Book Launch – Artists’ Things: A Conversation about Everyday Objects and the Paris Art World
- Region: All Regions
- Type: Talk
- Cost: Free
Artists are makers of things. Yet it is a measure of the disembodied manner in which we generally think about artists that we rarely consider the everyday items they own. Katie Scott and Hannah William’s innovative book, Artists’ Things: Rediscovering Lost Property from Eighteenth-Century France, looks at objects that once belonged to artists, to reveal not only the fabric of the 18th-century art world in France but also unfamiliar—and sometimes unexpected—insights into the individuals who populated it.
In this virtual book launch, the authors present object case studies that allow them to engage with fundamental historical debates about production, consumption, and sociability through the lens of material goods owned by artists.
They are joined by curators David Pullins and Marie-Laure Buku Pongo as well as the Getty Research Institute’s Nancy Um for a conversation about their methodological approach to material histories; the collection, display, and provenance of artists’ objects in museums; and the book’s digital open-access publication platform.