Readings, Lectures, Talks, Debates - the best of December
29 November, 2011
by: Spoonfed Arts Team
Our selection of the five best talks, readings, lectures, debates and other wordy-based events taking place across London next month.
Friday 2nd & Saturday 3rd December
Holy Quarks @ Wellcome Collection
£30, from 7pm (Fri) & from 10.30am (Sat)
Despite the promise of Postmodernism, ideology is back, or perhaps it never went away. The relationship between science and religion is the clearest example – with suicide bombers on the one team, Richard Dawkins on the other, and a whole load of frothing bloggers and commenters somewhere in the middle. Well this weekend, the Wellcome hosts a two days of music, talks and discussions exploring this history and future of this angrily entangled relationship.
Monday 5th December
Curator's Talk – Gerhard Richter @ Tate Modern
£20, 6.30pm
Tate Modern's Gerhard Richter retrospective has been one of the most universally praised exhibitions of 2011, and this December they're putting on a special tour with one of the exhibition's curators. We're assuming Sir Nic, who co-curated the show, is busy, but nonetheless this should be a fascinating evening – not least because Richter is often a painter whose work requires a little explanatory information.
Wednesday 14th December
The Trouble with Art Criticism @ ICA
£12, 6.45pm
Art criticism – nebulous and heterogeneous as the concept is – always seems to want to find itself in crisis. Boring, overly theoretical, too much money, too little money, or, worst of all, irrelevant: these are the fears that dominate today's art critics. And certainly most critics out there are awful. One of the best though – JJ Charlesworth – is discussing his profession with The Guardian's Adrian Searle and others. Shame there's no Brian Sewell on the panel...
Thursday 15th December
Conversations on Progress @ Barbican
£6, 7.30pm
Good old Theodore Zeldin huh? The prominent multi-disciplinary thinker is known for many things, but perhaps his most interesting ideas concern the importance of conversation, about which he's written in the aptly titled, um, Conversation. And this month he's popping up at the Barbican as part of the programme of events accompanying the OMA show, to host an evening of conversation around the concept of progress.
Sunday 18th December
Philosophy Now 20th Anniversary @ Conway Hall
Free, from 11am
Philosophy Now magazine are celebrating their twentieth anniversary with a load of philosophy-based debates, lectures, workshops and games taking place over the course of a whole day at Conway Hall. It's all completely free, and highlights include a charity book sale, something called Philosophy Santa (amazing right!) and Professor Roger Scruton on the role of philosophy in everyday life.
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