Nation critic Danto to speak May 2

Well-known philosopher and art critic Arthur Danto will present the lecture “The Body in Philosophy, Art and Life” at UW–Madison.

The free public lecture at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, May 2, L160 Elvehjem Museum of Art, 800 University Ave., is sponsored by the Center for the Humanities.

Danto, art critic for The Nation and emeritus Johnsonian Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University, will talk about the differences between the way the human body is represented in philosophy and in art. Danto has been influential in the discussion of the classic problem of how one decides whether something is a work of art, and made waves 25 years ago by declaring that art came to an end in the 1960s.

Danto is the author of numerous books, including “Encounters and Reflections: Art in the Historical Present,” a collection of art criticism that won the National Book Critics Circle Prize for Criticism, 1990.

For information, call (608) 263-3409.