Revisiting The French Connection

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The Center for Body, Mind, and Culture of the Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Florida Atlantic University presents a two-day conference (Dec. 3-4, 2007)

Philosophy and Contemporary Art:

Revisiting the French Connection

All sessions will take place in FAU’s Senate Chambers room in the University Center. For more information, please see the Center’s site www.fau.edu/artsandletters/bodymindculture or write to bodymindculture@fau.edu

The Center is very grateful for the support of the Cultural Service of the Embassy of France in the USA (Miami Chapter) and the France Florida Foundation for the Arts.

Program

Monday morning, 9 AM
Welcome and Introduction: Richard Shusterman (Florida Atlantic University)
Chair: Carol Murphy (U of Florida)
Dominique Chateau (U of Paris 1, Pantheon-Sorbonne) - De quelques relations atmosphériques entre la philosophie (française) et l’art (contemporain)
Jean-Pierre Cometti (U of Aix-en-Provence) - Je n'en veux rien savoir! Ce que l'art dit à la philosophie et qu'elle n'entend pas
Bernard Lafargue (U of Bordeaux) - La philosophie troublée par les mille et une figures de la beauté

Monday afternoon, 2:30 PM
Chair: Roger Ariew (U of South Florida)
Else Bukdahl (The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts) – Lyotard between Philosophy and Art
Dorte Dahlin and Joachim Hamou (Nomad Academy) – Eye Thought Walked - Nomad
Curtis Carter (Marquette University) – Philosopher and Artist: Unsettled Boundaries

Tuesday morning, 9 AM
Welcome from France: Ashok Adicéam, cultural attaché, French Embassy, Miami Chapter
Chair: Pierre-Jean Galdin, directeur de l'Ecole Régionale des Beaux Arts de Nantes
Marie-Dominique Popelard (U of Paris 3) and Anthony Wall (U of Calgary) - Frank Stella lecteur de Denis Diderot
Dominique Berthet (IUFM Martinique) - Sartre et les arts plastiques de son temps

Tuesday afternoon, 2:30 PM
Chair: Richard Shusterman
Richard Conte (U of Paris 1, Pantheon-Sorbonne) - Quel usage les artistes font-ils de la philosophie?
Christophe Kihm (Art Press, Fresh Théorie) - Art et économie: un malaise esthétique?
Marc Jimenez (University of Paris 1, Pantheon-Sorbonne) - La philosophie de l’art face au défi technocientifique

International, Bilingual Conference: December 3-4, 2007

French Philosophy and Contemporary Art

Modern art criticism is sometimes said to have been launched through the French philosopher Diderot’s critical essays of the mid-eighteenth century. Since that time French philosophy has often taken inspiration from the arts, while conversely providing the arts with the creative stimulation of philosophical ideas. In recent history, this productive philosophy-art connection has been exemplified in Merleau-Ponty’s philosophical interpretations of Cezanne, in Deleuze on the cinema, Lyotard on the postmodern and the sublime, or even Bourdieu’s social theories of aesthetic taste and artistic production. The second-half of the twentieth century not only witnessed an extraordinary influential flourishing of French philosophy but also the emergence of the exciting but controversial and elusively hard to define artistic field that seemed to move beyond the familiar paradigms of modern art and so is instead labeled "contemporary art." Can we better understand these two fields of culture by exploring their relationships or interpreting them in terms of each other? In what ways does French philosophical tradition remain useful as a tool for artistic understanding and creative inspiration today? What are the major issues and orientations that preoccupy twenty-first-century philosophers of art (in France but also elsewhere) as we continue to feel the surge of increased globalization and the media revolutions that have transformed not only art and culture but our entire life-world?

The bilingual conference "French Philosophy and Contemporary Art," organized by FAU’s Center for Body, Mind, and Culture, with the support of the cultural service of the French Consulate of Miami/French Embassy of the United States, will explore these and related questions by collecting a group of leading French philosophers and artists, along with other internationally distinguished scholars and artists from Europe and North America. The conference will be held December 3-4, 2007 at FAU’s Boca Raton campus and provides a timely theoretical background to the annual Miami-Basil international festival of contemporary art, which opens this year on December 6th, and a particularly appropriate introduction to the French art show " French Kissin' in the USA" / Scène émergente française présentant 17 artistes d’art contemporain (4 décembre – 31 mars 2008) which will be exhibited at the Moore Space in Miami.

The conference presentations will be in English or French, with English translations or resumés provided for the French lectures.

For more information, consult the Center’s website at /bodymindculture , write to us at bodymindculture@fau.edu , or phone 561-297-0851. The Center for Body, Mind, and Culture is housed in the Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters at FAU and directed by Richard Shusterman, the Dorothy F. Schmidt Eminent Scholar in the Humanities.

For practical information and directions to FAU and hotel, click here.

Speakers at FPCA 2007

Dominique Berthet – "Sartre et les arts plastiques de son temps"

Else Marie Bukdahl – "Lyotard between Philosophy and Art "

Curtis Carter – "Philosopher and Artist: Unsettled Boundaries"

Dominique Château – "De quelques relations atmosphériques entre la philosophie (française) et l’art (contemporain)"

Jean-Pierre Cometti – "Je n’en veux rien savoir! Ce que l’art dit à la philosophie et qu’elle n’entend pas"

Richard Conte – "Quel usage les artistes font’ils de la philosophie? "

Dorte Dahlin and Joachim Hamou – "Eye Thought Walked -- Nomad "

Marc Jimenez – "La philosophie de l’art face au défi technocientifique"

Christophe Kihm – "Art et économie: un malaise esthétique? "

Bernard Lafargue – "La philosophie trouble par les mille et une figures de la beauté"

Marie-Dominique Popelard and Anthony Wall – "Frank Stella lecteur de Denis Diderot "

For more information about conference presentations, click here.