Workshop: “Materializing Transparency”, eikones Forum, University of Basel, 26th May 2023

The history of transparency can be summed up as a progression in materials from the mined to the man-made: by the early modern period, rock crystal and alabaster — celebrated in the ancient and medieval worlds for their vitreousness and translucency — could no longer compete with the increasingly reliable clarity of factory-produced flint glass, which would in turn cede its primacy as see-through matter to that of manufactured plastics, made fully synthetic by 1907. Tracing but also challenging such a narrative of technological change and obsolescence, this workshop investigates the possibilities and limitations of transparency in all its material instantiations, and from perspectives both transhistorical and theoretical. Case studies include gauze, celluloid, varnish, openwork caskets, optical lenses, polaroid film, mordants, and witch balls. Taking these examples as starting points for wide-ranging discussion, we will think together about how the physical properties of a clear substrate, glaze, or surface might prompt reflection on concepts such as in/visibility, opacity, transcendency, distortion, obstinancy (Eigensinn), racialization, disclosure, and access.

Scheduled to coincide with the release of two important new books on transparency, The Varnish and the Glaze: Painting Splendor with Oil, 1100-1500 (Chicago, 2023), by Marjolijn Bol, and Transparency: The Material History of an Idea (Yale, 2023), by Daniel Jütte, this workshop engages with current scholarship in the history of art, science, architecture, religion, museology, and conservation.

Supported by eikones, the NOMIS Foundation, and the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art.

Program: 26 May 2023

Location: Forum eikones, Rheinsprung 11, 4051 Basel

From 08:30 – Welcome – coffee in the foyer

09:00 – Ruth Ezra, Introduction

09:20 – Patrick Crowley, ‘The Wrong Side of Things’: Roman Reverse-Engraved Glass

10:00 – Manuela Beer, Difference in Transparency: Rock Crystal in Medieval Artefacts

10:40 – Coffee break

11:00 – Arne Leopold, Veiling the Gaze, Veiling the Material: Openwork Caskets and the Pretence of Transparency in the 13th Century

11:40 – Leena Crasemann, Veiling Space: Textiles’ Anti-matter

12:20 – Lunch break

13:20 – Elizabeth Rice Mattison, Acid, Water, Rust, and Process in Dürer’s Etchings

14:00 – Phillip Roberts, Richard Reeve and Alice Grove: A Night Language

14:40 – Coffee break

15:00 – Jennifer Y. Chuong, Tricky Transparency: Witch Balls in Nineteenth-Century America

15:40 – Yanning Ma, Can a picture be a terrarium? Transparency, vitality, and confinement in Victorian Britain (presenting online)

16:20 – Coffee break

16:40 – Kirsty Sinclair Dootson, Celluloid Skin: Transparency, Sensitivity, and the Racialization of Film

17:20 – Aïcha Revellat, So Transparent, So Opaque: Hannah Villiger’s Early Polaroid Pictures

18:00 – Comfort break

18:15 – Book talk: Marjolijn Bol, The Varnish and the Glaze (Chicago 2023), in conversation

19:00 – Apéro

NB. The workshop is open to all and no registration is required to join in person; papers will not be streamed online.

New Publication: ‘L’art medieval est-il contemporain? (Is Medieval Art Contemporary)’, ed. by Charlotte Denoel, Larisa Dryansky, Erik Verhagen, and Isabelle Marchesin

L’art médiéval est-il contemporain ?

Is Medieval Art Contemporary?

Edited by Charlotte Denoël, Larisa Dryansky, Erik Verhagen, Isabelle Marchesin

ISBN 978-2-503-59973-1

More Info: https://bit.ly/3Kq5iBk

This publication brings together essays by scholars of both medieval and contemporary art, offering a cross-disciplinary approach of both periods. It investigates how contemporary artists and contemporary art historians perceive medieval art, and, reciprocally, how medieval art historians envisage the echoes of medieval artforms and esthetics in contemporary art. The volume follows on from the symposium organized in conjunction with the exhibition “Make it New: Carte Blanche à Jan Dibbets” that was held at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (Paris) in 2019, and which presented side by side Hrabanus Maurus’s De Laudibus Sanctae Crucis (In Praise of the Holy Cross), a masterpiece of Carolingian art, with works by artists associated with conceptual art, mininimal art, and land art.

How and why has medieval art, and particularly early medieval art, inspired contemporary artists since the 1950s? What has medieval art contributed to contemporary art? How has medieval art’s treatment of figures, color, space, geometry, and rhythm provided inspiration for contemporary artists’ experiments with form? In what way does contemporary artists’ engagement with the topics of formatting, writing, semiosis, mimesis, and ornamentation draw inspiration from medieval models? To what extent and in what sense are the notions of authorship and performativity relevant for understanding conceptions of artmaking in both periods? Rather than focusing on medievalism and citational practices, or on the theory of images—both approaches having already produced an important body of comparative readings of medieval and contemporary art—the essays in this volume address the question of medieval art’s contemporaneity thematically, through three trans-chronological topics: authorship, semiosis and mathematics, and performance. Engaging the artists’ works as well as their writings, these studies conflate conceptual and esthetic perspectives.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Préface
Charlotte Denoël, Larisa Dryansky, Isabelle Marchesin et Erik Verhagen

Partie 1. Introduction

Au-delà des périodisations : Parcours passés et futurs potentiels
Nancy Thebaut

Partie 2. Auctoritas/authorship

Qui était Jean Fouquet pour François Robertet ? Une question d’auctorialité dans l’art de la fin du Moyen Âge
Elliot Adam
L’artiste conceptuel à son pupitre
Valérie Mavridorakis
Art conceptuel et scolastique : le Chêne de Michael Craig-Martin est-il thomiste ?
Benjamin Riado

Partie 3. Signe et mathématiques

“All form is a process of notation”: Hrabanus Maurus’s “exemplativist” art
Aden Kumler’
Les nombres de la forme et les formes du nombre. Essai sur les carolingiens et l’abstraction.
Isabelle Marchesin
Abstraction in Medieval Art: The Chiasm in Hagia Sophia
Bissera Pentcheva
Hollis Frampton, médiéval
Larisa Dryansky

Partie 4. Performance

La conversion du précieux sang : Gina Pane et la mystique médiévale
Janig Bégoc
Automata, Kineticism, and Automation: An Oblique History of Animacy in the Art of the Long 1960s
Roland Betancourt

Coda
Zoe Leonard’s Suitcases
Amy Knight Powell

Liste des contributeurs

Published in the new book series
Reinterpreting the Middle Ages
From Medieval to Neo
Edited by Emma J. Wells and Claire KennanMore Info: https://www.brepols.net/series/NEO

Call for Sessions: Association for Art History 2024 Annual Conference, Deadline: 30th June 2023

  • 3-5 April 2024
  • University of Bristol
  • Session proposal deadline: Friday 30 June 2023

2024 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Association for Art History. We are delighted to announce that next year’s conference will be held in collaboration with the History of Art department at the University of Bristol.

The Association for Art History’s Annual Conference brings together international research and critical debate about art history and visual culture. A key annual event, the conference is an opportunity to keep up to date with new research, hear leading keynotes, broaden networks and exchange ideas.

The Annual Conference attracts around 400 attendees each year and is popular with academics, curators, practitioners, PhD students, early career researchers and anyone engaged with art history research. Members of the Association get reduced conference rates, but non-members are welcome to attend and propose sessions and papers.

Scope/Provocation

History of Art at the University of Bristol originally emerged from the Department of Modern Languages, and we continue to be particularly invested in an interdisciplinary approach to transcultural exchange, across a period ranging from the middles ages to the present day. With an increasingly global focus, accounting for histories often marginalised in visual art, our framework includes materials, objects, bodies and institutions. For a ‘history of art’ department not much older than the AAH itself, the association’s fiftieth anniversary represents an opportunity to reflect on the transformation – and diversification – of the field, and to chart its future together. We particularly invite session proposals that address the state of the discipline, as well as those that engage with the broad theme of cross-cultural exchange. 

Session Proposals

The 2024 Annual Conference is open to all, members and non-members of the Association for Art History. Anyone can submit a session proposal. Please include in your session proposal:

  • Title of your session proposals
  • Brief abstract (max 250 words)
  • Name of session convenor(s)
  • Affiliations (or if independent/freelance)
  • Email of session convenors
  • Social media accounts (optional)


Please refer to the CALL FOR SESSIONS 2024 guidance for details on what to  include in your session proposal, complete the SESSION PROPOSAL FORM 2024 and email it to: conference2024@forarthistory.org.uk by Friday 30 June 2023.

Please find more information here.

Key Dates

DateActivity
30 JuneSessions proposal deadline  
28 JulySessions confirmed and convenors notified  
SeptemberSessions announced on AAH website and social media  
Oct – NovCall for papers  
DecemberSession convenors select papers and contact speakers  
31 January 2024Session and paper abstracts deadline  
FebruaryTickets go online  
3 -5 April 2024AAH Conference  

Call for Papers: Mary Jaharis Center Sponsored Panel, 7th Forum Medieval Art, Deadline: 29th May 2023

The Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture seeks proposals for a Mary Jaharis Center sponsored session at the 7th Forum Medieval Art/Forum Kunst des Mittelalters, Jena, September 25–28, 2024. The biannual colloquium is organized by the Deutsche Verein für Kunstwissenschaft e.V.

The theme for the 7th Forum Medieval Art is Light: Art, Metaphysics and Science in the Middle Ages. 

The Mary Jaharis Center invites session proposals that fit within the Light theme and are relevant to Byzantine studies. 

Session proposals must be submitted through the Mary Jaharis Center website. The deadline for submission is May 29, 2023.

If the proposed session is approved, the Mary Jaharis Center will reimburse a maximum of 4 session participants (presenters and session chair) up to $500 maximum for participants traveling from locations in Germany, up to $800 maximum for participants traveling from the EU, and up to $1400 maximum for participants traveling from outside Europe. Funding is through reimbursement only; advance funding cannot be provided. Eligible expenses include conference registration, transportation, and food and lodging. Receipts are required for reimbursement. The Mary Jaharis Center regrets that it cannot reimburse participants who have last-minute cancellations and are unable to attend the conference.

For a complete description of the theme, further details, and submission instructions, please visit https://maryjahariscenter.org/sponsored-sessions/7th-forum-medieval-art.

Please contact Brandie Ratliff (mjcbac@hchc.edu), Director, Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture, with any questions.

Please click here for more information.

British Archaeological Association student travel grants, deadline 25 May 2023

Applications for travel grants are invited from students registered on post-graduate degree courses (at M.A., M.Litt., M.St., M.Phil., and Ph.D. level). Grants of up to £500 are available to cover travel for a defined purpose (such as essential site visits, attendance at an exhibition/conference, short research trip, etc). The awards will be made twice yearly, with deadlines for applications on 15 March and 15 May.

Applicants are required to provide one reference, together with a timetable and travel budget, and the objective of the travel must fall within the Association’s fields of interest (as defined below). Applicants should either be registered at a UK University or be undertaking work on material from, in, or related to the art, architecture or archaeology of the British Isles. Applicants are also responsible for asking their nominated referee to forward a reference directly to the Hon. Secretary within one week of the closing date for applications.

An application form follows on the second page. Once complete, this should be sent as an email attachment to the Hon. Secretary on secretary@thebaa.org Funds are limited, so the awards are competitive. If successful, the Association expects candidates to write a short account (150-350 words) of the travel facilitated by the award that could be posted on the BAA website.

BAA STATEMENT OF INTEREST
The Association’s interests are defined as the study of archaeology, art and architecture from the Roman period to the present day, principally within Europe and the Mediterranean basin. The core interests of the BAA are Roman to 16th century. We only entertain applications that cover the 17th to 21st centuries if they are of a historiographical, conservationist or antiquarian nature and link back to the BAA’s core interests.

Find out more here.

Call for Papers: Witchcraft and Magic Symposium, University of York, 22nd – 23rd June 2023 (Deadline Early May 2023)

Applications are now open for this two-day conference exploring various aspects of witchcraft and magic from the medieval period (broadly defined) to the modern (to 1930). The conference will be held in the historic city of York, kindly hosted by the Centre for Renaissance and Early Modern Studies.
Applications should speak on the panels listed below, as well as individual submissions and
suggestions for additional panels.

Potential themes include, but are not limited to:

  • Magic/witchcraft and material culture
  • Magic/witchcraft and storytelling: verbal, testamentary, literary
  • Regional/temporal comparisons
  • Practices and discourses beyond the European / Christian paradigm
  • Animals and the supernatural
  • Space and place
  • Social impacts of witchcraft and magic

Submissions are encouraged from PGRs, ECRs and established academics. Please send your paper title and 250 word abstract to dm1483@york.ac.uk and t.h.j.stanmore@exeter.ac.uk. The deadline to
apply is 2nd May 2023 (flexible).

Pre-decided panels include (we welcome applications to speak on all of these):

  1. Witchcraft or Counter-witchcraft? Just a Matter of Opinion!
    The perception of witchcraft and what constitutes an act of witchcraft has changed
    throughout the centuries. From a heresy that needed to be obliterated to the
    fashionable occult power of the educated echelons of society that needed to be
    cherished, witchcraft has been perceived differently according to cultural
    background, social status, and historical periods. More specifically, what was perceived as an act of witchcraft (symbolising attack) by some, was perceived as an act of counter-witchcraft (symbolising protection) by others. This panel would like to interrogate this dichotomous perception.
  2. Witchcraft and Counter-witchcraft: material culture and ritual toolkits
    The physical manifestation of witchcraft and counter-witchcraft beliefs throughout
    the centuries has produced ritual ‘toolkits’ made up by charms, effigies, amulets,
    botanicals and many other objects connected to specific worldviews, landscapes and
    environments. Although many of these objects have been identified in the
    documentary evidence and a few have been found through archaeological evidence,
    many others still remain hidden in obscurity. This panel would like to expand the discourse on the material culture associated with witchcraft and counter-witchcraft through the comparison of evidence collected from a range of sources. Papers engaging with how such items are interpreted and displayed in museums and collections are also welcome.
  3. Space and place: The impact of the environment on fear, hope and belief
    What role does physical space have on reactions to, and belief in, magic and
    witchcraft? Shakespeare portrayed supernatural occurrences as largely happening in
    marginal places: moors, woodland and outside city boundaries. Is this an accurate
    representation of lived experiences of magic? Do social and physical marginalization
    overlap? How do changes in the environment affect people’s behaviour and beliefs?
    This panel will explore what a geographical approach can tell us about humans’
    relationship with the supernatural.
  4. Tolerance and deviance
    Benjamin Kaplan introduced the idea of ‘religious pragmatism’, arguing that, in the
    wake of the Protestant Reformation, people in divided communities still had to rub
    along with their supposedly heretical neighbours. Can this concept be applied to
    practitioners of magic as well? Scholarly focus has often been on the persecution and
    marginalisation of deviant individuals, but this may only be part of the story.
    This panel will explore instances of tolerance and acceptance of witchcraft and
    magic. We welcome scholars to approach this topic from any angle, ranging from
    archaeological evidence to jurisprudence, and history to literature.

Call for Submissions: Fenestella – Inside Medieval Art, Deadline: 30th June 2023

Fenestella is a scholarly and peer-reviewed open access journal. It is published by Milano University Press on OJS. Fenestella publishes scholarly papers on medieval art and architecture, between Late Antiquity and c. 1400, covering the Latin West, the Byzantine East and medieval Islam. The journal aims to consider medieval artefacts from within, as if seen through a fenestella confessionis, to throw light on iconography, function and liturgical practice and space.

Fenestella supports basic research. Papers on wide-ranging themes, critical reviews and studies of micro-topics are all welcome, as long as they contribute to the international debate. Fenestella accepts submissions in Italian, English, French, German and Spanish.

Issue 4/2023 has no specific topic. Please find more information about submissions here.

British Archaeological Association Research Awards, deadline 1 June 2023

The BAA invites applications for research awards of up to £1,500. These are designed to assist those who might otherwise have difficulty in funding or completing a research project and is therefore not open to students registered on degree courses, or those in full-time employment for whom research is an expectation written into their employment contract. The awards cover research with a defined outcome, such as publication, mounting of an exhibition, scientific analysis (in the case of scientific and/or technical analysis, we require the results of the analysis to be pAQublicly available). Research proposals for which some funding has already been obtained are eligible, though it should be shown that the additional funds for which you are applying to the BAA are sufficient to complete the research. Proposals contingent on additional future funding will not be supported. The deadline for applications is 1 June 2023.

Applicants are required to provide one reference, along with an anticipated research schedule and budget. The research proposal must fall within the Association’s fields of interest (as defined below). Applicants should either be ordinarily resident in the UK, or work on material from, in, or directly related to the art, architecture or archaeology of the British Isles.

An application form can be downloaded below. Once complete this should be sent as an email attachment to the Hon. Secretary on secretary@thebaa.org Funds are limited, so the awards are competitive.

BAA STATEMENT OF INTEREST
The Association’s interests are defined as the study of archaeology, art and architecture from the Roman period to the present day, principally within Europe and the Mediterranean basin. The BAA’s core interests run from the Roman era to the 16th century and embrace the study of these periods (historiographical, antiquarian, conservationist).

More information can be found here.

Call for Papers: Digitally Mapping the Middle Ages, Medieval Academy of America 2024 Annual Meeting (Deadline 30th May 2023)

Since the Spatial turn in the late 1980s, theorists and historians alike have championed the insights geospatial analysis can lend to historical research. The digital age produced a robust array of digital Geographical Information Systems (GIS) for just that purpose. And yet, the most significant obstacle most scholars interested in GIS face is knowing how to get started.

The papers in this MAA panel chart, from start to finish, the process of mapping the Middle Ages. The panel brings together researchers from across disciplines to reflect upon the possibilities of spatial modes of analysis as well as the process for constructing digital visualizations of spatial relationships to advance historical arguments. Each panelist will present ongoing research that involves substantial digital visualizations, tracing their work from conception, to research design, to data collection, to visualization program selection, to modeling and analysis.

Panelists will candidly discuss their processes for turning messy historical evidence into refined datasets and digital visualizations. To make the panel widely accessible, the panelists will assume no specific knowledge of the digital humanities or experience with GIS. This panel questions how the process of spatial analysis and GIS outputs can aid in historical inquiry, particularly research into the medieval period.

Please send abstracts of no more than 250 words together with a short bio to Eileen Morgan (emwmorgan@nd.edu) and Brittany Forniotis (brittany.forniotis@duke.edu) by May 30. Please include your name, title, and affiliation.

New Books Series: ‘The Senses and Material Culture in a Global Perspective’

The series aims to investigate paradigms of sensation in a global perspective, incorporating methods and tools derived from different disciplines including Sensory Studies, Material Culture Studies, and Disability Studies. It aims to bring together scholars to develop the notion of sensory agency of material objects and art through an interdisciplinary, combined examination of material and visual culture, sensory perception, and the social, cultural and moral values attributed to the senses. The series also seeks to develop notions of intrasensoriality and sensory diversity, acknowledging the variety of sensorial experiences. It adopts a transnational, global perspective, and a broad chronological framework, spanning from Prehistory until today.

Rather than promoting theoretical studies, it aims to encourage and welcome contributions rooted in the everyday lived experiences of individuals belonging to diverse social groups, categories and communities, including people with different ways of sensing. In this regard, the material culture of sensation will form a crucial part of the examination. Studies that focus on discourses on the senses in narrative and documentary texts, hence setting sensation against a broader interpretive background, will also be considered.

Fields of interest – History; History of Art; Archaeology; Anthropology; Sociology; Religious Studies; Sensory Studies; Material Culture Studies; Visual Culture Studies; Anthropology; Disability Studies

Chronological scope – Prehistory until today

Geographical scope – Global

Method of peer review – Double-blind undertaken by specialist members of the Board or external specialists

The series warmly welcomes volume proposals for both monographs and thematically coherent essay collections. Main language: English
Additional languages: French; Italian; Spanish Submissions should be sent to:

Zuleika Murat, University of Padua zuleika.murat@unipd.it

Find out more here: https://www.brepols.net/series/sensart