forums & salons
Arts & Society Forum
The Arts & Society Forum was established in 2011 and meets every 4-8 weeks, about 6 times a year, to discuss issues and controversies relating to the state of the arts today. Have the arts lost sight of the importance of making judgements about good and bad? Are all arts equal or are some arts better at expressing the human condition than others? Is the arts establishment elitist? Should the arts be more accessible? Should they be used to serve social and economic purposes?
We like to get under the skin of contemporary relativism, and test various philosophical perspectives. Each discussion starts with an introduction from an invited speaker, followed by informal (and sometimes heated) discussion.
Topics discussed recently include futurism and innovation, radical theatre, performance art, film as art or entertainment, poetry and politics, graphic novels as literature, the future of classical music, reading and writers. If you would like to check us out and join the discussion, check our Facebook page or join the mailing list by getting in touch with Wendy Earle.
Meeting attendance is usually free. Any charge is just to cover the cost of the room if necessary
events archive
The art of collage: present and past, part 2
7:00pm, Wednesday 18 November
What future for the arts in the post-lockdown world?
7:00pm, Thursday 6 August
Classical inspirations: JS Bach and Helmut Lachenmann
7:30pm, Tuesday 28 July
Morality and Hell: the power of Dante’s Inferno
7:30pm, Wednesday 8 July
The Art of Composition: Gericault and Picasso
7:30pm, Thursday 18 June
The shock of the old: Steven Berkoff’s ‘Greek’
7:00pm, Thursday 28 May
The novel lives!
7:00pm, Tuesday 12 May
The tragic imagination in poetry
7:00pm, Tuesday 14 April
Dido Powell’s London art museum tours 2020
10:45am, Sunday 22 March
From symbol to individual: a gallery tour
11:00am, Sunday 13 October 2019
Dido Powell’s London gallery tours, 2018-19
11:00am, Sunday 2 June 2019
Book discussion: Coming Up for Air by George Orwell
7:00pm, Monday 2 July 2018
Great Apes: are human beings overrated?
5:30pm, Saturday 7 April 2018
Dido Powell’s London gallery tours
10:30am, Sunday 19 November 2017
Will campaigns against cultural appropriation destroy the arts?
6:30pm, Friday 10 November 2017
What future for the arts?
7:00pm, Tuesday 20 June 2017
The Arts and the Public
7:00pm, Monday 8 May 2017
Understanding Art
6:30pm, Friday 28 April 2017
Democracy and the arts in Europe: artists in a global world
7:00pm, Tuesday 28 March 2017
On Cosmopolitanism
7:00pm, Tuesday 20 September 2016
Keeping Their Marbles
7:00pm, Tuesday 19 April 2016
The Power of Reading
7:00pm, Monday 1 February 2016
Notes on the Death of Culture: Essays on Spectacle and Society
7:00pm, Monday 7 December 2015
A good read: Reading Lolita in Tehran
7:00pm, Monday 24 August 2015
Brecht and the need to alienate the Public
7:00pm, Monday 6 July 2015
Realism on stage: the individual vs society
7:00pm, Monday 8 June 2015
Comedy, satire and social critique in pre-revolutionary France
7:00pm, Monday 18 May 2015
English Medieval and Renaissance Drama: creating the audience
7:00pm, Monday 27 April 2015
How should we look at photographs?
7:00pm, Monday 9 March 2015
Tell it like it is? Sincerity and (In)authenticity today
7:00pm, Monday 27 October 2014
Is architecture an art?
7:00pm, Monday 22 September 2014
Being Cultured: in defence of discrimination
7:00pm, Monday 23 June 2014
Kenneth Clark’s Civilisation
7:00pm, Monday 12 May 2014
Connoisseurship in Art
7:00pm, Monday 17 March 2014
Technology and art
7:00pm, Monday 25 November 2013
Politics and poetry: the Romantic Imagination
7:00pm, Monday 9 September 2013
Graphic novels
7:00pm, Monday 29 July 2013
Has cinema transformed entertainment into art?
7:00pm, Monday 24 June 2013
What do readers do?
7:00pm, Monday 13 May 2013
Conceptual art: what is it and is it any good?
6:45pm, Monday 11 March 2013
Arguing for theatre
6:45pm, Monday 4 February 2013
What is music?
6:15pm, Tuesday 18 September 2012
What is Literature?
7:00pm, Monday 18 June 2012
Transcendence – Lost and Found?
7:00pm, Monday 23 April 2012
Great art for everyone?
6:30pm, Monday 5 March 2012
The Death of the Critic
6:30pm, Monday 30 January 2012
Is Art a Craft or vice versa?
6:30pm, Tuesday 22 November 2011
John Berger’s ‘Ways of Seeing’
6:30pm, Wednesday 5 October 2011
The Eclipse of Art?
6:30pm, Thursday 8 September 2011
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