Host
Transmission: Host
Transmission: Host is a series of chapbooks derived from an annual lecture series organised by Fine Art at Sheffield Hallam University. Each week a different artist invites a guest speaker. The host selects, presents, and looks after his or her guest. A critical engagement between host and guest is assumed; what exactly that relationship is will be made evident through discussion. There is an ethics of hospitality, of making the stranger welcome. A host has a standard of conduct, and historically, hospitality has been seen as a code, a duty, a virtue, and a law. There is a bond between host and guest, and in the lecture series and the subsequent chapbooks, this bond is formed by the engagement in and the practice of art.
Dr Michael Corris is Professor of Fine Art at the Art and Design Research Centre Sheffield Hallam University. His art work may be found in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art, New York, The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, The Victoria and Albert Museum, London, Le Consortium, Dijon, MaMCO, Geneva, Staatsgalerie, Stuttgar t, and the J. P. Getty Museum and Research Institute, Los Angeles. Corris’ recent publications include Conceptual Art: Theory, Myth and Practice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004) and Ad Reinhardt (London: Reaktion, 2008).
Dr Jaspar Joseph-Lester and Dr Sharon Kivland are artists and writers. They are editors of the lecture and publication series: Transmission: Speaking and Listening, and started the new series of Transmission: Host chapbooks this year. They are guest editors of ‘Text and Art’, art-omma, the online art journal (www.ar t-omma.org, issue 11), and co- authored ‘Transmission’ in Dialogue, Issue 3, ‘Inside the interview: Exploring the workings of the ar tist’s interview’, July 2006 to January 2007.Co–chaired the Venice Agendas panel: ‘Is Art a Form of Debate?’ at the 2007 Venice Biennale.