Critical Limits: On Difficulty and Emotion in Contemporary Art

“Critical Limits: On Difficulty and Emotion in Contemporary Art”
January 24, 2011, Arts 160, 12pm
Arts Building, McGill University, 853 Sherbrooke Street West

a talk by Jenny Doyle

Abstract: This talk imports the term "difficulty" from poetics to look at contemporary art often identified as controversial. This is new work from a forthcoming Duke University Press book which offers a critical model sensitive to the complexity of emotion as it unfolds around certain art works - it aims to shift conversation away from terms like "controversy" in order to open up space for arguing the meaning and importance of those artworks which challenge both audiences and the critical apparatus.