert Museum, London; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Monographs on his work include, Walead Beshty: Selected Correspondences 2001–2010 (Damiani, 2010), Walead Beshty: Natural Histories (JRP|Ringier, 2011/2014), and Walead Beshty: Work in Exhibition 2011–2020 (Koenig, 2020). His collected writings 33 Texts: 93,614 Words: 581,035 Characters: Selected Writings (2003–2015) was published by JRP|Ringier, 2016.