Handwerker Hosts Forum Talk

The Handwerker Gallery Critical Forum series will feature a talk on Thursday, December 7, by art critic and theorist Carol Duncan. Her lecture, "Death in the Museum," will be held at 5:00 p.m. in the gallery. It is free and open to the public.

One of the strongest feminist voices in "new art history," Duncan is also one of the pioneers of a new sociopolitical approach to art history and criticism. Her talk will explore the use of art museums as a form of donor memorial, a practice taken up by collectors in both Europe and America in the 19th century. She will discuss how this development was related to new burial practices and changing attitudes toward death.

Duncan teaches art history at Ramapo College of New Jersey. Her books include The Aesthetics of Power: Essays in the Critical History of Art (Cambridge University Press, 1992), which was selected for the New Jersey Humanities Book Award by the New Jersey Council for the Humanities, and Civilizing Rituals: Inside Public Art Museums (London: Routledge, 1995), which was awarded a grant for completion from the American Council of Learned Societies.