Lectures for Law in Society

The series of events "Lectures for Law in Society", newly founded by the Faculty of Law, aims to promote a well-founded exchange between legal science and society on current topics and challenges to national and international legal systems. In times of far-reaching problems, the Faculty of Law is concerned to strengthen the awareness that law and the rule of law are both fragile and indispensable achievements of human culture through critical debates. The lectures are to cover a broad, pluralistic spectrum of perspectives once a year.

The Swiss installation artist Thomas Hirschhorn was invited as the second guest of the event series. He gave a lecture on the topic of "Art or democracy!" at the University of Zurich on 23 April 2024 (see flyer (PDF, 2 MB)).

Analogous to the demand "Money or life!" in the event of a robbery, he will address the question of what it means to want to save both, i.e. to sacrifice neither art nor democracy. He will illustrate what this implies using images of the "Robert Walser Sculpture" (2019) and "Swiss-Swiss Democracy" (2004).

The public apéro afterwards provided an opportunity for questions and discussions.

Photos of the event will follow in the coming weeks.

The event was recorded and is available as a podcast.

Lukas Bärfuss: Rights of the Descendants (18 November 2021)