BRYN MAWR'S CENTER FOR VISUAL CULTURE
PARTNERS WITH SLOUGHT FOUNDATION

Bryn Mawr's Center for Visual Culture will mark a new publishing partnership with the Slought Foundation next Wednesday, Nov. 3, when Slought Foundation Director Aaron Levy presents a talk at the Center's weekly colloquium. Levy's talk, titled "Introducing Slought: Art Voluptuous and Life Ascetic," will discuss the mission of the innovative nonprofit, which explores possibilities for the evolution of curatorial practice in response to new modes of artistic production.

The event will take place in Thomas 224 from 12:30 to 1:45 p.m.; light refreshments will be served. Levy says that he hopes to bring copies of C's Æsthetics: Philosophy in the Painting, in which noted art critic Joseph Masheck "looks at the work of Cezanne through the lens of analytical philosophy, in an experimental effort to unite two intellectual fields that diverged over the course of the 20th century." C's Æsthetics, the first book co-published by the Slought Foundation and the Center, is scheduled to ship this week, Levy says.

Scene from a video in Levy's upcoming exhibition at the University of Pennsylvania

Since its founding in 2002, the Slought Foundation has organized more than 200 live events and exhibitions with prominent artists, theorists and curators including William Anastasi, Daniel Libeskind, Slavoj Zizek and Miroslav Vitous. Levy's presentation at Bryn Mawr will touch on some of these projects to illuminate Slought’s goals.

"I'll give an overview of the type of contemporary art we're interested in as well as a theoretical introduction," Levy said. "I'll talk about some of the broad issues Slought addresses: what constitutes a timely artistic practice, the proper role of the curator in resisting the market-driven orientation of current institutions, how the organization itself can be seen as an art form."

Levy said he is likely to discuss his upcoming project, an exhibition for the Annenberg Rare Book and Manuscript Library at the University of Pennsylvania that investigates the beehive metaphor in its collection.

"The beehive was a model for organizing societies in the 16th century," Levy explains, "and it is also often a metaphor for libraries and archives. The exhibition and related programming will place particular emphasis on how these metaphors inform the future of the American arts organization."

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