The Judgement of Paris
The Judgement of Paris investigates how artistic judgement is formed, how it changes over time, and what causes those changes.
What is admired, dismissed, radical, conventional, beautiful, difficult or important is never judged in isolation. Ideas, fashion, social values, institutions, economics, technology and inherited ways of seeing all contribute to the conditions in which judgements are made. As those conditions change, judgement can change with them.
The project examines moments when established values are challenged, reversed, forgotten or recovered. It asks what produces these shifts, how new ways of thinking acquire authority, and what happens to artworks, artists and histories as a consequence.
Developing through a series of distinct investigations, The Judgement of Paris brings historical and contemporary material into relation to explore a larger question: why do we see and value art differently at different moments in time?
Structure and Contexts.
Current Investigations.
Artistic judgement is not fixed. It moves with ideas, fashions, institutions, technologies, markets and social conditions. The Judgement of Paris follows these changes, using artworks and historical cases to examine not only what was judged differently, but why
Fragments (Forthcoming)
Beginning with the changing status of historic plaster casts, Fragments looks at how objects can move from admiration to rejection, destruction, rediscovery and renewed significance as artistic fashions, ideas and institutions change around them.
The investigation is only just beginning. It will develop through historical cases, contemporary artworks, research and institutional conversations, following not only what has been judged differently over time, but what caused those judgements to change.
unfolding further in the near future.