CFP Ghent Feb. 2016: Sculpting abroad. International mobility of nineteenth-century sculptors and their work.

Ghent, 26-27 February 2016.

Deadline proposal: 1 October 2015

Sculpting abroad. International mobility of nineteenth-century sculptors and their work.

Organized by the Department of Art History, Ghent University, and the Department of History, KULeuven Campus Kortrijk.

In collaboration with the Museum of Fine Arts, Ghent, ESNA (European Society of Nineteenth-Century Art) and research platform XIX

Keynote presentations by Antoinette Le Normand-Romain (INHA, Paris) and Sura Levine (Hampshire College, Amherst, Massachusetts)

In 1870, the Franco-Prussian War drove the young Auguste Rodin and his master Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse to Belgium, where they both acquired some public commissions despite objections against their French nationality. Even though war was perhaps one of the most radical reasons driving sculptors beyond the borders of their own nation, the mentioned transnational trajectories of both Rodin and Carrier-Belleuse were by no means isolated or coincidental incidents. The study of old and new collections of art, as well as the studios of renowned masters in Paris or Rome attracted many aspiring sculptors to the old and new artistic capitals of Europe. Alternative art markets, commissions or exhibition opportunities activated many sculptors to pursue a career abroad, despite of the difficulties their foreignness, and their bulky discipline in a foreign country might have implied. Additionally, sculptors were, probably even more so than painters, dependent on commissions, and therefore often obliged to travel to provide for their revenues. The presence of foreign sculptors on large construction sites, or their involvement in prestigious public commissions, however, often led to hostilities by native colleagues, who feared for their positions and possibilities, when confronted with skilled foreign competition.  

During this two-day symposium, speakers are invited to reflect upon the subject matter of the transnational mobility of sculptors and the implications for these artists and their art during the long nineteenth century. In the course of this century, the creation of nation-states coincided with an increasing international focus by artists, their commissioners, sellers, buyers and critics. The impact of a sculptor’s nationality on his reception and ‘imaging’, as well as their mobility across borders remain ambiguous. Sculptors were regularly encouraged to study abroad, and recognized for their experience and success beyond the borders of the own nation. Simultaneously, however, they were often expected to represent the nation, and showcase the own ‘national school’ with its peculiar properties, and extending from the own national tradition.

This conference aims to address the role of art criticism, the art market, exhibitions, education, commissions etc. for sculptors in an international context, and the implications for their (inter)national or local identity. Participants are invited to reflect on the theoretical and/or practical implications of (trans)nationality, travel and cultural mobility on nineteenth-century sculptors and their work.

Papers may include but are not limited to the following topics:

-          Transnational exchange (both between centres and peripheries), internationalism of sculptors and their work.

-          Travel and mobility of sculptors and sculptures.

-          Nationality, nationalism,  and the development of nationhood in relation to the development of sculpture.

-          Prejudice, or even rejection, due to a sculptor’s foreign nationality.

-          Transnational friendships between sculptors, or hostilities because of their nationality

-          National or international appeal of public commissions and competitions announced abroad.

-          The impact of foreign experience and recognition on the national reputation and ‘imaging’ of a sculptor.

-          Discussion and reviewing of foreign sculptors and ‘sculpture schools’ in foreign, national and local press.

-          The ambiguous, sometimes opportunistic attitudes of sculptors in league of commissions and recognition towards their own nationality.

-          The construction of ‘national schools’ in sculpture in relation to a local/national/international tradition.

-          Comparisons of different ‘national sculpture schools’, and the question whether it is possible to distinguish a national style for sculpture in the first place.

-          Mechanisms of international influencing in nineteenth-century sculpture.

-      Identity and ‘national schools’ and the arts, notably sculpture.

-          Commercial or artistic drivers of mobility for sculptors.

-          Movement at meta/macro/micro levels of both sculptors and sculptures.

-          Artistic practice vs. theory in sculpture.

-          Gender and mobility in the practice of sculpture.

We invite proposals for papers of 20 minute duration. Please send a 300 word abstract and a brief biographical statement (max 150 words) attached in PDF to sculpture.conference@ugent.be by no later than October, 1, 2015.

This symposium originates from the research project “In search of a national (s)cul(p)ture. Belgian sculptors abroad and foreign sculptors in Belgium”, funded by BOF, Ghent University.

   

CFP: Cultural Mediators in Europe 1750-1950

The research groups “Translation and intercultural transfer” and “Cultural History since 1750” of the KU Leuven organise an international colloquium on “Cultural mediators in Europe 1750-1950”, June 5-7 2014 in Leuven, Belgium.
This conference wants to advance understanding of the complex yet largely unknown cultural transfer activities that helped shaping international, national and urban cultures during the last two centuries in Europe. A privileged way to gain insight in these transfer activities is to focus on the agents, i.e. the cultural mediators who embody them.

We want to focus specifically on those cultural mediators who develop a broad range of partly overlapping transfer activities through different cultural fields (literature, painting, music, theatre…), different languages and geo-cultural frontiers.

·         They are multilingual writers and publishers, multilingual literary and art critics who promote specific artistic subsets as typically national, international or regional; they are art dealers who organize (inter)national art exhibitions; they are self-translators or translators who translate, adapt, plagiarise, summarize, censor, manipulate, … works of other language communities. Recent studies illustrate how mediators freely combine several of these transfer techniques even within one and the same work.

·         They are active in a variety of more or less institutionalised intercultural and inter-artistic networks (editing boards of magazines and periodicals, salons, literary and artistic associations, art and music academies, artists’ workshops, reading circles etc.) which promote or oppose their transfer activities.

·         They are real migrants, persons with hybrid identities, who develop transfer activities in several geo-cultural spaces, which considerably sharpens their intercultural and international consciousness.

These complex but crucially important transfer roles are rarely acknowledged as such or studied in any depth because they transcend traditional disciplinary divides (translation studies, literary studies, history…) and their binary concepts (source-target, national-international, cultural-intercultural…). The study of cultural mediators and their transfer activities is therefore preferably

·         interdisciplinary and collective, bringing together methods from translation sociology, descriptive translation studies, transfer studies, cultural history…

·         process- and actor-oriented, in order to discover the complex intersections of which cultural products are the surface result;

·         start from the assumption that translation has to be studied in relation to other transfer techniques and that “le débat académique opposant transferts, comparaisons et croisements se résout de lui-même dans la recherche empirique” (Charle 2010:16).

In short, “we need histories that describe the meshing and shifting of different spatial references, narratives in which historical agency is emphasized, and interpretations acknowledging that the changing patterns of spatialization are processes fraught with tension” (Middell & Naumann 2010 :161).

The colloquium is open to the totality of these historiographical and translational questions, preferably tackled by means of case studies analysing e.g.:

·         How and why mediators’ transfer activities created new forms of writing and translating and new actor roles, challenging the very distinctions between translation, self-translation, multilingual writing, adaptation … How and why did they introduce or oppose  new artistic practices? Did they undertake inter-artistic or field-transgressing activities? Did they assume different attitudes/strategies towards discursive and artistic mediating activities?

·         Which networks –  informal or institutionalized, urban or (inter)national, intra-cultural or intercultural – organized, supported or controlled these transfer activities?  « Les premières manifestations d’un transfert ne sont pas des œuvres, souvent diffusées et traduites à une époque très tardive, mais des individus échangeant des informations ou des représentations et se constituant progressivement en réseaux. » (Espagne & Werner 1987: 984).

·         What was the function and effect of these transfer activities on the consolidation or disintegration of multiple cultural identities? Special attention should be paid to multiple interactions, implying multiple directions and effects which a conceptualization in terms of ‘source’ vs. ‘target’ cannot fully grasp.

·         Which diachronic evolutions can be distinguished in mediating activities? Did a shift from heterogeneous to more homogeneous cultures possibly change the form, the content and the effects of discursive transfer techniques and of mediation as a whole?

·         How do these insights lead to a new historiography of cultural practices and cultural transfer?

·         Which theoretical and methodological frameworks are most helpful to study discursive, artistic and institutional mediating activities? And which methodological implications does the study of intercultural and international transfer practices have on the basic assumptions of cultural history, translation studies and literary studies?

Proposals of 300 words approximately (English or French) and a short CV should be submitted to the organizers (reine.meylaerts@arts.kuleuven.be) before October 1^st 2013. Notification of acceptance will be given by November 15, 2013. Papers and discussions will be held in English and French.