Richard Hamilton, 'The Critic Laughs', 1971-72; 2014. Photo: Peter Osborne.
We are pleased to welcome Professor Peter Osborne on 23 March for the public lecture From Critics to Criticizability, from 5:00–6:30 PM!
For at least three decades now there has been talk of ‘a crisis of criticism’ in the artworld, following the loss of credibility of critical paradigms established in the mid-20th century. This has in part involved an apparently democratic reaction against the institutionalization of certain hegemonic forms of ‘judgment’ – both intellectually and institutionally. Yet its main effect has been to delegate judgment to the market.
This talk traces the so-called 'crisis of criticism' back to some artists' reactions against critics in the late 1950s and 1960s and their subsequent consequences in both the emergence of the artist-critic and the broader interpretative paradigm of Visual Culture. It asks: is there a truly intellectual crisis of art criticism or rather a crisis in the self-image of the critic? It suggests an alternative approach by returning to the question of the ‘criticizability’ of works themselves. What makes a work ‘criticizable’, rather than merely an object of commentary and subjective evaluation? What does it mean to criticize an artwork today?
The lecture is organised in collaboration with Centre for Research in Artistic Practice Under Contemporary Conditions at Aarhus University.
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INFO
Public lecture by Peter Osborne : From Critics to Criticizability
23 March, 2026
5:00–6:30 PM
Attendance is free, but registration for the event is necessary. Register through this Billetto link.
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ABOUT PETER OSBORNE
Peter Osborne is Professor of Modern European Philosophy at Kingston University London and the founding Director of the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy (CRMEP, 1993–present). From 1983 to 2016 he was an editor of the British journal Radical Philosophy. His books include The Politics of Time: Modernity and Avant-Garde (1995; 2011), Philosophy in Cultural Theory (2000), Conceptual Art (2002), Marx (2004), Anywhere or Not at All: Philosophy of Contemporary Art (2013), The Postconceptual Condition (2018) and Crisis as Form (2022). He has contributed catalogue essays for exhibitions at Manifesta 5, Tate Modern, Biennale of Sydney, Walker Art Center Minneapolis, Office of Contemporary Art Norway, National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design Oslo, Reina Sofia Madrid, MMK Frankfurt and the Robert Ryman show forthcoming at Barbican, London in autumn 2026.
