A lecture by artist Benoît Maire and Jonathan Lahey Dronsfield
Presented in collaboration with Hollybush Gardens.
‘Differend’ commonly refers to a debate between two or more people about (among other things) matters of opinion and interests on which they disagree. One can say for example: “They have a differend on this or that topic.” The word has been used since the Middle Ages, though it originally had the more precise meaning of the difference between the price requested and the price offered in a commercial transaction; Jean-François Lyotard gave it its philosophical shape in his 1983 book, simply titled The Differend – where he defines it: ‘As distinguished from a litigation, a differend would be a case of conflict, between (at least) two parties, that cannot be equitably resolved for lack of a rule of judgment applicable to both arguments’
This lecture connects to Benoît Maire’s exhibition of the same title at Hollybush Gardens, London. Maire also appears with a collaborative work made with Falke Pisano at the ICA, London in For the Blind Man in the Dark Room Looking For the Black cat That Isn’t There.
Dr. Jonathan Lahey Dronsfield is a Reader in Theory & Philosophy of Art at the University of Reading. He has written extensively on continental philosophy and art theory and on the relation of art’s resistance to ethics and has forthcoming books on Derrida and the Visual and Headlessness (with Thomas Hirschhorn and Marcus Steinweg).
Downloads:
Audio podcast – available soon.
Transcript (pdf) – available soon
Links:
Hollybush Gardens, London.
