On the Aesthetics of Art Collections
Thursday, 04 June 2026, 16:30-18:30
Senate House, Room 264
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Philosophical aesthetics has generally taken the individual artwork as its primary object, while giving far less attention to the collections through which artworks are preserved, displayed, and experienced. As a result, art collections remain undertheorised despite their central role in artistic and cultural life. This paper argues that collections should be treated not merely as settings for artworks, but as philosophically significant objects of aesthetic inquiry.
Part of the difficulty is that collections fit uneasily within dominant aesthetic frameworks. I identify four obstacles. Collections are ontologically elusive: they are neither mere aggregates nor unified objects in any simple sense, since their identity depends on ongoing relations of selection, arrangement, and persistence through time. They also appear hard to reconcile with the ideal of aesthetic disinterestedness, given its connection to acquisition and possession. At the same time, object-centred models of appreciation struggle to capture the emergent properties of collections and the aesthetic significance of collecting as a practice. Finally, philosophical attention to collections has often been drawn instead to ethical and political questions, especially those concerning ownership, restitution, and cultural authority.
I argue that these apparent difficulties stem from assumptions within philosophical aesthetics that have obscured what collections are and how they matter aesthetically. Collections can possess aesthetic value as structured wholes, shaped by how works are selected, arranged, and brought into coherent and interpretively significant relation. The paper thus offers a diagnostic account of the assumptions that have impeded the analysis of collections and argues for their place within philosophical aesthetics.
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Following NHS guidance, all attendees are strongly encouraged to be vaccinated (including boosters) against Covid-19, unless medically exempt. Our group is diverse; please continue to be considerate of those who wear face coverings and those who don’t. Thank you.