Leading Expert in Global Contemporary Art Terry Smith Begins Sotheby’s Residency at Carleton

Carleton University is pleased to welcome internationally renowned contemporary art expert Terry Smith to campus as he assumes the inaugural Sotheby’s Residency in Curatorial Studies.

Terry Smith is a leading voice in global contemporary art, and has been a major force in arguing for the importance of thinking about contemporary art in a global way. Smith argues that given the planetary challenges of climate change and the interconnectivity of the internet and media, we are in a moment of “contemporaneity,” which denotes both the contemporary moment and the inescapable feeling that we are connected to others on this planet.

During a series of events in Ottawa, he will discuss the key ideas underlying his widely read and often controversial books, including What is Contemporary Art?; Contemporary Art: World Currents ; and Thinking Contemporary Curating.

Thinking Contemporary Art; Curating Contemporaneity

When: Thursday, Sept. 25, 2014 at 6 p.m.
Where: National Gallery of Canada, 380 Sussex Drive, Ottawa

This event is free and open to the public. No registration is required. Media are invited to attend.

This residency is sponsored by Sotheby’s; the Centre for Transnational Studies; the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences; the Institute for Comparative Studies in Literature, Art, and Culture, Migration and Diaspora Studies; the School for Studies in Art and Culture; and the Carleton University Art Gallery, and is presented in partnership with the National Gallery of Canada.

About Terry Smith:

Terry Smith is the Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Contemporary Art History and Theory in the Department of the History of Art and Architecture at the University of Pittsburgh; and Distinguished Visiting Professor, National Institute for Experimental Arts, College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales. In 2010 he was named Australia Council Visual Arts Laureate and won the Mather Award for art criticism conferred by the College Art Association. In 2001 and 2002 he was a Getty Scholar at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles. In 2007 and 2008 he was the GlaxoSmithKlein Senior Fellow at the National Humanities Research Centre, Raleigh-Durham, and in 2014 the Clark Fellow at the Clark Institute, Williamstown. From 1994 until 2001 he was Power Professor of Contemporary Art and Director of the Power Institute, Foundation for Art and Visual Culture, University of Sydney. In the 1970s he was a member of the Art & Language group in New York and a founder of Union Media Services in Sydney. For more information visit http://www.terryesmith.net.