Creative Complex: Art, Legacy and Accountability
The idea of the eccentric, outrageous creative genius – the ‘mad, bad and dangerous to know’ artiste – has proved surprisingly durable over centuries.
It’s a mythology that has insulated a certain type of artist from public censure over bad private behaviour. Lately, though, the mood is far less forgiving for artists who have caused serious harm and hurt in their personal lives. But as a re-setting of standards takes place, we’re left with some wicked problems. As Ashleigh Wilson has written in his recent essay, On Artists: ‘If we denounce the artist, then what do we do with the work? Once we start removing paintings from walls, where do we stop?’
On 12 June at the Wheeler Centre, Wilson will be joined by Luke Carman and Shaad D’Souza for a broad discussion about accountability and creative legacies, in conversation with Bhakthi Puvanenthiran. They’ll talk addiction, mental illness and cults of personality in the arts, as well as cancel culture and boycotts in the era of #metoo.
Who decides what qualifies as bad behaviour? Are we on a slippery slope of moral panic? And while individuals can make up their own minds about the art they enjoy in private, how should public institutions and media navigate this tricky terrain?
Dymocks Camberwell will be our bookseller for this event.
Featuring
Ashleigh Wilson has been a journalist for almost two decades. He began his career at the Australian in Sydney before spending several years in Brisbane, covering everything from state politics to the Hollingworth crisis to indigenous affairs. He then moved north to become the paper’s Darwin cor... Read more
Luke Carman is the author of An Elegant Young Man, which won the 2014 NSW Premier’s New Writing Award and was shortlisted for the Australian Literature Society Gold Medal, the Steele Rudd Short Story Prize and the Readings New Writing Award. He was named a Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Nov... Read more
Shaad D’Souza is a writer, editor and critic from Melbourne. Currently the FADER‘s Australian News Editor, he has written on music, art and culture for publications including Pitchfork, the Guardian, the Saturday Paper, Billboard, i-D and New York Magazine. Shaad was previously Australian ed... Read more
Bhakthi Puvanenthiran is Managing Editor of Crikey, writing mainly on politics and the media. Previously Bhakthi was a journalist and editor at the Age and Sydney Morning Herald covering arts, entertainment and business. She co-hosted the podcast Hard Bargain, is a regular media commentator and s... Read more
