Where would we be as a culture if no-one was prepared to risk coming across as pretentious? Absolument nowhere, darling – that's where.'
Jarvis Cocker
We are very pleased to invite you to our first Friction Talks event of 2016 and to introduce our first speaker Dan Fox, discussing his new book Pretentiousness: Why It Matters.
Author, musician, and co-Editor of frieze - the leading magazine in contemporary art and culture - Fox is an innovative and provocative writer. Based in New York, he has previously held a lectureship at the Ruskin School of Art and is a co-founder of the label Junior Aspirin Records.
Pretentiousness: Why It Matters explores the history of the word and the way we relate to the concept in our culture. What does it mean to be pretentious? And why are we so frightened of it? Fox argues that pretentiousness has always been a vital mechanism for the arts, from fashion and pop through to the most obscure fringes of the avant-grade. He also plots his own route from Wheatley, where he grew up 'dreaming big in a small town', to Manhattan, as well as the way his 'pretentious ambition' of going to art school in Oxford changed his life forever.
Friction Talks is proud to host an evening with Dan Fox at 7.00pm on February 18th at Quarter Horse Coffee, 76 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JB, when he will be in conversation with author James Attlee.
Pre-book on Eventbrite: to be sure of a place click here
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/dan-fox-on-pretentiousness-tickets-20872229400
The event will be free, but there is limited space so please arrive early to avoid disappointment. Doors open at 6.30pm
The Friction team
‘Pretentiousness: Why It Matters is... a lucid and impassioned defence of thinking, creating and, ultimately, living in a world increasingly dominated by the massed forces of social and intellectual conservatism. I totally loved the book.’
— Tom McCarthy, author of Satin Island
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