International and Interdisciplinary Conference
'Agency of Things: New Perspectives on European Art of the 14th and 16th Centuries'

Inaugural Lecture:

Professor Andrew MORRALL
(The Bard Graduate Center, New York)
10th of June 6.00 pm
venue: University of Warsaw, the Old BUW, room 105,
Krakowskie Przedmieście 24/28

Peter DENT (University of Bristol)
Wim FRANÇOIS (KU Leuven)
Elina GERTSMAN (Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland)
Jacqueline JUNG (Yale University)
Robert MANIURA (Birkbeck, University of London)
Miri RUBIN (Queen Mary University of London)
Kathryn RUDY (University of St Andrews)

This conference is organised by the Institute of Art History, University of Warsaw and the National Museum in Warsaw and is generously funded by the Polish National Science Centre.

The project stems from the theory of ‘agency of things’ created in the last decade of the twentieth century. The theory marks the departure from the ‘linguistic turn’ and resultant postmodern concepts, towards the search of functional agency of things and other entities shaping human environment.
This approach, hitherto, has been applied solely to purely theoretical studies or in relation to works of modern and contemporary art.
The project aims to fill this scientific lacuna and apply the theory of ‘agency of things’ to the artworks created between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries.

For information and program:
http://www.agencyofthings.uw.edu.pl/conference.html

There is no registration fee but please email the organisers before 1st of June at: agencyofthingsuw.edu.pl if you wish to attend so that we can prepare a name tag for you.

CONFERENCE PROGRAMME:

Wednesday, 10 June 2015

venue: University of Warsaw, the Old BUW, room 105,
Krakowskie Przedmieście 24/28

18.00 keynote lecture: Andrew Morrall (The Bard Graduate Centre, New York)
The Power of Nature and the Agency of Art in the Works of Jan Vermeyen
and Nikolas Pfaff

Drinks and nibbles

Thursday, 11 June 2015

venue: National Museum of Warsaw, cinema hall,
Aleje Jerozolimskie 3

9.00 Registration and Welcome Addresses: Agnieszka Morawieska (National Museum in Warsaw) and Grażyna Jurkowlaniec (University of Warsaw)
9.30–11.00 First Session
chair: Agnieszka Morawieska

Kathryn Rudy (University of St Andrews)
Touching Skin. How Medieval Users Rubbed, Kissed, Inscribed, Splashed,
Begrimed, and Pricked their Manuscripts
Sarah M. Guérin (University of Montréal)
Presentation/Representation. The Agency of Materials in the Scenic Reliquaries,
circa 1300

11.00–11.15 Coffee Break
11.15–13.00 Second Session
chair: Kamil Kopania

Barbara Baert (KU Leuven)
Agency of things and the Enclosed Gardens. A case-study on Mixed Media,
Remnant Art, récyclage and gender in the Low Countries (16th onwards)
Elina Gertsman (Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland)
Phantoms of Emptiness: the Agency of (No)thing
Mercedes López-Mayán (University of Santiago de Compostela)
Art, Liturgy and Power in the 15th century: the ‘Manuscript Chapel’
of Alfonso Carrillo, Archbishop of Toledo

13.00 Lunch Break
14.00–15.30 Third Session
chair: Zofia Herman

Wim François (KU Leuven)
The Bible between Material Book and Immaterial Word
Karen Eileen Overbey (Tufts University)
Manual Medicine
Jack Hartnell (The Courtauld Institute of Art)
Dexterity, Memory, and Cutting-Edge Agency in Decorated Surgical Saws

15.30–15.45 Coffee Break
15.45–16.45 Fourth Session
chair: Zuzanna Sarnecka

Peter Dent (University of Bristol)
Agency, Beauty and Late-Medieval Sculpture
Christopher J. Nygren (University of Pittsburgh)
“Let them fall down and worship thing.” Lorenzo Valla’s Renaissance Thing Theory

16.45–17.00 Coffee Break

17.00 keynote lecture: Miri Rubin (Queen Mary University of London)
Why Matter Matters

18.00 Guided tour of the Gallery of Medieval Art, National Museum in Warsaw (Antoni Ziemba and Zofia Herman)

Friday, 12 June 2015

venue: National Museum of Warsaw, cinema hall,
Aleje Jerozolimskie 3
9.00–11.00 Fifth Session
chair: Antoni Ziemba

9.00 keynote lecture: Jacqueline Jung (Yale University)
The Boots of St. Hedwig: Thoughts on the Limits of the Agency of Things

Rosa M. Rodriguez Porto (University of York)
Knighted by the Apostle Himself: Political Fabrication and Chivalric Artifact
in Compostela, 1332
Robert Maniura (Birkbeck, University of London)
Miraculous Images

11.00–11.15 Coffee Break
11.15–12.45 Sixth Session
chair: Jakub Adamski

Krystyna Greub-Frącz(Independent Scholar, Cologne)
The Choir Screen as Agent: A Reinterpretation of the Ghent Altarpiece
Emily N. Savage (University of St Andrews)
The Choir-stall as Interactive Agent
Jessica Barker (The Courtauld Institute of Art and Henry Moore Foundation)
Revealing and Concealing: Visibility as a Strategy of Power at the Royal
Mausolea of Batalha and Westminster Abbey

12.45–14.00 Lunch Break
14.00–15.00 Seventh Session
chair: Ika Matyjaszkiewicz

Leah Clark (The Open University)
Collecting, Exchange, and the Agency of Things in the Renaissance Court
Vera-Simone Schulz (Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz Max-Planck-Institut)
Infiltrating artifacts. The agency of things in 14th- and 15th-century Florence

15.00–15.15 Coffee Break
15.15–16.15 Eighth Session
chair: Grażyna Jurkowlaniec

Jaya Remond (Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin)
Marketing Dürer: Prints as agents of self-promotion
Alexander Lee (University of Oxford)
Michelangelo, Tommaso de’Cavalieri, and the Agency of the Gift Giving

16.15 Closing remarks