Arthur Danto to speak at Wadsworth Atheneum Saturday afternoon

Wadsworth Atheneum
600 Main St., Hartford, (860) 278-2670
Critic Talk: Arthur Danto
Sat., Apr. 10, 2010, 2 p.m.

Press release

Arthur Danto, former art critic for The Nation and author of numerous books on the philosophy of art, will be at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art on Sat., Apr. 10, to host a talk at 2 p.m. on his influential theories regarding the works of Andy Warhol.

Danto will read from his newest publication, Andy Warhol (Yale University Press, 2009), with a special focus on the Warhol silkscreens in the Wadsworth's own collection, including "Triple Silver Disaster" (1963), "Early Colored Jackie" (1964) and "Camouflage Self-Portrait" (1986).

Selected as one of the "Best Art and Photography Books" of 2009 by Rachel Wolff in The Daily Beast, Danto's work delivers a compact, masterful tour of Andy Warhol's personal, artistic, and philosophical transformations. He traces the evolution of the pop artist, including his early reception, relationships with artists such as Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, and the Factory phenomenon. Danto draws upon his encyclopedic knowledge of Warhol's time and presents Warhol as an endlessly multidimensional figure-artist, political activist, filmmaker, writer, philosopher-who retains permanent residence in our national imagination.

Now Johnsonian Professor Emeritus Philosophy, Arthur Danto taught at Columbia University for 26 years. Danto is the recipient of many fellowships and grants including a Fulbright Scholarship, two Guggenheim Fellowships and an American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) Award. He has been published in numerous journals and is the author of several books on art criticism and aesthetic theory, including Encounters and Reflections: Art in the Historical Present (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1990), Beyond the Brillo Box: The Visual Arts in Post-Historical Perspective (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1992), and The Madonna of the Future: Essays in a Pluralistic Art World (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2000). He was art critic for The Nation from 1984 to 2009,and an editor of the Journal of Philosophy and a contributing editor of the Naked Punch Review and Artforum.

The Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art is located at 600 Main St. in Hartford, Connecticut. The Museum is open Wednesdays to Fridays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturdays and Sundays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Please visit www.wadsworthatheneum.org for more information.