Painting has since the 1990´s been regarded as an accepted - and even radical - form of social, conceptual and institutional critique. It came into fashion again under the slogan of network painting, a loose term which imagined the artist´s personal social sphere, and the passage of the art work within it, as intrinsic to the work´s materials and meanings. While finally breaking with the modernist idea of a pure and clearly delimited medium, this approach introduced new problems. It delivered precisely those social relations that today´s new economy is busy absorbing. Avery Singer´s paintings will be presented as a way of addressing, even dramatizing these problems artistically without offering a way out or a solution.

Isabelle Graw teaches art history at the Academy of Fine Arts, Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main. Among her most recent publications are "High Price. Art between the Market and Celebrity Culture" (2010), "Texte zur Kunst. Essays, Reviews, Interviews (2011), "Thinking through Painting: Reflexivity and Agency beyond the Canvas" (co-editor, 2012) and "Über Malerei. Eine Diskussion" (with Peter Geimer, 2012)

Der Vortrag findet in englischer Sprache statt.