Call
for Papers
The Artwork Exposed: Politics and the Arts (1850-1914)
Seminar in Collaboration with the Royal Netherlands Historical Society
(KNHG)
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, 17-18 April 2014
Organized by:
Camelia Errouane (University of Groningen)
Laura Prins (Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam)
Confirmed key-note speaker:
Michelle Facos (Indiana University Bloomington)
Artworks do not stand on their own: they are made for specific goals and
presented in certain contexts; they are viewed and consumed by different
persons and eventually they are analyzed by critics and historians. Within this
social dynamic, the relationship between the arts and politics has always been
complex: Governments of all colors have used and abused the arts throughout
history, while individual artists, too, have used their works to get their
political opinions across. This phenomenon gained special momentum during the
rise of nationalism in the nineteenth century and the development of various
forms of (mass) communication. Interestingly enough, this was also the period
when art history was born as a discipline.
In art history, the last decades have seen an overwhelming number of
publications that provide political interpretations of a variety of artworks.
It almost seems as if any visual object can be interpreted in ways inscribing
it with political significance. Rather than adding yet more interpretations of
individual works to the canon of art history, this symposium aims to take the
topic further into more theoretical realms by asking questions that touch upon
the fundamental relationship between art and politics. Artworks are in the
first place visual objects. How can artworks and political history be related
to each other, apart from using the first to illuminate the second – and vice
versa? How are visual objects able to communicate a political message? How can
historians deal with the divide between intention and perception when analyzing
artworks? And whose intentions are we talking about: those of the artist, those
of the commissioner, or those of the viewer? In this context, do aesthetic
aspects, such as the style of a work, its medium and location matter? And if
so, how?
The conference sets out to develop new ways of thinking about artworks as
objects in networks of intention, interpretation and social relations that
include artists, commissioners, critics and the audience. It is the explicit
intention of the organizers to step beyond the well-known generalizations of
art history, like artistic styles or schools, avant-garde and arrière-garde,
modern and traditional. The event offers a platform that brings together young
and established (art) historians who are studying the period 1850-1914,
concentrating on European art in all media. We invite case-studies as well as
theoretical papers; we particularly encourage case-studies from countries that
are often excluded from official curricula, such as Scandinavia, Spain,
Portugal or Poland.
In the Netherlands, the statement that “art is not the business of the
government” by the Dutch politician Jan Rudolph Thorbecke (1798-1872) from 1862
has been a recurring argument in discussions about the relationship between
politics and the arts, and in discussions about the role of artists and art
institutions within society. Nonetheless, the Dutch government has been a
formative factor in the arts, of which the construction of the Rijksmuseum is
only the most famous example. The conference will include visits to the
Rijksmuseum (1885) and to the Beurs van Berlage (1903). In the original design
of both buildings artworks play an important role. The Rijksmuseum, the
national museum of a country that portrays itself as essentially Protestant, is
decorated with monumental mural paintings that were inspired by decorations of
Roman Catholic churches, whereas the Beurs, former seat of the Amsterdam stock
exchange, features tile tableaux about the exploitation of the working man and
woman’s liberation. Both buildings stirred an enormous controversy when they
were completed. Nowadays however, they are considered as hallmarks of Dutch
architecture. These visits will allow us to discuss the relationship between
arts and politics in the Dutch context.
Please send an abstract for a 20-minute paper (max. 300 words) and a cv to
Camelia Errouane (c.f.errouane@rug.nl) and Laura Prins (LSEPrins@gmail.com) no later than 3 November 2013. Speakers will be notified by the end of December
2013. It is the intention of the organizers to publish selected contributions.
After the conference the participants will receive more detailed information
about the publication.
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