CFP: Towards a Loser's Art History: Artistic Failure in the Long Nineteenth Century

CFP: Towards a Loser’s Art History: Artistic Failure in the Long Nineteenth Century

College Art Association, 102nd Annual Conference, Chicago, Illinois, February 12-15, 2014

Deadline: May 6, 2013

The narrative of art history has always been construed as a sequence of successes. This is especially true for the history of nineteenth-century art. The century conceived of itself as a glorious time of breakthroughs and achievements, and the various stories of its art production quickly integrated this logic by making success the cornerstone of their constructions, no matter how divergent their agendas. Progressists histories of nineteenth-century art have thought of success in teleological terms of innovation and change, whilst revisionist accounts have justified their focus on academic or Salon art by referring to its popular, commercial or official success.

This session aims to reverse the rigid logic of success, and proposes that a study of artistic failure in the long nineteenth century can contribute in an equally significant way to our understanding of the epoch and its art. The panel invites papers addressing issues of failure, deficiency, and ill-luck. It especially discourages all proposals relating to Great Artists, Salon Heroes or Unrecognised Innovators, unless their stories can be told as stories of failure and lack of achievement.

Please send proposals (max. two double-spaced pages) for a paper for this session to Jan Dirk Baetens (J.Baetens@let.ru.nl), together with a completed session participation proposal form, a CV, and a letter (or email) expressing your interest. For more information, see http://www.collegeart.org/pdf/2014CallforParticipation.pdf or contact the session convenor.

 

 

Volgende studiedag op 31 mei

De volgende, intussen al zesde studiedag van XIX zal plaatsvinden op vr. 31 mei 11-17u in het Brusselse Charliermuseum. Meer info volgt spoedig.

CFP: Art Crossing Borders: The Birth of an Integrated Art Market in the Age of Nation States (Europe, ca. 1780-1914)

CFP: Art Crossing Borders: The Birth of an Integrated Art Market in the Age of Nation States (Europe, ca. 1780-1914)
Europe and its Worlds: Cultural Mobility in, to and from Europe, International Conference at the Radboud University Nijmegen (The Netherlands), 16-18 October 2013
Deadline: 20 April 2013
During the long nineteenth century continuing improvements in the road and transportation infrastructure ensured that the local art markets in Europe became connected like never before, both in the proverbial and literal sense of the word. Ever more paintings, art lovers and artistic information crossed regional and national boundaries, culminating in a truly integrated European art market. Paintings increasingly found new destinations in foreign private and public collections, while more and more artists, art lovers and art dealers could freely roam the European continent in their never-ending pursuit of aesthetic pleasure and/or commercial benefit. Information networks equally tightened, allowing dealers and collectors to easily communicate across wide distances and at the same time stay close to the pulse of art scenes abroad.
The increasing internationalisation of the European art world was closely intertwined with a growing importance of the very conceptual categories that this integration seemed to question: artistic and commercial labels referring to nationality, most conspicuously articulated in the division of art production into separate national “schools” in (popular) art historical literature, art criticism, early museum catalogues and, most importantly in this context, auction catalogues and catalogues of contemporary art exhibitions and commercial galleries. Thus, major art dealers imported thousands of paintings from abroad, but often pitched them as typical examples of a national “school”; universal exhibitions introduced foreign artists to local markets, but were also based on a logic of emulative competition along national lines; and artists often sought patronage abroad, but usually preferred nurturing the taste for the foreign in other countries to adapting their own work to foreign taste.
Many of these developments are often glossed over rather quickly, because most histories of the art market, like most histories of art itself, are still written along national lines. The aim of this panel is to tackle this deficit head-on and to contribute in this way to the writing of a global history of the art market, while not losing out of sight the historical impact of the national paradigm that paralleled the market’s integration. This session therefore raises the central research question how the integrating European art market of the long nineteenth century (1780-1914) simultaneously countered and constructed the notion of national painterly “schools”, along the crucial axes of nationalism and internationalism. It thus also addresses the decisive challenge that Europe still faces today: how to harmonize disharmonious local, national and transnational voices.

Please send proposals (max. 400 words) for a 20 minute paper for this session to Jan Dirk Baetens (J.Baetens[at]let.ru.nl) and/or Dries Lyna (D.Lyna[at]let.ru.nl). For more information, see http://www.ru.nl/europeanditsworlds/conference/introduction or contact the session convenors.