CONF: Black Collectivities @ Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago

May 3–4, 2013

How do collaboratives created by cultural practitioners of African descent provide new perceptions, understandings, and forms of practice? This conference brings together key individuals from around the globe, including Otolith Group cofounder Kodwo Eshun, artists Theaster Gates and Rick Lowe, musician George Lewis, and Tate Gallery curator Elvira Dyangani Ose, among others, to broach this timely question. Organized by Huey Copeland, Associate Professor at Northwestern, and Naomi Beckwith at the MCA.

On Friday at the Block Museum, Kodwo Eshun and Rick Lowe provide the keynote conversation, moderated by Naomi Beckwith. All other speakers listed below are featured in conversations on Saturday at the MCA, along with a conference wrap up panel moderated by Huey Copeland.

Conference participants include:

• Naomi Beckwith
• Huey Copeland
• John Corbett
• Romi Crawford
• Elvira Dyangani Ose
• Kodwo Eshun
• Theaster Gates
• George Lewis
• Rick Lowe
• Cauleen Smith
• Blake Stimson
• Claire Tancons

http://www2.mcachicago.org/event/event-past-10/

SYMP: Women in American Art @ PAFA

Saturday, February 23rd, 2013

In conjunction with The Female Gaze: Women Artists Making Their World │ November 17, 2012 – April 7, 2013

PAFA Graduate Student  Symposium: Women in American Art

10:00 am – 4:00 pm, Auditorium in the Historic Landmark Building
This graduate symposium offers an opportunity for area graduate students to present new research on a particular artist or group of artists in American Art. Featuring original papers presented by graduate-level students at the University of Delaware, University of Pennsylvania, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, Princeton University, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and Temple University, the program will conclude with a panel discussion by illustrious scholars of American Art. (Act 48 credit available for educators.)

Registration: $15 (includes admission). Free for members.

Register online

http://www.pafa.org/museum/Education/General-Adult-Audiences/Symposia/1286/

 

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

10:00 a.m.       Welcome and Opening Remarks, Dr. Robert Cozzolino

10:30 a.m.       Interior Exposures:Women and the Practice of Home Portraiture, 1885-1920 (Marina Isgro, University of Pennsylvania)

10:55 a.m.       Super Housekeeping? Dorothy C. Miller’s Curatorial Career at MoMA (Karli Wurzelbacher, University of Delaware)

11:20 a.m.       Circulating Abstraction: The Portability and Commercial Success of Women Artists’ Abstract Expressionist Prints (Christina Weyl, Rutgers University)

11:45 a.m.       Q & A, Moderated by Curator of Historical American Art at PAFA, Dr. Anna O. Marley

12:15 p.m.       Lunch Break

1:00 p.m.         Curators and Educators available for conversation in PAFA’s Historic Cast Hall, the Permanent Collection, and The Female Gaze exhibition

 

2:00 p.m.         The ‘Dumb’ Objects of Vija Celmins (Frances Jacobus-Parker, Princeton University)

2:25 p.m.         Where It Was, I Shall Come To Be: Shadows and Absences in The Female Gaze Show (Abby King, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts)

2:50 p.m.         She Works Hard for the Money: Flashy Patterns and Glittering Surfaces by Mickalene Thomas (Sophie Sanders, Tyler School of Art, Temple University)

3:15 p.m.         Q & A, moderated by Senior Curator and Curator of Modern Art at PAFA, Dr. Robert Cozzolino

 

3:45 p.m.         Faculty Roundtable Response  including Michael Leja (University of Pennsylvania), Camara Holloway (University of Delaware), Joan Marter (Rutgers University), Rachael DeLue (Princeton University), Jennifer Zwilling (Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts) and Susanna Gold (Tyler School of Art, Temple University).

CONF: Mapping: Geography, Power, and the Imagination in the Art of the Americas @ NYU

March 7-8, 2013

Focusing on the North and South American landscape in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the conference will explore mapping as a conceptual and artistic practice from a hemispheric perspective. While scholarship has generally used the date of 1900 and the border between the United States and Mexico to mark distinct fields, this event seeks to foster a dialogue between disciplines traditionally separated by such temporal and geographic boundaries. How can the “map” as an intellectual model both unite diverse cultures and modes of knowledge as well as highlight their differences? Though maps are often taken as straightforward, objective configurations, they can also expose deeply subjective frameworks with social, political, and economic significance. Whether considering mapping as a traditional cartographic system representing the land or as a contemporary scientific approach to visualizing the body, maps allow for the unique diagramming of relationships between people and spaces, objects and time, vision and knowledge. The conference will use the concept of map-making as “world-making” in order to examine the ways in which power, place, and cultural traditions intersect and come into conflict.

Organized by Jennifer Raab (IFA/Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow, 2011 – 2013) with Kara Fiedorek and Elizabeth Frasco (IFA Ph.D. students)

For a detailed conference agenda with abstracts:
http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/fineart/research/mellon/mellon-mapping.htm

This event will be streamed live on:
http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/fineart/events/livestream.htm

PARTICIPANTS:

Keynote Speakers:
Jennifer L. Roberts (Professor of History of Art and Architecture, Harvard University)
Irene V. Small (Assistant Professor of Art and Archaeology, Princeton University)

Curatorial Roundtable:
Richard Aste (Curator of European Art, Brooklyn Museum)
Peter John Brownlee (Associate Curator, Terra Foundation for American Art, Chicago)
Dennis Carr (Carolyn and Peter Lynch Curator of American Decorative Arts and Sculpture, Art of the Americas, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)
Deborah Cullen (Director and Chief Curator, Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Art Gallery, Columbia University)
Georgiana Uhlyarik (Assistant Curator, Canadian Art, Art Gallery of Ontario)

Graduate Student Speakers:
Cabelle Ahn (Courtauld Institute of Art)
Layla Bermeo (Harvard University)
Lauren Jacks Gamble (Yale University)
Sean Nesselrode (Institute of Fine Arts, New York University)
Gabriela Piñero (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City)
D. Jacob Rabinowitz (Institute of Fine Arts, New York University)
Caroline Riley (Boston University)
Oliver Shultz (Stanford University)
Catalina Valdés Echenique (École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris)

RSVP
This event is open to the public, but an RSVP is required. To make a reservation for this event, please click here:
http://tinyurl.com/IFAmapping
Your RSVP will apply to both days of the conference. Please note that seating in the Lecture Hall is on a first-come first-served basis with RSVP. A reservation does not guarantee a seat in the lecture hall. We will provide a simulcast in an adjacent room to accommodate overflow. This event will also be streamed online.

This conference is made possible through support from the Terra Foundation for American Art and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

SYMP: Beyond the Proclamation: Interpreting Emancipation for Today’s Youth

There will be symposium which will feature presentations by museum professionals, artists, and educators on teaching and engaging K-12 audiences in conversations about the  EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION, as well as other complicated topics in history.

Entitled Beyond the Proclamation: Interpreting Emancipation for Today’s Youth, this symposium is jointly hosted by Independence National Historical Park, Friends of Independence National Historical Park, National Park Service, the Library Company, and the African American Museum in Philadelphia, and University of Delaware’s President’s Diversity Initiative and University Museums.

In honor of the 150th Anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, this symposium will look beyond the historical facts to explore creative ways that difficult topics in history can be taught.

Panelists and presenters will address the incorporation of multiple teaching techniques for a variety of learning styles for a richer classroom experience. Attendees will have the opportunity to interact with their peers and the panelists.

Participating Teachers will be able to earn Act 48 Credits for attending this symposium.  Please fill out the educator section of the registration form to receive credit.

Panelists and presenters include:

Panel 1 – Reaching Students in the Classroom and in the Field
·         Introduction by Erica Armstrong Dunbar, Ph.D.,Director of the Program in African American History, The Library Company of Philadelphia
·         Museum Programs: Naomi Coquillon, National Museum of American History
·         Experiential Learning: Michelle Evans, Conner Prairie Interactive History Park
·         K-12 Educator: Amy Cohen, Julia R. Masterman Laboratory and Demonstration School
·         Reference Librarian: Krystal Appiah, The Library Company of Philadelphia

Panel 2 – Bringing History Alive Through Literature and the Arts
·         Introduction by Denise Valentine, Storyteller
·         Visual Arts: Jerry Pinkney, Artist
·         Games: Amy Hillier, The Ward: Mapping Race and Class in DuBois’ Seventh Ward
·         Children’s Literature: Cynthia Levinson, Author
·         Performing Arts: Michael Bobbitt, Adventure Theatre

*Benjamin Filene, co-editor of Letting Go? Sharing Historical Authority in a User-Generated World, will be the keynote speaker.

When: Saturday February 23, 2013 from 8:00 AM to 3:00 PM EST
Where: WHYY Philadelphia Offices, 150 North 6th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19106
Contact: Friends of Independence National Historical Park,  215-861-4971, attn@friendsofindependence.org
Registration is $70. Discounts are available for members of the hosting organizations.

The registration link for the symposium is here: http://events.constantcontact.com/register/event?llr=zfvkdvcab&oeidk=a07e6u90n3n2b6f24ff

Contact information:

Ivan D. Henderson
Curator of Education
University Museums
University of Delaware
203 Mechanical Hall
30 North College Avenue
Newark, DE 19716

EMAIL: ihenders@udel.edu

PHONE: 302-831-8047
FAX: 302-831-8057
WEB: www.udel.edu/museums

CFP: “Mapping: Geography, Power, and the Imagination in the Art of the Americas” @ Institute of Fine Arts, NYU

Institute of Fine Arts at New York University

March 7 – 9, 2013

Deadline: December 7, 2012

Symposium – “Mapping: Geography, Power, and the Imagination in the Art of the Americas”

CALL FOR PAPERS

The Institute of Fine Arts is pleased to announce the upcoming graduate student conference, “Mapping: Geography, Power, and the Imagination in the Art of the Americas,” which will include keynote lectures by Jennifer Roberts (Harvard University) and Irene Small (Princeton University).

This international graduate student symposium will focus on the North and South American landscape in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and seeks to explore mapping as a conceptual and artistic practice from a hemispheric perspective. How can the “map” as an intellectual model both unite diverse cultures and modes of knowledge as well as highlight their differences?

Whether considering mapping as a traditional cartographic system representing the land or as a contemporary scientific approach to visualizing the body, maps allow for the unique diagramming of relationships between people and spaces, objects and time, vision and knowledge. As the scholar Donna Haraway contends, “maps are models of worlds crafted through and for specific practices of intervening and ways of life.” The conference will use this concept of map-making as “world-making” in order to examine the ways in which power, place, and cultural traditions intersect and come into conflict. Though maps are often taken as straightforward, objective configurations, they can also expose deeply subjective frameworks with social, political, and economic significance.

Speakers are encouraged to address not only more traditional forms of landscape art, but also non-traditional approaches and media. Subjects may include European artists depicting the North or South American landscape, or artists from the Americas confronting their own geography. Mapping may engage with ideological issues (imperialism and nationality), representational paradigms (realism and abstraction), or questions of the body (sexuality, ethnicity, mortality).

Possible topics might include:

-       indigenous cartography

-       traveler artists and explorers

-       survey or aerial photography

-       nineteenth-century panoramas

-       abstraction and the landscape

-       American WPA projects

-       Mexican muralists

-       ethnographic photography

-       art and Caribbean mercantilism

-       site-specific land art

-       genetic/chromosonal mapping

-       natural history and botanical illustration

-       neuroaesthetics

-       performance art

With generous funding from the Terra Foundation for American Art, the conference will provide a significant opportunity for the exchange of ideas between emerging scholars from around the world who would not otherwise have the chance to share their work. The deadline for the submission of a 20-minute presentation proposal is Friday, December 7, 2012. Applicants will be notified of their acceptance by Friday, January 18, 2013. Abstracts should not exceed 250 words. Papers will be given in English but may be made available in other languages through the conference website. Current graduate students as well as recent graduates are encouraged to apply. Funds for travel and accommodations are available. Please send an abstract and CV to ifaMapping@gmail.com.  In your application please indicate your current institutional affiliation and from where you would be traveling.

The conference is organized by Dr. Jennifer Raab, Kara Fiedorek, and Lizzie Frasco, and is supported by grants from the Terra Foundation for American Art and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

For further information or with any questions, please contact ifaMapping@gmail.com.

See also: http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/fineart/research/mellon/mellon-mapping.htm

CONF: ‘Race Matters: Interdisciplinary Approaches’ Research Seminar @ The Institute of North American Studies, King’s College London

‘Race Matters: Interdisciplinary Approaches’
The Institute of North American Studies, King’s College London
http://www.kcl.ac.uk/aboutkings/worldwide/global/nas/index.aspx

October 3; 5-7pm; S0.12
Daniel Matlin, King’s College London
On the Corner: African-American Intellectuals and the Urban Crisis of the
1960s

October 17; 5-7pm; S0.12
Celeste-Marie Bernier, University of Nottingham
Imaging Slavery: The Body, Memory and Representation in the Transatlantic
Imagination

October 31; 5-7pm; K2.40
Harvey Cohen, King’s College London
Duke Ellington on Film 1929-1942

November 14; 5-7pm; S0.12
Paul Gilroy, King’s College London
Elements of a Vernacular Neoliberalism

November 28; 5-7pm; S0.12
Ashwani Sharma, University of East London
No ordinary TV: The Wire as (post)racial critique

December 12; 5-7pm; S0.12
Sarah Meer, University of Cambridge
Nineteenth-century Theatre, Burlesque, and Ethnicity in John Brougham’s
‘Po-ca-hon-tas’ and Dion Boucicault’s ‘Belle Lamar’

CFP: Annual Graduate Student Conference in African-American History @ UMemphis

The Graduate Association for African-American History (GAAAH) at The
University of Memphis invites graduate students at all levels to submit
proposals for its 14th Annual Graduate Student Conference in
African-American History, to be held October 31-November 2, 2012, in
Memphis, Tennessee. We welcome the submission of individual papers,
complete sessions, workshops, and roundtables on all topics relating to the
scholarship and teaching of African-American/African Diaspora histories and
cultures. We encourage the participation of graduate students who represent
a broad range of disciplinary and methodological approaches.

Individual paper proposals should include a 300-word abstract, including a
paper title; author contact information; postal address and e-mail address;
and a brief curriculum vitae. The organizers of complete sessions should
send, in a single submission, abstracts and cvs for each of the paper
presenters; 200-word description of the session; and contact information
for all participants. Please list audio-visual requirements, if any.

This year’s conference will feature a keynote address from Dr. Deborah Gray
White, Professor of History at Rutgers University and the author of Ar’n’t
I A Woman? Female Slaves in the Plantation South (1985 and 1999), the
groundbreaking gendered analysis of the institution of slavery.
Additionally, she is the author of Too Heavy a Load: Black Women in
Defense of Themselves, 1984-1994 (1999) and Let My People Go:
African-Americans, 1804-1860 (1996).  Professors from area institutions
will serve as panel commentators and participate in a workshop on
professional development and the job market.

The submission deadline for proposals is September 22, 2012. A committee
of University of Memphis professors will consider all papers for the
“Memphis State Eight Paper Prize” which is awarded to the conference’s best
paper. The first place prize includes a monetary award. Second and third place
papers will also receive recognition.

Participants will be notified of acceptance by October 1, 2012, and
completed 10-12 page papers must be received no later than October 15,
2012.

Please submit all proposals by e-mail to GAAAH President Micki Kaleta.
gaaah.memphis@gmail.com or mykaleta@memphis.edu.

For questions, you also may call Ms. Kaleta at (901) 678-3395 or contact
GAAAH faculty advisors Dr. Arvin Smallwood at (901) 678-3869 and
asmallwd@memphis.edu or Dr. Ernestine Jenkins at
eljenkins@memphis.edu and ( 901) 678-3450.

CONF: ‘Disturbing Pasts: Memories, Controversies and Creativity’ @ Museum of Ethnology, Vienna

Conference homepage:http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/disturbing-pasts/

We are pleased to announce the details of the conference ‘Disturbing Pasts: Memories, Controversies and Creativity’ at the Museum of Ethnology, Vienna, on the 20^th to 22^nd November, 2012. This is part of a two-year international research project led by Dr Leon Wainwright (The Open University, UK; http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/arthistory/wainwright.shtml ) and funded by HERA (Humanities in the European Research Area, the European Science Foundation).

‘Disturbing Pasts’ brings together artists, photographers, curators, policy makers and academics from around the world, with the aim of networking with one another and exploring creative engagements with controversial and traumatic pasts in art practice, curating and museums.

Our theme:    Traumatic pasts have complex and often dramatic influences on the present. In many countries, legacies of war, colonialism, genocide and oppression return again and again to dominate contemporary politics, culture and society. The controversies surrounding traumatic pasts can shape policy, make or break governments, trigger mass demonstrations, and even spark violent confrontation. These pasts also inspire rich visual and creative responses, through which the past is remembered, remade and challenged, and the public space of the modern museum is the primary venue for these responses.

Confirmed speakers include artists, curators, policy-makers and academics:

Peju Layiwola, Dierk Schmidt, T. Shanaathanan, Christopher Cozier, Rita Duffy, Paul Lowe, Rafał Betlejewski, Joanna Rajkowska, Heather Shearer, John Timberlake, Shan McAnena, Sofia Dyak, Wayne Modest, Liv Ramskjær, Maria Six-Hohenbalken, Margit Berner, Clara Himmelheber, Maruska Svasek, Fiona Magowan, Alexander Etkind, Uilleam Blacker, Andrij Portnow, Elizabeth Edwards, Sigrid Lien, Susan Legêne, Annette Hoffmann, Erica Lehrer, Simon Faulkner, Carol Tulloch

‘Disturbing Pasts’ marks a collaboration between three HERA-sponsored research consortia drawn from universities throughout Europe, in partnership with the Museum of Ethnology, Vienna. They are:

o   ‘Creativity and Innovation in a World of Movement’ (CIM) http://www.qub.ac.uk/sites/CreativityandInnovationinaWorldofMovement/

o   ‘Photographs, Colonial Legacy and Museums in Contemporary European Culture’ (PhotoCLEC) http://www.heranet.info/photoclec/index

o   ‘Memory at War’ (MAW) http://www.memoryatwar.org/

The project will publish its scholarly and creative work in a special issue of the Open Arts Journal (www.openartsjournal.org), and the conference will generate audio-visual material to be made available through the Open Arts Archive (www.openartsarchive.org).

Entrance to the conference is free, but places are limited, and so we ask that you please reserve in advance by writing to Julia Binter, Julia.Binter@ethno-museum.ac.at

Committee members for the project include: Dr Leon Wainwright (The Open University, UK), Dr Barbara Plankensteiner (Museum of Ethnology, Vienna), Dr Maruska Svasek (Queen’s University, Belfast), Professor Elizabeth Edwards (De Montfort University, Leicester), Dr Alexander Etkind and Dr Uilleam Blacker (University of Cambridge).

                       

        

The project ‘Disturbing Pasts: Memories, Controversies and Creativity’ is financially supported by the HERA Joint Research Programme which is co-funded by AHRC, AKA, DASTI, ETF, FNR, FWF, HAZU, IRCHSS, MHEST, NWO, RANNIS, RCN, VR and The European Community FP7 2007-2013, under the Socio-economic Sciences and Humanities programme.

 

Representations of Slavery Symposium Audio Now Online!

Reblogged from Black Atlantic Resource Debate:

We are happy to announce that audio recordings for the symposium recently held at Newcastle University - Representations of Slavery in Neoliberal Times - are now freely available online.

The recordings of papers and subsequent roundtable discussion are available to listen to on the School of Arts and Cultures webpages, these include:

Alternative Empathies: Representing Slavery's Affective Afterlives
, Carolyn Pedwell, Newcastle University…

Read more… 66 more words

CFP: (In)appropriated Bodies Graduate Student Symposium @ Cornell

(In)appropriated Bodies

Cornell University Annual History of Art Graduate Student Symposium

Keynote Speaker: Amelia Jones, Art History & Communication Studies, McGill University

November 16-17, 2012

Ithaca, New York

Merriam-Webster defines appropriation as taking exclusive possession of something; setting it apart; assigning it to a particular purpose or use; and taking or making use of it without authority or right. This definition begs the question of whether it is inappropriate to appropriate, particularly when it comes to bodies.

This symposium aims to address how bodies have been appropriated in seemingly inappropriate ways. We are interested in improper, incorrect, perverse, and unsuitable uses of bodies that figure as unexpectedly apt creative strategies and political interventions. Artists have appropriated bodies, visual and corporeal, as a strategy to subvert established norms and meanings. Curators have categorized, displayed, and reconfigured imagery of bodies.  Furthermore, scholars have appropriated concepts of race, gender, nation or culture onto bodies to develop the socio-political discourses that surround them. In all of these cases, questions of inappropriateness often arise. However, these (in)appropriations also reveal themselves to be alternative forms of inquiry or representation that encourage new ways of seeing and speaking about bodies.

We invite graduate students of all disciplines to present papers on the appropriation of bodies by artists, curators, scholars which have been (or could be) considered inappropriate, and how this aspect of their work proves useful in expanding the ways we look at art and understand its significance and purpose in culture, society, politics and history. Possible approaches to the topic include, but are not limited to:

● Negotiation of identities (race, gender, class, and so on) through appropriation

● Subversion of power dynamics by appropriating identities

● Grafting of theoretical approaches on to bodies

● Past or present collections and displays of bodies

● Loss or theft of corporeal identity, ownership or originality

● Reenactments and portrayals of bodies in film, dance, video and performance

● Caricatures, stereotypes, and other visual misrepresentations in art or performance

● Reuse/revision of ignored, avoided or dismissed theoretical approaches to bodies

● Mimicry, quotation, or allusion as a creative strategy or concept

● Political and governmental co-optation of figural forms

Presentations for this two-day conference should be in English and 20 minutes in length. For those interested in participating, please email a 200-300 word abstract and c.v. by August 15, 2012 to cornellgradsymposium@gmail.com.