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The Soane Lecture Series HOGARTH: OBSERVER AND CRITIC2019 — 2020
Picture Gallery. Image Courtesy of Sir John Soane's Museum. Join us for a season of lectures that challenge us to rethink our role as observers and arbiters. Painter and printmaker William Hogarth (1697-1764) commented on the culture, politics, and bawdy social surroundings of daily life in 18th century London. His contemporary and fellow Royal Academician, Sir John Soane, viewed Hogarth as a powerful creative figure whose work defied classical norms, and had to be judged by a different standard. We will explore the ongoing legacy of art as a tool for social criticism as well as Hogarth’s attempts to define aesthetics through analytical diagrams and essays including The Line of Beauty. The Soane Foundation’s 2019-2020 Lecture Series coincides with the Museum’s exhibition Hogarth: Place and Progress, on view from October 9, 2019 – January 5, 2020. In this exhibition, supported in part by the Foundation, all of Hogarth's surviving painted series will be united for the first time to examine his complex views on morality, society and the city. Click here to visit the Museum’s website for more details.
Wednesday, 22 January 2020 
Kenneth Frampton Kenneth Frampton, renowned architect, critic, historian and Professor of Architecture at Columbia University, will discuss the role of criticism and theory in architecture today. He will be joined in conversation by Mary McLeod, Professor of Architecture at Columbia University. Mr. Frampton was the recipient of the 2019 Soane Medal, presented by Sir John Soane's Museum in recognition of architects, educators and critics who have made a major contribution to their field through practice, education, history or theory, and in doing so have furthered and enriched the public understanding of architecture. Please click here for more information about Mr. Frampton and his 2019 Soane Medal Lecture. Copies of the lecture will be available for purchase at Soane Foundation event on January 22, 2020. About Kenneth Frampton Kenneth Frampton is an architect, writer, critic, educator and academic who has shaped and informed the outlook of countless students and architects. Few architects practising today can claim not to have been influenced by his thinking and ideas, notably around issues of context and culture, as articulated in his seminal and still powerfully contemporary text ‘Towards a Critical Regionalism’ (1983). Other works such as Studies in Tectonic Culture (1995) and the many editions of Modern Architecture: A Critical History have driven the ways that we see, think about and understand modern architecture and its role in society. Born in 1930, Frampton trained as an architect at the Architectural Association School of Architecture, London. He has worked as an architect and as an architectural historian and critic, and is now Ware Professor at the Graduate School of Architecture, Preservation and Planning, Columbia University, New York. He has taught at a number of leading institutions in the field, including the Royal College of Art in London, the ETH in Zurich, the Berlage Institute in Amsterdam, EPFL in Lausanne and the Academia di Architettura in Mendrisio. He is the author of numerous essays on modern and contemporary architecture, and has served on many international juries for architectural awards and building commissions. His writings include Studies in Tectonic Culture (1995), Le Corbusier in the World of Art series (2001) and a collection of essays entitled Labour, Work and Architecture (2005).
Wednesday, 22 April 2020 Past 2019-2020 Events
Thursday, 14 November 2019 
Rendering by Mark Foster Gage. William Hogarth's The Analysis of Beauty (1753) is an innovative treatise on aesthetics, beauty and life. Central to Hogarth's argument is the idea of the "line of beauty". To Hogarth, the perfect form is the serpentine line which "by its waving and winding at the same time different ways, leads the eye in a pleasing manner along the continuity of its variety." For Hogarth, the creation of this line requires "the assistance of the imagination, or the help of a figure", among other things. Architect Mark Foster Gage will explore Hogarth's "line of beauty" as it is pulled into the 21st century. Through a discussion of both his own design work and scholarly writings Gage will make the case for a reignited understanding of aesthetics―one that casts aesthetics not as illusory, subjective, or superficial, but as a more encompassing framework for human activity. About Mark Foster Gage Architect to Lady Gaga and Nicola Formichetti, Gage has spent 20 years leading the digital architectural avant-garde. His work, which Harper’s Bazaar has called “effortlessly chic” and who has been labeled a “boundary breaker,” is a visionary for today. Filled with surprises and creations of wonder, such as a tower for New York’s 57th Street with mouthlike balconies on giant wings or a retail space bedecked with a hundred-faceted mirror, Gage’s work at once challenges expectations of what architecture might be and, as well, frequently fills one with a sense of excitement. In addition to leading his eponymous New York City practice, Gage is also the Assistant Dean of the Yale School of Architecture where his expertise is the field of contemporary aesthetic philosophy. Gage’s work is the subject of the monograph Mark Foster Gage: Projects and Provocations (Rizzoli, 2018), and he recently authored Designing Social Equality: Architecture Aesthetics and the Perception of Democracy (Routledge, 2018). He has edited several books including Aesthetics Equals Politics: New Discourses Across Art, Architecture and Philosophy (MIT, 2019), and Aesthetic Theory: Essential Texts (Norton, 2012)
Monday, 21 October 2019 
Rake's Progress III, William Hogarth. Image Courtesy of Sir John Soane's Museum. When John and Eliza Soane bought “A Rake’s Progress” at auction in 1802, they were participating in the rediscovery of Hogarth as a painter. Few of his paintings had come on the market in the previous half century, and Hogarth was chiefly known as an engraver. Over the next twenty years, Soane continued to add works by Hogarth to his collection, and “The Humours of an Election” as well as “A Rake’s Progress” are among the gems of Sir John Soane’s Museum. Soane equated the painter with Shakespeare in literature and Inigo Jones in architecture as seminal figures in the creation of a native school in their respective fields. In particular, Hogarth and Shakespeare were viewed by Soane as powerful creative figures, whose works defied classical norms and had to be judged by a different standard. They were members of a select pantheon of modern British worthies, in which Soane would probably have included himself. Thank you to our sponsors!A special thank you to our Corporate Underwriter Beyer Blinder Belle. Interested in sponsoring a lecture? Please contact Liz McEnaney at liz@soanefoundation.org. |