David Raskin, 'Getrude DIscipline Lecture: 'Hiroshi Suhimoto's Inhuman Photographs' 

Abstract:
In asking why responses to Sugimoto’s photographs turn on a dime from awe to scorn, I suggest that these strange works of art manage to escape human desires. My hope is that by moving the conversation away from entrenched dichotomies such as aesthetics or anti-aesthetics and toward an analysis of the nature of objects and feelings, I can suggest the ethical and practical consequences of inhuman art.

Biogrpahy: 
David Raskin is Mohn Family Professor of Contemporary Art History at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and Editor-in-Chief of caa.reviews. He is author of Donald Judd (Yale University Press, 2010), and other scholarly publications, including essays on Noriyuki Haraguchi, Ad Reinhardt, Jo Baer, Olle Baertling, Enrique Martínez Celaya, Carl Andre, and pragmatic aesthetics. He is currently Visiting Fellow at the United States Study Centre, University of Sydney, Australia.

Raskin’s visit to Australia has been supported by the United States Study Centre, University of Sydney.

The Gertrude Contemporary–Discipline Contemporary Art Lecture Series is a collaboration between Melbourne based contemporary art journal Discipline and Gertrude Contemporary. Established in April 2013, the series presents lectures on key concerns, artists and theories of contemporary art. Invited lecturers speak from the perspective of a variety of different disciplines — including philosophy, cultural studies, art history and literary studies — as well as from academic and non-academic backgrounds.

Image: Hiroshi Sugimoto, Gemsbok, 1982. Gelatin silver print. 41.9 x 54.61 cm. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Media release here.