Trinity Term 2010

This House Believes that Conceptual Art 'Just Isn't Art'

In the past century the ability of art to define and set limits on itself has been challenged. Traditionally art is reliant upon the hands-on talent of the artist. Conceptual Art highlights the conflicting notions of aesthetic value and calls into question the confines of subjectivity when analysing art.

Proposition:

David Armitage - An abstract painter and illustrator of children’s classics, Armitage’s work is striking for its vibrancy and passion. A mini-retrospective of his work over the last decade accompanies the debate.

Charles Thomson - A figurative painter who founded the Stuckist movement and protests against the Turner Prize as part of his long battle against the trend towards conceptual work.

Mark Leckey - His Turner Prize-winning piece ‘Industrial Lights and Music’ continues in the tradition of all his pieces, where this unassuming artist lets his work speak for him.

Opposition:

Dr Stephen Deuchar - As Director of the Tate Britain, Dr Deuchar has championed and protected artists from what he sees as unreasonable media expectations.

Adrian Searle - The lead art critic for ‘The Guardian’  has never felt the need to bite his tongue; he once described the anti-conceptual Stuckists as ‘so dreadful’ that there was nothing to them ‘except a lot of ranting’.

Matthew Collings - An art critic and former presenter of the Turner Prize coverage on Channel 4, yet Collings’ support of contemporary art is ambiguous. He has even accused art institutions of ‘lying’ about the profundity of the work they display.

Miroslaw Balka - Currently showing in the Turbine Hall of the Tate Modern in London, Balka is a sculptor whose pieces reflect the dull aesthetic of his upbringing in Communist Poland in the 1950s.

This debate is kindly sponsored by GLG.