2026 Regents’ Lecturer Events: Walead Beshty

Our 2026 Regents’ Lecturer events in Art History with the artist Walead Beshty are scheduled, for Mondays November 2, 16 and 30, in Royce Hall 306. All events will begin at 5:00 PM

Aesthetics, an open seminar
Walead Beshty

Artist and theorist Walead Beshty will lead a series of three open seminars organized around his forthcoming book, Worlds of Appearance: An Introduction to Aesthetics in Practice (University of Chicago Press, 2026), exploring the foundations of aesthetics, its use in reflexive disciplines in the field of art, and its emergent forms. The seminars are open to all and each session will consist of a lecture followed by open and exploratory discussion.

Session 1: Monday, November 2^nd, 5pm
The Circulation of Appearances: A General Aesthetic Model

Polis and the Commune – The Aesthetic Commons – Inclusion, Exclusion, and the Sensible – Perception and Modeling (Abstraction) – Communication (Transmission vs. Communion) – Tools and Extraction – Object and Thing – Apparatuses and Incorporation – Fit and Ritual – Convention – Power and Aesthetic Management – Empathy – Instrumental (Vernacular) Aesthetics/Aesthetics Under the Duress of Urgency

Session 2: Monday, November 16^th, 5pm
Artistic Conditions: A Special Aesthetic Model

Instrumentality vs. Reflexivity – Corporate Media Formats (A Special Case of Instrumentality) – Representation and Framing – Exhibition and Display as Representational Formats – Artistic Methodologies – The Readymade and Reframing – Misrecognition and Strategies of Estrangement – Allegory and Mis en abyme – Bricolage – Creolization – Counterfeiting, Piracy, and Shanzhai

Session 3: November 30^th, 5pm
Emergencies: On Information, Noise, and Emergent Forms

Information Theory – Neo-liberalism and Information Models – Information and Probability – Digitization – Correlation and Empathy – Meaning – Noise, the Parasite, and the Third – Noise as Resistance – The Aesthetics of Emergent Forms – The Appearance of the Excluded

Beshty’s book from which the seminars stem will be just out by November this quarter. A publication page is attached, and the link for the publication follows: https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/W/bo277099462.html