Who Decides What's Good? Art, Architecture, and Democracy

Brian T. Allen examines how critics, curators, funders, artists, and the broader public judge quality in art and architecture. Beauty, craftsmanship, originality, and a work's relationship to artistic tradition have long served as central--if now contested--standards, especially in public spaces or work supported by public funds. Drawing on exhibitions he has admired and abhorred, current disputes over Washington's civic architecture, and debates about government involvement in the arts, he weighs the new standards against the old and considers what happens when expertise, democratic authority, and popular judgment point in different directions.

Allen holds a PhD in art history from Yale University. He has been the director of the museum division of the New York Historical Society, director of the Addison Gallery of American Art in Andover, MA, and a curator at the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, MA. He also has experience in practical politics, having
served as chief of staff for the president pro tempore of the Connecticut General Assembly.

This in-person talk will also be live-streamed. The registration link for that is
https://cornell.zoom.us/webinar/register/WNJBTxqRgZTc-iZXkQwbcKgA