Jason Gaiger is Professor of Aesthetics and Art Theory at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of St Edmund Hall. His most recent book, Philosophy of Painting: Ancient, Modern, Contemporary (Bloomsbury, 2022), provides a historically informed analysis of the contemporary relevance of painting, showing how philosophical reflection can deepen our understanding of this enduring art form. His other books include Frameworks for Modern Art (Yale University Press, 2003), an English translation of Johann Gottfried Herder’s Sculpture (The University of Chicago Press, 2002), and, as co-editor, Art in Theory: 1648-1815 (Blackwell, 2000) and Art in Theory: 1815-1900 (Blackwell, 1998).

Jason will be discussing ‘Sculpture and the Haptic Imagination’ – how the viewer can imaginatively reconstruct the preceding and succeeding stages that lead up to and follow from the depicted moment and how this can extend to include fully abstract sculptural objects as responsive to an overtly temporal structure internal to the work itself.