A reception will follow in the galleries.
Lecture description: Since the dawn of time, humans have expressed many of their greatest fears and aspirations visually. Museums came about in the eighteenth century as compendia of these visual histories. But do they matter in the digital age? What can the act of close looking do for us in an era of constant media assault? What is the work of art (and how might it do its work) in a time of new authoritarian impulses? This Last Lecture will afford personal insights and argue for the enduring power of authenticity.
Dr. James Steward joined the Princeton University Art Museum as its director in April 2009. Steward directs a staff of 85 with an operating budget of $16 million and collections of over 92,500 works of art that span the globe and encompass over 5,000 years of world history. In addition, he serves as a lecturer with the rank of professor in the Department of Art & Archaeology, is a faculty fellow of Princeton’s Rockefeller College, and an honorary member of the Class of 1970. Prior to coming to Princeton, he served from 1998 to 2009 as director of the University of Michigan Museum of Art, where he oversaw the planning, construction, and fundraising for a major new building, recognized as one of the ten best new buildings for 2010 by the American Institute of Architects. Steward holds a B.A. from the University of Virginia and a doctorate in the History of Art from Trinity College, Oxford University.
